Safe Lifting Techniques

Safe Lifting Techniques: Why “Lift With Your Legs” Isn’t Enough

By Eileen Durfee, inventor & Nationally Certified Spinal Fitness Specialist

“Lift with your legs, not your back” is good advice — and it often fails anyway. Not because people ignore it, but because the body can’t always deliver the position the cue asks for.

Form cues assume a structure you may not have

Telling someone to keep a neutral spine and hinge at the hips assumes their spine can hold that shape under load. If the lumbar curve and segmental control are missing, the nervous system chooses protection over perfect form every time — it rounds, braces, and compensates no matter what the training said. The cue addresses the last link in a chain whose weak point is further upstream.

Build the base, then the form holds

Safer lifting starts before the lift: restore the spinal curves, rebuild segmental control, and condition the trunk to manage force. When the structure is there, good lifting form is what the body does naturally under load — not a rule it has to fight.