Gardening Pain-free from Pursuit Physiotherapy

Follow these basic body mechanics tips for gardening safely!

Gardening season is here! We want you to enjoy the outdoors without injuring yourself. It’s easy to get overzealous and spend hours in the garden without noticing an aching back or neck until it’s too late. But don’t worry, just because you have a long ‘to do’ list doesn’t mean you have to suffer the consequences. By planning ahead and being smart about your body mechanics you can help prevent soreness and injuries.

Follow these easy tips for staying healthy throughout the gardening season:

Lift properly to protect your back.

Remember to bend your knees and engage your core muscles; use your leg muscles to squat and don’t bend with your back.

Avoid lifting and twisting through your back – instead keep the load close to your body and pivot your feet and trunk together
Avoid carrying heavy loads on 1 side of your body – balance it out on both sides or lighten up the load and take more trips. Also consider getting help for heavy lifting – you can’t do it all!

Maintain good posture.

Position yourself close to the task at hand to avoid awkward reaching and twisting. Try to keep your back straight and head in a neutral position so that you are not looking up or down for extended periods of time.

Use stools, chairs, or knee pads whenever possible to help maintain good neck and back posture.
When pushing a wheelbarrow or lawnmower keep your back tall and head up. Also bend your knees and engage your core muscles to optimize your power and protect your spine.
Take mini-breaks to stretch and correct your posture – try squeezing your shoulder blades together, or contracting your deep abdominal (TA) muscles.

Use Proper Tools to Reduce Strain

Use knee pads for kneeling and avoid sustained squatting. This will give your knees, hips, ankles and back a break.
Use a step stool or tools with extended handles to make overhead work easier. Bring yourself closer to your task to avoid awkward reaching and reduce neck and shoulder strain.
Use tools with good grips or ergonomic handles to reduce fatigue on your hand and forearm muscles. Ensure they are a comfortable fit for your hand size.

Prevent Repetitive Strain Injuries

Doing the same task over and over will put excessive strain on certain body parts and muscle groups, leading to pain and injury. Here are some self-management tips to help avoid RSI’s:

Change positions frequently to avoid stiffness and strain on certain body parts. For example try raking on both sides.
Alternate tasks to add variety to your body movements and avoid static postures or repetitive lifting. For example do 10 minutes of weeding followed by 10 minutes of pruning.
Take breaks to stretch and hydrate. It is important to give your body some time to recover, and adding these mini-breaks can help improve your work endurance and efficiency.
Don’t overdo it! Create a realistic plan ahead of time so that you aren’t trying to get all your tasks done in a single day or weekend. Plan to spread your workload out over several days or weeks to avoid overuse injuries.
Never work through pain. Listen to your body and stop when you are getting tired or sore. The task will still be there the next day or week!

Keep your body limber

Warm-up before gardening with some light walking or gently swinging your arms and legs. This helps increase your heart rate and gets blood flowing to the muscles so they are ready to work.
Take stretch breaks. Do some of your favourites and try to target all your major body parts – neck, shoulders, back, and legs. This will keep you feeling loose and flexible and prevent muscle tension from building up. Move slowly and hold each position for approximately 10-15 seconds.
Cool-down. An easy walk around the yard and some gentle stretching will help relieve tension after your work and prevent muscle stiffness.

We hope these tips help keep you active, healthy, and pain-free throughout the spring and summer. If you have any lingering pain or specific concerns please do not hesitate to book an appointment for a one-on-one session with one of our physiotherapists. We will be able to assess and diagnose your injury, as well as provide hands on treatment and a therapeutic exercise program to address your specific needs.

Posted By: Stephanie Connolly

Click for more information about Pursuit Physiotherapy.

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The War on Commonsense Nicotine Regulation

Published on November 8, 2025

Todayville

From the Brownstone Institute

Roger Bate

Cigarettes kill nearly half a million Americans each year. Everyone knows it, including the Food and Drug Administration. Yet while the most lethal nicotine product remains on sale in every gas station, the FDA continues to block or delay far safer alternatives.

Nicotine pouches—small, smokeless packets tucked under the lip—deliver nicotine without burning tobacco. They eliminate the tar, carbon monoxide, and carcinogens that make cigarettes so deadly. The logic of harm reduction couldn’t be clearer: if smokers can get nicotine without smoke, millions of lives could be saved.

Sweden has already proven the point. Through widespread use of snus and nicotine pouches, the country has cut daily smoking to about 5 percent, the lowest rate in Europe. Lung-cancer deaths are less than half the continental average. This “Swedish Experience” shows that when adults are given safer options, they switch voluntarily—no prohibition required.

In the United States, however, the FDA’s tobacco division has turned this logic on its head. Since Congress gave it sweeping authority in 2009, the agency has demanded that every new product undergo a Premarket Tobacco Product Application, or PMTA, proving it is “appropriate for the protection of public health.” That sounds reasonable until you see how the process works.

