5 Tips To Stop Back Pain While Cooking

Typically we start off with some form of finger foods, like vegetables and chips and things to just snack on for a little bit until the main meal, which always includes at least two versions of Turkey, one fried Turkey and a roasted Turkey or some version of that. Then a variety of sides. Everybody who brings food brings a different side, so they actually change every year, which is kind of fun to see what people come up with. 

We end the wonderful fun day with coffee and dessert and that’s how we end up doing it. We break up the meal so that it’s not always one person cooking, but that’s not really everybody’s tradition for some households. 

I know it’s so amazing to me that one person cooks all the food for the entire family. That to me is just amazing. I can’t even imagine how to plan all of that out so that it all comes out on time. I find that to be very impressive, to say the least when I hear that that’s what people do. 

One thing that is very evident at the end of that day, again, is that food comas are very real.  They’re a very real thing. I definitely wanna sleep very well at the end of Thanksgiving. Second, cooking all that food is very labor intensive. Like I was just saying, it’s always impressive to me when one person cooks all that food. Either way, whether you are more of a potluck kind of Thanksgiving feast or a one person creates everything. Back pain can ruin the whole day.

Cooking is one of those things that if you have back pain, it can start off as this little nagging, annoying thing, but then as you’re standing there cooking and cleaning and doing what you need to like cutting up things and just general things that you do while you’re cooking. That back pain can go from nagging to so intense you have to go sit or lay down. It can be sudden. It can progress over time, that can be varied for people, either way it sucks all the joy out of cooking, right? 

This for many people, is being able to bring the food and care for your family by making food. If that is you, this video is perfect because I have five tips for you today on how to stop back pain while you’re cooking. So if that is what you’re interested in, stick with it and that’s what we’re gonna go over next. 

The five tips for how to stop back pain while you’re cooking.

First, let’s pay attention to our posture. I know that seems weird and everybody talks about standing up straight, but if you start off and your ears are over your shoulder and your shoulders are over your hips and your hips are over your knees, knees are over your ankles.  That position requires the least amount of work from your body to maintain it. In other words, your muscles have to do very little to keep you upright. 

Gravity’s hitting you on the top of the head, straight down instead of any other direction where your body would have to adjust for that. That is where the crux is, right?

As we’re cooking most of the time where in some version of leaning forward , for some people it’s rounding your back, but it’s some version of your head in front of your feet. 

What that means is that some muscles are having to do a lot of work to hold you up. That work over time makes things achy and cranky, and can make things inflamed. If you have joint problems that can make that worse, it just goes south from there.

If you’re having to cook, especially if you’re cooking for long periods, as much as you can, think about your posture. Try to get your shoulders back, try to get your head over your shoulders and try to maintain that as long as you can, in as many situations as possible.

Second. Now this is a piggyback of the first one, but the second is to put your foot on a stool or inside the cabinet.

What I mean by that is, in the first suggestion I said to stand up straight, if your head is in front of your feet, your body has to do work. One way around that is to keep your foot underneath your head, which means you could take a step forward.

For most of us, if we take a step forward, it’s a cabinet or it’s like the oven and you can’t actually put your foot there. If you’re kneeling over a cabinet, you could, it might be inconvenient, but we could clear out a little space in the cabinet below so that you can rest a foot inside, which then means that one foot would be helping you support your whole body instead of your head being just in front of your feet.

Even if you have that little staggered stance where one foot is helping to distribute that weight and take a little bit of that weight off of your back muscles from holding you up, that can make a huge difference. Now if you don’t have a cabinet or it’s not really possible to do that. You could use a little six inch step. It forces you to kind of turn a little bit but it does allow you to have a little bit more of a flex position without putting as much strain on your back.

Again, the first thing is ideally you wanna be upright, but when that’s not possible, trying to put one foot in front of you to help accept the weight of your body when you’re in the posture where your head is in front of your feet.

Third, ask for help when you need it. If you have to lift up a heavy pan or a food item that’s particularly heavy.  Truthfully, some of our pots and pans are heavy empty. They can be five or 10 pounds just empty and now you’re gonna add a 10 or 20 pound Turkey to it and it just makes it very, very heavy. 

You’re already in that compromised head in front of your feet position because you’re pulling something out of the oven. Most of our ovens are really low, which means you have to really bend down to get it. That is just a disaster, especially if you already have back pain.

If it is at all possible to ask somebody else to help you, even if you both help carry it, to get it out of the oven and onto a countertop safely. That is a little bit less stress on your back. That can have a huge impact on how long it is that you can stay in the kitchen and cook.

Fourth, get a bar stool.  For those times when you are having to stir for a really long time or you’re just cutting things up, that’s just gonna be there for a while. If you have a high stool, let’s say a bar height stool or whatever would work in your kitchen because everybody’s kitchen is a little bit different.  That allows you to sit for a bit while you’re doing it.

