Growing Pains: Tips to Avoid Aches From Yard Work with Andrew Bang, DO

Podcast Transcript

John Horton:

Hey there, and welcome to another Health Essentials Podcast. I'm John Horton, your host.

Lawns cover more than 40 million acres in the United States, and many of us fixate on making every blade of grass look perfect. That's fabulous for our yard's appearance. It's often not so great for how our bodies feel. Hours of laboring outside can leave you with sore muscles, achy joints and painful reminders of what it took to get the job done. But physical discomfort isn't a curse that comes with a green thumb. How we tackle our chores typically contributes to the hurt we feel afterward.

All too often, we put unnecessary strain on our bodies just by the way we move. Today, we're going to work on finding relief with the help of chiropractor, Andrew Bang, a regular guest on the podcast. Dr. Bang is one of the many experts at Cleveland Clinic who chat with us every week to help us better understand how our bodies work best. So with that, let's see how we can yank out deep-rooted weeds without bringing on deep-rooted pain in our backs, knees and shoulders. Welcome back to the podcast, Dr. Bang. It has been way too long since you've been with us.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

I know. I keep thinking we need to have a standing appointment so we can hang out more often.

John Horton:

Yeah, we're going to need that, so we'll have to get that on the books.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Good.

John Horton:

I'm an oddball stats kind of guy, and researching yard work pain turned up some real gems. One survey I found estimated that homeowners may spend up to 48 days of their lives cutting the grass.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Wow.

John Horton:

It kind of explains why we might have some aches and pains.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

That's crazy. Wait, you're telling me if I just get a zero-scape lawn with rocks or that fake AstroTurf, I'm going to get a month and a half back to my life?

John Horton:

You might, but then you lose the joy of putting those nice crisp lines in the lawn that make your neighbor jealous.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

I don't know, that 48 days sounds pretty appealing.

John Horton:

It does. But clearly, a lot of us have mowers and we're out there-

Dr. Andrew Bang:

…Yes.

John Horton:

...doing laps in the yard.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

They love their green grass. Yes, there are bent lawns out here in Ohio. We've got some bent lawns, but those are some serious work, my friend.

John Horton:

They are. And that's why when it comes to yard work, I'm always surprised at how achy I feel after an afternoon of playing around in the dirt and taking care of everything. Nothing seems to hurt while I'm doing it, but then, a few hours later, I'm like, "Ow, what is happening here?" So what is going on?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

All right, let me answer your question with a question. I know the answer, but what do you do for a living?

John Horton:

I'm sitting here on my butt talking to people like you.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

That's right. So what's happening for most people, we just live in a society of technology and we're sitting. We're going from one extreme to the other. So you're going from this sedentary life to now, all of a sudden, you become this weekend yard warrior and your body is just not physically fit for it a lot of times, it's crazy. You're doing a task repetitively for a long time without conditioning.

That'd be like if I said, "John, I know you only go on a bike ride once a year, but let's go do a 50-mile bike ride." You're going to be so sore and in so much pain the next day or later that night that you wouldn't do that. So we kind of are doing the same thing when it comes to yard work.

John Horton:

Well, and you just do it and you'll spend hours out there and you're not thinking about it while you're doing it, but then, there's that toll it takes later and you know it.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Yeah. No, it does. You have the mechanism of, you are not doing anything with your job and then, you're jumping into all this yard work. And the other problem we run into, the second class of people who may have a more active job or lifestyle, is you intend to do the same things in the yard. For instance, you get started weeding, you want to weed the whole flower garden. Or you start mowing, you got to mow the whole yard or whip the whole yard. And what I've found is a way to try to avoid some of these back pains is by becoming a multitasker, essentially.

You're going to take turns and breaks in between your tasks. Yes, it's a little more broken up, but you'll find that you'll have less aches and pains if you vary your start and stop of weeding. "I'm going to weed for 20 minutes and then, I'm going to switch and go mow the front yard. Then, I'm going to go back to weed for 10 more minutes, then I'm going to whip for 30." And to be honest, it's just like going to the gym, you wouldn't do the same exercise an hour in a row you know it's going to lead to problems. You take breaks.

John Horton:

But we do that.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Yeah.

John Horton:

You are right because you'll start weeding and you just get in that mode and you're on your knees and pulling stuff for an hour and that causes problems.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

It totally does.

