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No bending.
No squatting.
No heavy lifting.
Those were my doctor’s orders after a surgery I had this winter. For two months, I was under strict activity restrictions: no lifting anything heavier than 10 pounds; no activity other than walking.
But even after I was cleared to start working outside again, my doctor advised against a lot of bending, squatting, and heavy lifting.
I remember thinking to myself, “Isn’t that the definition of dairy farming?”
Perhaps not every dairy farmer has a workday that includes a lot of bending, squatting, and lifting, but I suspect that many do. I know that I certainly do.
So, getting back to work after surgery required some adaptations to the way I approached highly physical tasks.
Before surgery, it was nothing to carry sacks of grain, bags of milk replacer, or bales of hay around. Now, I either use a two-wheel cart to move heavier items or ask someone else to move them for me.
Before surgery, I always prepped cows and attached units in a deep squat, since we milk our cows in a tie stall barn. Now, I kneel to do those jobs.
I also kneel to feed newborn calves, instead of bending over. A pair of heavy-duty kneepads makes kneeling more comfortable.
These biomechanical adjustments have made me think a lot about the physical demands of dairy farming and the way dairy farmers work. Perhaps if I had adopted some of these “work smarter, not harder” ways of working sooner, I might never have needed surgery. Just because I could lift and carry 100-pound calves and 50-pound bags, doesn’t mean I should have.
I’m a lot more careful about how I move now. After all, I’d like my body to work for a couple more decades.
Have you given any thought to the biomechanics and physical demands of your work? How are you respecting your body and working within its capabilities?
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The author is a dairy farmer and writer from central Minnesota. She farms with her husband, Glen, and their three children. Sadie grew up on a dairy farm in northern Minnesota and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in agricultural communications and marketing. She also blogs at Dairy Good Life.