Yesterday for Ergonomics Wednesday, I got to bitching about gardening tools and the way their designs are an ergonomic horror show. Well, today is wellness Thursday, a day on which I usually wax rhapsodic about something that has improved my general health and wellbeing.
Today Imma do a little mix and match.
You see, Dad and I were continuing to work on cleaning up the bush around the cottage. Part of this job included clearing out the dead trees in the back lot. I won’t bore you with the details, mostly because I don’t really want to relive them as I type them out.
What I will say is this, when you’re clearing out the underbrush and dead trees, there is a whole lot of bending, twisting, stooping, tugging, yanking and dragging involved. After which, a lot of 6 inch (diameter) trees have to have their branches cut off.
The connection to poor ergonomics in gardening tools would be the arms and grips of the large shears you use to trim these branches off. Cleaning off those trunks left my poor carpal tunnels screaming.
And the process itself, along with actually getting the scrub out of the woods, involves a whole lot of less than ideal spinal movements.
Lemme say this, all those years of working on my posture and spine paid off in spades today. A day of work that 7 years ago would have meant three painful recovery days hardly phased me. In fact, the only ill effect I felt from the whole day was a headache from the pop up rainstorm this afternoon.
Actually, that wasn’t the only ill effect of the day. As a treat for the boys, we had fish and chips for dinner. I ate a little too much fried food tonight, and my poor tummy let me know I overindulged a little.
As for the rest, I feel just fine.