John Horton:

So what are the most common yard work aches and pains that you hear about from people?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

The most common ache and pain is the low back pain. And that's because the vast majority of the population of the world will experience low back pain sometime in their life. So just statistically, that's what we're looking at. And this is going to be from, again — we already mentioned the top ones like you're mowing, weed eating where you're bent over with the little whipper, you're weeding the garden, like hand weeding, digging — there's a lot of back involved in all of those things. And there's some really simple things that you can do to take pressure off your low back besides what we've already mentioned by switching jobs and not doing one task until it's complete. That really saves your back. Can I talk about a couple of those?

John Horton:

Yeah, definitely. Let's go.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

I love the vegetable garden. I hate weeding my vegetables. So strategically, what you need to do is you need to create the right balance in your low back. Gravity is huge. It's always bearing down on top of us. And your spine is shaped like an S for a very specific reason. It's a spring essentially.

And as gravity comes down, it disperses its forces throughout the spine, so not one disk or one vertebra has all the pressure from gravity of your upper body weight. So when you're sitting and weeding, if you are hunched over, it's straightening out your spine and putting all that weight onto one vertebral body, which is going to land you into a lot of problems.

John Horton:

That's exactly how I weed, too, I'm going to tell you right now.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Sometimes, a five-gallon bucket is a little too tall, but a five-gallon bucket or another type of stool where you can sit and then have better posture and be closer to the weeds where you can reach down and keep your back a little bit more upright. But like we talked earlier, if you even have the best posture while you're sitting and weeding, if you do that one task for a super long time, you're going to have problems, even with the best posture. So, take a break, switch it up and move to a different task after doing that one weeding task for a while. So you move to mowing, OK?

That one's pretty good because a lot of those self-propelled mowers will take pressure off your back. So then, you move to whipping and you got that little machine. You got to make sure they're long enough for you. Some of them you can purchase — if you're really tall like me, you're still over for a long period of time. So buy the appropriate tool for the appropriate job. That's a huge one. And then, let's move to shoveling. Let's say you got to plant a tree or a flower or you're doing mulching. Oh man, everyone's favorite.

John Horton:

Edging the beds, man. I know that. It just kills you after a while.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Yeah. You need to use leverage, OK? And leverage is essentially changing the force from a high force to a low force. That's where we use leverage. So shovels leverage us lifting a lot of heavy stuff by using our arms. If you will, take your hand and stretch it as close as you can to the tip of the shovel, that gives you more leverage. But if you're bent over, you're putting all that pressure onto your low back, so you got to squat. I know it seems kind of awkward, and at first, it will, but you get used to it.

So when you're mulching, you literally shovel while squatting, stand up, then you can throw the mulch into the wheelbarrow or into the bed. In fact, that's where wheelbarrows come in. They save your back immensely because they can take a lot of load, and move it to a designated spot without you having to do repetitive cycles of twisting and throwing the mulch. You want to have more mulch into the wheelbarrow right in front of you, move the wheelbarrow, dump, and then use a rake to move stuff instead of hooking it and throwing it. You're going to run into a lot of problems from that.

John Horton:

See, I feel like I'm living one of those "I was this years old when I learned something" memes right now. I've been doing all of this. Every time you say, "This is how you should not do it," I'm like, "No, that's pretty much exactly how I do it every time I'm out there."

Dr. Andrew Bang:

You bring up a good point. And let me just further emphasize shoveling because in Ohio, we all mulch a ton and probably throughout the United States, but in Ohio, I know we mulch all the time. The most common way to injure your back is through flexion or bending forward and rotation at the same time, OK? That's when your disks are most vulnerable. That's why when they talk about lifting, they say, "Lift with your legs." You want to keep the box right in front of you and lift straight up.

So when you're shoveling, you want to follow similar principles. So place your wheelbarrow right in front of you, John. You shovel the mulch, and then come straight up, and then if you're throwing the mulch into the wheelbarrow, it's forward instead of twisting to the side. That, in and of itself, will protect you.

And one more stat — I know you love numbers and, oh, I wish I had it memorized, but I can give you some estimates, OK? You can look this up and maybe share it in the notes. You can squat and pick something up close to 4,000 times before they will see damage in your low back begin to happen.

