Last week, Shaw shared advice on setting boundaries at work to support a healthy and long career. The full video can be accessed here.
Join Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, in this video as he demonstrates a quick exercise to help prevent back injuries
Last week, Shaw shared advice on setting boundaries at work to support a healthy and long career. The full video can be accessed here.
This week, healthspan coach Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS, discusses the importance of finding and engaging one’s core muscles to help support the spine during movement in veterinary settings. In the video, Shaw demonstrates a quick exercise that can help decrease the risk of back injury when bending over or lifting something up.
Below is the video transcript, which has been lightly edited for improved clarity:
Aaron Shaw, OTR/L, CHT, CSCS: Welcome to the Tip of the Week with Coach Aaron Shaw—and Eddie. Today, we are going to find our core. Now, what is the core? I hear that all the time, and it's important with ergonomics and body mechanics, we need to find the muscles that surround our spine to give our spine some support when we're doing all this lifting, pushing, pulling, moving around, taking care of our patients.
But what does that actually mean?
It's a simple way to find our core. First, what I want you to do, take a deep breath, relax a little bit.
Second thing I want you to do—you do this from standing—I want you to think about standing up as nice and tall, like there's a string that’s coming from the top of your head. It's pulling you up, elongating your spine.
From here, what I want you to think about doing is taking your belly button and just gently pulling it in towards your spine a little bit. You're not trying to really crunch down on your abs or anything like that, it's just a little bit of tension.
So you're up nice and tall, pulling in your abdominals, your belly button just a little bit. You should still be able to breathe just fine. If you can't breathe, you're going too hard. So, it's just pulling it in, just a little tiny bit, keep that there.
So, what you're doing with just this light core engagement is you are activating the muscles that surround your spine. Now, if you can do this intermittently, practice doing this, holding that contraction, that light contraction, even just for 5 seconds, then relax. Do that several times throughout the day. Maybe practice holding it a little bit longer—not more intense, just a little bit longer duration—you're going to start to really program your brain to know where your core is and then when you go into doing an activity where you need to bend over, lift something up, pick something up, push or pull something, think about that; think about pulling that belly button in just a little bit, keeping your spine elongated.
And what you are doing is decreasing your risk for back injury. So, it's safety first, protect your spine, find your core and give it some practice.