Manufacturers must spend millions on speculative modeling about how their products might affect every segment of society—smokers, nonsmokers, youth, and future generations—before they can even reach the market. Unsurprisingly, almost all PMTAs have been denied or shelved. Reduced-risk products sit in limbo while Marlboros and Newports remain untouched.

Only this January did the agency relent slightly, authorizing 20 ZYN nicotine-pouch products made by Swedish Match, now owned by Philip Morris. The FDA admitted the obvious: “The data show that these specific products are appropriate for the protection of public health.” The toxic-chemical levels were far lower than in cigarettes, and adult smokers were more likely to switch than teens were to start.

The decision should have been a turning point. Instead, it exposed the double standard. Other pouch makers—especially smaller firms from Sweden and the US, such as NOAT—remain locked out of the legal market even when their products meet the same technical standards.

The FDA’s inaction has created a black market dominated by unregulated imports, many from China. According to my own research, roughly 85 percent of pouches now sold in convenience stores are technically illegal.

The agency claims that this heavy-handed approach protects kids. But youth pouch use in the US remains very low—about 1.5 percent of high-school students according to the latest National Youth Tobacco Survey—while nearly 30 million American adults still smoke. Denying safer products to millions of addicted adults because a tiny fraction of teens might experiment is the opposite of public-health logic.

There’s a better path. The FDA should base its decisions on science, not fear. If a product dramatically reduces exposure to harmful chemicals, meets strict packaging and marketing standards, and enforces Tobacco 21 age verification, it should be allowed on the market. Population-level effects can be monitored afterward through real-world data on switching and youth use. That’s how drug and vaccine regulation already works.

Sweden’s evidence shows the results of a pragmatic approach: a near-smoke-free society achieved through consumer choice, not coercion. The FDA’s own approval of ZYN proves that such products can meet its legal standard for protecting public health. The next step is consistency—apply the same rules to everyone.

Combustion, not nicotine, is the killer. Until the FDA acts on that simple truth, it will keep protecting the cigarette industry it was supposed to regulate.

Author

Roger Bate

Roger Bate is a Brownstone Fellow, Senior Fellow at the International Center for Law and Economics (Jan 2023-present), Board member of Africa Fighting Malaria (September 2000-present), and Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs (January 2000-present).

Health

RFK Jr. urges global health authorities to remove mercury from all vaccines

Published on November 7, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Charles Richards

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is urging health leaders across the planet to stop including mercury in vaccinations.

“Now that America has removed mercury from all vaccines, I call on every global health authority to do the same — to ensure that no child, anywhere in the world, is ever exposed to this deadly neurotoxin again,” he said.

Kennedy’s comments came in a video he recorded for the Minamata Convention on Mercury. The event is an international gathering aimed at preventing human contact with mercury, which, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), is one of the top 10 chemicals of major public health concern. The treaty, backed by the United Nations (UN), was first signed in 2013 by over 140 countries.

Kennedy noted that while the group’s goal is no doubt praiseworthy, it has not gone far enough in its efforts.

“Article 4 of the convention calls on parties to cut mercury use by phasing out listed, mercury-added products. But in 2010, as the treaty took shape, negotiators made a major exception. Thimerosal-containing vaccines were carved out of the regulation,” he recalled.

“The same treaty that began to phase out mercury in lamps and cosmetics chose to leave it in products injected into babies, pregnant women, and the most vulnerable among us,” he noted. “We have to ask: Why? Why do we hold a double standard for mercury? Why call it dangerous in batteries, in over-the-counter medications, and make-up but acceptable in vaccines and dental fillings?”

This past summer, Kennedy’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices launched a study to research the vaccine schedule for children. Among other recommendations, the committee advised the removal of thimerosal, a neurotoxic, mercury-containing preservative that had been used in flu shots.

Kennedy noted in his video message that “thimerosal’s own label requires it to be treated as a hazardous material and warns against ingestion,” adding that “there is not a single study that proves it’s safe. That’s why in July of this year the United States closed the final chapter on the use of thimerosal as a vaccine preservative, something that should have happened years ago.”

“Manufacturers have confirmed that they can produce mercury-free, single dose vaccines without interrupting supply. There is no excuse for inaction or holding stubbornly to the status quo,” he exclaimed. “Now that America has removed mercury from all vaccines, I call on every global health authority and every party to this convention to do the same.”

“Let’s honor and protect humanity, and our children, and creation from mercury,” he concluded.

The Minamata Convention on Mercury went into effect in August 2017. It was initially approved by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee in Geneva, Switzerland, in January 2013. It was adopted in October 2013 at a Diplomatic Conference in Kumamoto, Japan. Per its website, it is named “after the bay in Japan where, in the mid-20th century, mercury-tainted industrial wastewater poisoned thousands of people, leading to severe health damage that became known as the ‘Minamata disease.’”