How is your summer progressing?  As a health professional I
wanted to point out tips to keep you healthy in outdoors tasks,
such as gardening, trimming, raking, etc.  1. It’s important to
use both sides of your body as equally as possible. Pull weeds
left handed  and right handed. Same with shoveling, hoeing,
raking, etc. use the left and the right side. Your dominant side
is always overworked and by giving it a break as you learn to do
work using the other side, your body will stay much more
aligned/balanced and healthy.  2. When weeding or bending, be
sure to get as close to your work as possible, do not hunch, but
keep your back straight. Use the back muscles (larger muscle
group) to help balance and initiate the workload while
supporting the back and the whole trunk and abdominals. (This
prevents lower back pain when lopsided dominated side is over
working as well as during  hunched working) Proper posture is
important no matter the task.  3. Don’t over stretch or over
reach to prevent strains of shoulder