Are Your Shoulders Slowing You Down?
Hey! Hey! It’s Sol the Gardening Physio!
I’ve been asked by several gardeners recently how they are managing to hurt themselves - they can’t recall any particular incident that was painful while working in the garden – but later that day or the next day they are finding themselves in a lot of pain.
One of these gardeners was a woman, 68 years young – who had that previous Saturday, over about three and a half hours - dug up, fertilised with compost and turned over two large garden beds all by hand. She is no novice to the garden - this task was no more strenuous than usual for her and did not take her longer than she would usually spend in the garden. Even so, the next day she began experiencing almost debilitating elbow pain when gripping things firmly.
The key here was repetition. While usually this woman would spend a similar amount of time doing a variety of tasks – on this occasion she spent the entire time working with a shovel and spade.
One expects a slip-twisted ankle or a “CRUNCH” while lifting something heavy to cause grief – but the reality in the garden is that many injuries are brought about by extreme repetition of mild to moderate demand tasks – and are often only felt later after you have cooled down.
In this case she came to the clinic on Monday and we taught her ways to minimise her pain while rehabilitating the offended muscles – without stopping her from spending time in the garden!
Variety of jobs is important but the more valuable take home message from the story of this woman’s elbow is that: a body regularly trained for strength and endurance is much less likely to fall victim to this type of injury in the first place.
If you are suffering from a repetitive stress injury you got in the garden or are interested in increasing the resilience of your body – come and see us at Rebound Health.