That could be a game changer for so many people. There are some who go from the kitchen into the living room and sit for a while and then I can come back. If you had a little bit of a higher stool, you could be at the counter and do what you need. The nice thing about a high stool also is that that’s gonna allow you to have your hips above your knees. Which is a much nicer position for your back than a lot of kitchen chairs where sometimes that ratio can be off or your knees are slightly above your hips and that just adds extra stress to your back.

A high stool is another suggestion if at all possible, depending on the size of your kitchen. I know some of these things can vary depending on what you have available, but it can make a huge difference.

Last, talk to a physical therapist that specializes in back pain. 

There is so much that can be done to help alleviate back pain. I help people all the time overcome their back pain to get them back to cooking, get them back to all sorts of activities that they love to do that they thought they wouldn’t be able to do.

Well-Meaning physicians often only offer medications or surgery as a solution to back pain. They’ll get an x-ray or an MRI and then they’ll say, Hey, the reason you’re having this problem is because of something they found on that image, whether it be an x-ray or a MRI. That’s only part of the story though. You are not just an x-ray or a MRI , you’re a whole person.

 You have habits, you have movement patterns, you have muscle strengths, muscle weaknesses, tight things, loose things. You have how you move in your environment, what your job is. There’s so much more to you than just that one image. To really get a very comprehensive and specialized plan for you. Seeing somebody who specializes in back pain that will find the exact root cause of your pain and create you a personalized program can be invaluable and get you back to the things that you once thought were completely off the table.

Back pain is very complicated. Some days people have an immense back pain and then some days they’re perfectly fine. If the only thing that was wrong with you was what was on that image, then you would always have back pain. It would never change because that image doesn’t change. You don’t go from one day having a herniated disc to the next day not, that doesn’t change hourly.

If your pain fluctuates with activities or resting. Then that image that you took gives some information, but it does not give the whole picture.

That’s what I help people with when they come in and they see me. We look at you from the whole picture. I ask you lots of questions. We do a movement assessment. I physically put my hands on you to find out what tissues are sore, what’s tight, what’s loose, what’s strong, what’s weak.

We put that whole picture together and then we find out what your ultimate goal is. 

What is it you’re trying to get back to? Are you trying to get back to cooking? Are you trying to get back to running? Would you like to go on vacation without back pain? Then we create a specialized program just for you based on all of that information.

That I think is absolutely invaluable for people. If you’ve been suffering with back pain, just to hear that there’s absolute hope, can be a game changer.

One of my recent clients that came for a four month follow up just to make sure everything’s okay. She told me that she was like, “I thought you were absolutely insane when you told me I wouldn’t have pain and then I’d be able to work out the way I want to without low back pain. I just thought that was crazy, but I was willing to give it a shot and here I am four months later. I’m working out exactly how I wanted to, that is absolutely amazing.”

We tweaked whatever we were working on and she’s able to go and continue on by herself. She’s working out the way that she wants and she doesn’t have to worry about pain in her everyday life.

If that is the type of care that you’re looking for, I will leave a button below this blog and it’ll say cost and availability. You click that button, there’ll be a quick form for you to fill out. Just sort of gives me a little bit of information about you and timeframes to call you back.  We’ll contact you and give you all the information that you’ll need, and if you’re ready we’ll set up that appointment based on what works for you.

Now, it is perfectly normal to be skeptical. If you’ve had back pain for years, just like the client that I just told you about, it can be unimaginable that your specific case would be able to be helped. For that, I save a couple of appointments every week that I call discovery visits. That is an amazing time for somebody to come in and have a face-to-face conversation.

I find out a little bit about your history. In many cases we do a short movement screening just to confirm that we are a good fit for each other because I don’t want you to come in for a full evaluation and then not be able to help you. My goal is truly just to help people get back to everything that they want to do without limitations.

During that discovery visit, you have that opportunity to ask questions and get to know and make sure that we’re the right fit for you going forward. 

Here we are at the end of my five tips, right? So as a review, you wanna make sure that you’re upright as much as you can be. Second, when that’s not possible, try to get your foot to be in front of you so that your foot is still underneath your head. 

Then third, I want you to ask for help When you have to lift something that’s super heavy or even just mildly heavy. Then fourth, you want to try to have a stool so that if you have to just stir for a long period of time or there’s gonna be a lot of chopping that you have something that you can sit and rest on. And then fifth, if even some of those things just mildly work or they don’t work at all, is to talk to somebody who specializes in back pain.

I hope that these tips help you. If you liked it, please hit like, it just helps more people see it. But if you know somebody specifically that would benefit from it, please share this video. I hope that you guys have a great holiday weekend until I talk to you again. Bye.

If you are looking for more information.

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