John Horton:

Wow.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

You can bend over and pick something up, like flex forward, only about 240 or 50 times before they can see damage in your low back happening. So squatting to pick things up and keeping your back straight is so much safer for your back than the bending and scooping. So you've got to squat when you're working in the yard.

John Horton:

Well, and we're going to save our backs already with these sorts of tips. You also hear a lot about knees, hips, shoulders and wrists. Are those all things, too, that we're just beating up as we're working in the yard?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Yeah. Again, if you're a yard weekend warrior, as it were, you're not acclimatizing your joints to do that kind of work, you're overworking them. Or if you're like, "I'm in good shape," well, again, you wouldn't just go to the gym and do the sled squat where you're working your knees, hips and ankles, like pushing weight, for an hour at a time. You're going to get injured. Everybody knows that. So take that same sense you'd use in the gym and apply that to your yard work to protect yourself.

John Horton:

And, look, you've gone over a bunch of stuff, like not being in a position for a long time, using proper form not overdoing it when you're torquing with the wheelbarrows and all that stuff. The one thing I read, and I never do this, and I want to know what your advice is on this, is that you should warm up before you start working in the yard. And to be honest, I've never even thought of doing that. My warm-up is walking out to my shed and trying to get my mower to come to life. So what should I be doing ahead of time?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

That's your warm-up, starting the old mower?

John Horton:

Yeah. Until you yank that cord a few times. That's the extent of my warm-up. So what should we be doing to get ready to hit the yard?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

OK, granted, it's not realistic. Most people are not going to warm up unless you already suffer with back pain or shoulder or wrist pain — you probably will take me a little more seriously. But it is literally just like going to the gym. You would never go right to a deadlift or a military press or a bench press or a squat cold. You would not put it on max and just go right to it. You would warm up because everyone just gets that. We just intuitively know, "If I warm up, I'm not going to get injured." And literally, you can apply that same principle to yard work. Pick the muscle you're going to be doing, and as you're walking out to your flower bed, it's so easy just to do a range of motion.

A warm-up doesn't necessarily mean that you're spending 30 minutes breathing and stretching. Moving through a full range of motion with the joint you're about to use is super critical because you do a couple of things.

So let's just use the wrist so you can see on the camera or visualize with me. If you take your wrist to its full range of motion, you're doing a few things. You're telling your brain and your nerves in your hand, "Hey, I'm about to use this." You get blood flow through moving to the area. You relubricate all the joints that may have not been lubricated with the natural fluid that they have inside because you start moving it.

You also relax muscles that may be too tight. Let's say you've been using your mouse all day and your wrist extensors are just firing like crazy because you've been using them and your flexors have not been doing much and you're about to go do a bunch of flexion stuff. By stretching and moving, you're letting the extensors relax and you're starting to reengage the flexors. It's not hard, you're just doing full ranges of motion. And you can apply it to your shoulder, to your elbow, to your knee, to your hip. Get the blood moving, lubrication, you're good to go.

John Horton:

Well, obviously, that all sounds great and all of your advice sounds fabulous. Both of us know a lot of people do not do that, which is why afterward, we all hurt a little bit. So say we listened to this podcast after spending a few hours out in the yard and now we're paying the price, what can we do to lessen that pain a little bit?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

I love stretching. And I find that when you're quick to stretch after an injury, it typically helps. There's exceptions, right? If your pain is at a 10, you really need to see a provider, you need to use some ice and you need to rest.

John Horton:

You also need to tone it down a little bit in the yard if your pain is a 10.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Let's say, it unfortunately happens, you literally pull your back out, as it were, and maybe even bulged a disk, and now you have pain down the leg. It can get severe, you may have to go in because I've seen it happen. I have patients come to my office, "Oh, I was doing yard work and I can't even move now." OK, that happens. But for the most of us, we're going to just feel really sore. So a good thing is working through that soreness through walking, through stretching, through 360-degree movement — or not 360 — but full range of motion for that appropriate joint.

Every range of motion is different per the joint, but moving it through the full range, not just sitting back on the couch the rest of the night, where that delayed exercise soreness starts to creep in. Movement helps reduce some of that delayed soreness because you're helping flush out pain chemicals that form, and you're bringing in new blood and new nutrients, taking away the bad stuff.

