At least that’s what happening in Toronto, Canada right now. Car crashes, subway delays, gusting snow and treacherous conditions: these are the norm for today.

So what does that leave you with?

Piles and piles of snow to shovel. Usually quite wet and quite heavy.

I used to practice as a Physical Therapist in Victoria BC, out on the West coast of Canada. Each year we’d have only a couple snow days and in the two days following those two days of heavy snow, I’d see a significant spike in clients coming in to the clinic with fairly significant low back pain.

Sure enough, this phenomenon, which I’ll dub “shovel-back syndrome”, has everything to do with economy of motion.

The WRONG way of shoveling snow:

POP go the discs

• Lifting with the back
• Flexing through the back
• Twisting through the back
• Or any other method of using the back

Coupled with:

• Lifting large loads of snow with the shovel
• Throwing the snow from the end of the shovel