AS PART OF my new snow-shoveling regime, the first thing I did yesterday morning was to get back in bed.
I wanted to pull the warm covers over me and snooze, but instead I sprawled atop the blankets and stretched my back.
Stretching before shoveling is one of the things a smart shoveler does. That is what the Ontario Chiropractic Association recommends, a group that I think has something worthwhile to say about coping with winter.
First of all, being Canadians, they are familiar with snow. In Baltimore, snowfall is treated as a wondrous and dangerous event. In Canada, snowfall is a fact of winter life. Second, chiropractors treat people who have back pain, and according to a survey the Canadian group conducted last winter, the leading cause of winter back pain among their patients was improper snow-shoveling techniques. Last, the group has put out a list of tips describing the best way to get the snow off the pavement without putting a pain in your back.
The first of these recommendations is to warm up, or stretch before shoveling. Think of your body as a rubber band, Dean Wright, president of the chiropractors' group, told me in a telephone interview. If you yank a cold rubber band quickly, it might snap. But if you stretch it gradually, loosening it up with a few gentle exercises, it becomes more flexible.
The snow-shoveling warm-up does not have to last long, Wright said; just long enough to relax your back, shoulders and legs. This, he said, should keep you loose as a goose for about 45 minutes of shoveling.
So yesterday morning, instead of rushing outside to do battle with the first snowfall of the season, I lingered inside, flopping around in bed, pulling one knee at a time to my chest and holding it there for a few seconds. Later, down in the basement, I stretched my arms, holding my elbow over my head. This routine felt odd. But I reminded myself that professional football players - even kickers - warm up before going to work, so I continued. Instead of a rubber band, my body initially felt like a piece of dried spaghetti that could break at any moment. Eventually, it loosened up, becoming more "al dente."
Once outside, I reminded myself to "push, don't throw." Pushing a shovelful of snow is much easier on the lower back, Wright said, than picking the snow up and tossing it.
This advice was easy to follow when I was clearing off the front sidewalk. There, I was working with a level surface and had a convenient spot, the curb gutter, to dump the snow.
