Why is lifting items “with your back” dangerous? Why can’t back muscles be strengthened?
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Your spine is like a stack of Jenga blocks connected by a string running down the middle.
The string down the middle allows you to push the Jenga blocks over, but in such a way that the tower doesn’t collapse. It simply curls over as the string is pulled taught.
When sitting vertical, the stack of Jenga blocks is pretty strong. An adult human can easily stand on it, if they could keep their balance. It’s not going to get crushed, because the Jenga blocks are really strong. The string doesn’t really come into play here.
But flex the tower over into a crane-like shape, and now the string becomes vitally important. It’s the only thing holding the tower together. If that string broke, the whole thing would come apart. And the string isn’t nearly as strong as the blocks are, so snapping the string isn’t exactly that hard to do.
When you “lift with your back”, you’re bending your spine over like the Jenga tower, and trying to not only hold up your body like that, but also pick up an unbalanced load like a crane, and hoist all of that load to an upright standing position. The connective tissues between your vertebrae are strained doing this, like the string. Continuously straining them like this can lead to long-term damage and back pain.
When you “lift with your knees”, what you’re *really* doing is trying to keep your back straight and vertical. Keep the Jenga blocks stacked in that really strong configuration. This minimizes damage to your spine, as you are putting loads on it that it is far better equipped to handle.
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