Dr. Nitesh Khonde

When standing with your back straight, the stresses on discs and ligaments in your low back are considerably lower than when you stand with your back bent forward. Many activities around the home may cause you to bend-for example, gardening, vacuuming, bed making, etc.

Occupations requiring prolonged stooped postures are abundant: assembly line workers, bricklayers, electricians, plumbers, carpenters, surgeons, nurses-the list goes on-are all required to bend forward for prolonged periods everyday.

While working in these bent positions, you are more likely to sustain back problems in the first four or five hours of the day.In order to minimise the risks involved in prolonged forward bending, you should interrupt the stooped position at regular intervals before pain starts. You should stand upright and bend backward five or six times.

This is very important if you have already developed low back problems caused by working in a stooped position. Regular interruption of the stooped position will correct any distortion that may occur in the discs and relieve the stresses on the surrounding tissues. When this is done before pain starts, it usually prevents the development of significant low back pain; and remember, you are especially at risk in the first half of your day, so make sure you always do everything correctly during this period.