If you’d like to see a Physio for a personalised consult, please give us a call on 0437 749 746.
Is there anything more powerful than a woman moving furniture around her house, alone, on a timeframe (before the baby wakes up)? I ponder this thought as I carry our large microwave/oven from the kitchen to its new resting place: in the laundry on top of the drinks fridge. The husband was not on board with this idea. “Leave it on the bench”, he says, “that makes the most sense”. It does, of course, seem sensible to have a kitchen appliance residing in the kitchen. But the kitchen has been newly renovated, with beautiful white pressed tin as a splashback, so the large, yellowed microwave felt out of place and took up valuable bench space.
So I decided to move it. Grunting, I shuffle to the outside laundry, using all my energy to carry the remarkably heavy metal box, praying my c-section scar would be up to the task.
No doubt, you’ve moved heavy furniture too. Or on the farm, you’ve lifted a heavy, wet ewe from the mud onto the back of a motorbike or ute. Maybe you regularly lift a drum of roundup, or the fat labrador that refused to “get up”. We ask a lot of our bodies, and sometimes, they give out on us.
Ever noticed when a tennis player hits the ball, they groan, or when a boxer makes a punch, they blow out through pursed lips? It’s how they let go of air during exertion: decreasing the pressure inside their body.
I’ve seen so many farmers that come to see me, after a hernia repair and I ask, how’d you do it? Often they aren’t sure – which terrifies them, as they don’t know if it will happen again.
Often, they are the breath-holders. Got to lift the tractor tyre? They’ll take a deep breath in, fill up the lungs with air, put maximum pressure on their abdomen, hold their breath and then lift a ridiculous weight, the perfect storm for a hernia or disc bulge to appear: a sign of a pressure system under great strain.
How to decrease the strain and still get the job done? Take a breath in, then breathe out as you lift. Your pelvic floor, back, and potential hernias will thank you for it.
Yours in pursuit of regular home-rearranging,
Rach x
