How To Refrain From Winter Sprains

Whether you’re visiting a city that has snow or you’re lifting heavy objects to decorate for the holidays, help prevent your body from sustaining an injury by taking these precautionary measures:

Protect Your Wrists

Even if you don’t live in a cold climate, you can still sustain winter-related injuries from activities like ice-skating or hockey at a rink. One of the most common injuries during both of these is a wrist injury. When people fall, their natural reaction is to stick their arms out to try and catch themselves. Instead of falling forward or backwards onto your tailbone, fall to one side and protect your head by tucking your chin. To practice, lower your center of gravity, slide onto one hip, relax and collapse. This will help you from sustaining a wrist or arm injury and will help keep your entire body safer.

Mind Your Back

While the winter signals a change in weather, it also signals the start of the holidays. If you have to bring your decorations down from the attic, lift heavy objects, or decorate your house with lights, you’ll want to be sure that your back doesn’t pay the price. Before starting any kind of holiday project, take a few moments to stretch all of your muscles – from head to toe. Stretching helps ensure correct posture, enables flexibility, promotes blood circulation, increases stamina, and helps prevent injuries. You’ll be loosening your muscles and tendons, which relieves muscle fatigue and increases blood flow. The longer the activity is that you’ll be doing, the longer you’ll want to stretch beforehand. By stretching out tight muscles, you’ll be lengthening them and pulling them away from their intended position thereby keeping them loose and prepped for movement.

Take Care of Your Neck

If you’re traveling this holiday to somewhere that has snow, you’ll want to prepare both your body and your muscles. Be sure to pack different layers to keep your muscles warm. Your neck and back become very vulnerable when you’re cold because you naturally tense up. If you’re shivering, your muscles tighten and become prone to injuries if you’re walking through snow or on ice.

If you know that you’re going to have to shovel snow, use ergonomic lifting techniques. Whenever possible, push the snow to one side as opposed to lifting it straight up. If you do have to lift the shovel, keep your body straightforward and hips width apart. Bend at the hips, not the lower back, and push your chest. Then, bend your knees and lift with your leg muscles while keeping your back straight. Maintain a tight grip on the shovel with both hands throughout the entire process.

While prepping your body for various movements is beneficial, accidents can still happen. If you find yourself sustaining an injury, let our Next Level Wellness team help heal your body.

Our chiropractic team of wellness doctors, Vasili Gatsinaris, DC, QME, James Kim, DC, Adam Abulghualya, DC, BS, ART and Caprice Leonard, MA, ATC specialize in chiropractic and wellness care, especially for workplace injuries. Our Irvine chiropractic office is located near John Wayne Airport, convenient for people living in Newport Beach, Costa Mesa, Tustin, Santa Ana and other surrounding Orange County communities.

Let our Orange County chiropractic team make a plan and treat your injury so that you are not restricted from your active lifestyle. To learn more about our variety of services or to schedule an appointment, take advantage of our Facebook new patient special and contact us or call 949-263-9003 today.