Helpful Tips for Protecting Your Spine While You Cook

Cooking can bring joy to everyone. There’s something incredibly satisfying about working hard to create a delicious meal that you can serve to those you love. Anyone who’s spent much time cooking can tell you that it takes time and effort to turn out a good meal though. It’s not so surprising that you could find yourself feeling all that effort in your back before you’re through. The good news is that there are some things you can do to protect your spine while you cook.

Use Good Posture

It’s never going to not be a good thing to use good posture. Good posture helps you feel good mentally and protects you physically. It’s easier to have good balance and to keep your muscles balanced as well when you have good posture. Not having good posture is often the result of our bodies trying to compensate for changes in our alignment so that we stay balanced overall. That compensation can put a lot of strain on your spine. This is especially the case when you cook. People tend to hunch over counters and bend their heads over their work a lot when they cook. That puts a lot of stress on the spine. Practice using good posture while you cook. Keep your feet under your shoulders. Focus on keeping your shoulders back and positioned over your hips instead of curving forward over the counter. When you keep your shoulders back, it feels less natural to crane your neck to hover over the food. Instead, you should find that keeping your neck more in line with the rest of your spine comes much easier.

Be Careful about Bending Over

Bending over at some point during the cooking process is often impossible to avoid, whether you’re grabbing ingredients, dishes, or tools. The problem is that bending over tends to put a lot of stress on the spine. If you want to avoid getting hurt and protect your spine instead, you need to make sure you’re bending over safely. Focus on keeping your spine straight, your core muscles engaged, and bending from your hips and knees, rather than your waist. It helps if you organize your kitchen so that you can limit the amount of time you spend bending over to get different items. Pull-out shelves can help with kitchen organization , which can make it a lot easier to quickly find what you're looking for and reduce the strain on your back.

Wear Good Shoes

The majority of a cook’s time is spent on their feet. For the sake of both your feet and your spine, wear supportive shoes when you’re cooking. Kitchen floors tend to be quite firm, and that can be rough on you if you aren’t wearing good shoes. Use shoes that have good arch support. This helps support your spine as well as your feet. Just don’t cook barefoot. Not only will that be rougher on both your feet and your back, but you also run a greater risk of injuring your feet. If you spill hot liquids or food, you’re going to want something to protect your feet from becoming seriously burned.

Sit When You Can during Prep

Sitting down is generally considered bad for you, especially if you do it a lot. At least it is in comparison to standing or moving around. When it comes to cooking, however, try sitting down while you prep. That will put you closer to your workspace. Things like measuring ingredients, peeling vegetables, and chopping components of your meal are often easy enough to do while sitting. This can help take some of the strain off your spine and protect it, especially since you’re less likely to be craning your neck over your work the way you would if you were standing.

Stay Close to the Counter

Ever wonder why there’s that lip on the counter and why the cabinets and drawers tend to hang out a little over the floor? It’s so you can stay closer to the counter without leaning funny. Your feet fit under you better thanks to that overhang. Staying as close as you can to the counter you’re using as a cooking surface makes it easier to avoid hunching over. Take it a step further by bringing your work closer to you as well.

Lift with Care

It doesn’t take much extra strain to throw out your back, and sometimes cooking means lifting heavy loads. No matter how light an object is, it’s important that you always use good lifting techniques. Proper lifting technique is designed to protect your spine from injury. There’s a lot of overlap with how you should protect your spine when you bend over. Keep your spine as straight as you can, engage your core muscles, and lift with your legs.

Taking steps to protect your spine while you cook is crucial. The better the condition of your spine, the less back pain you should experience and the less stress you’ll experience because of it. Cooking will still take work, but if you take steps to protect your spine, you should find that you enjoy the process more, if only because you aren’t experiencing back pain because of it.

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