John Horton:

Dr. Bang, what about using heating pads or cooling pads? When should you bring those out?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

OK, so here's my rule of thumb with ice and heat. When you do research, you get varied responses. I know most of us think, "When I get injured, I have to use ice the first 72 hours." And that's a good rule of thumb, but it's hard because research gives you both sides of the coin, like heat and ice are both good.

But what I've noticed, and what I try to help patients with to use both, you use ice when you're going to rest because that can help decrease inflammation and also just numbs your nerves slightly so you don't feel the pain as much. When I use heat, I want to do heat and movement because heat attributes loosening of muscles and increases blood flow. But I don't want to sit and heat it because then I might get too much blood pooling at the area. So ice and rest, heat and movement.

John Horton:

And what about pain relievers? And I know you hate just going to that bottle all the time, but is that something that people can realistically look at?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

I don't prescribe medication because it's not in my license, but I always find that there's a bridge and an appropriate time to use everything. This is one reason we have over-the-counters, they allow us to make decisions rationally. And if you really have a question, technology is amazing. I bet most of your doctors have an app where you could message them and ask a legitimate question like, "Ooh, I really jacked up my back. What should I use?"

They love that because then they want to be a part of your healthcare. So reach out, message your physician, and say, "What should I do? Should I take something strong or weak?" Let them guide you so you make the correct decision because you may be taking other medications you don't want to interact with inappropriately. So that's an easy quick thing to do to get the right answer.

John Horton:

And you had mentioned, sometimes, you can really hurt something. So how do you know when something's just an ache and you just got to rest it a little bit or give it a little bit of time or when you really need to go in and see someone?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Oh yeah, that's a great question because it's really hard to know. So a lot of times, if it's not creating any numbness, tingling, burning or muscle weakness, like, "I can't walk because my symptoms are so bad." If it seems like where I don't need to go to the ER, then I'll give myself a 36-hour window because it could just be a lot of muscle soreness. Even a 48-hour window. If I'm like, "Oh, I'm just so sore," but I can still do my normal activities of daily living, ice helps, over-the-counter medication helps, I'll give myself time to heal.

But if I'm finding like, "Ugh, I can barely lift my leg, I walk off because my gait seems buff," for sure, it's a medical emergency. If you lose control of your bowel or bladder function, like you wet yourself or can't hold your bowel movements, that's a medical emergency. Those are the severe cases that we don't really see very often, which is good. But if that somehow happened to you, yes, get to the ER, or again — I love that it's so easy to now message a doctor to a virtual appointment or get in quickly to see someone who can help you with those minor aches and pains if they don't go away on their own after 36 to 48 hours.

John Horton:

Well, Dr. Bang, you've given us some great advice today. And to be honest, I don't think you could do more unless you wanted to stop out and help me in the yard this weekend. So we can talk about your schedule after we're done here.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Oh yeah, John, I just got a plethora of time.

John Horton:

I know. Is there anything else we should know on the medical front before I get you booked to help me?

Dr. Andrew Bang:

To help? I'll just bring my kids. That's why I had so many, so they can do my yard work. I never do yard work. I'm just kidding. No, I just want to leave people with this, keep this in mind, it's really easy — brace, stools and tools, OK? If you know you're going to do a ton of bending, repetitive tasks, like, "I've got to get this done," I use back braces when appropriate. I don't leave them on all the time because they create problems for long-term use, but short-term use, they're great. Helps you keep your posture and not bend too much and put pressure on your back. Brace, stools — I love using proper stools to keep good ergonomics — and tools. Buy the appropriate tool for the appropriate job. Save yourself lots of time and save yourself from injury.

John Horton:

I'm ready to go hit the yard this weekend. I'm going to shovel right and I'm going to try to keep those aches and pains at a minimum.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

Good. Glad to hear it.

John Horton:

All right, Dr. Bang, thanks a lot for coming in. I always appreciate you making some time for us.

Dr. Andrew Bang:

You're welcome. I'll talk to you soon, John.

John Horton:

Bye-bye.

Most of us spend hours a week puttering around the yard, and that's often followed by days of feeling the effects in our muscles and joints. But by following Dr. Bang's yard work tips and doing a little self-care, you just might feel as good as your lawn and garden, no doubt.

If you liked what you heard today, please hit the subscribe button and leave a comment to share your thoughts. Until next time, be well.