Avoiding Injuries While Moving

The professional residential movers at All My Sons Moving & Storage offer 6 critical tips for avoiding injuries during your move. 

Between packing, loading, and lifting, moving homes has the potential to cause some serious bodily harm. Make no mistake, moving is strenuous labor. As with any physically demanding job, there’s great potential for bad injuries when you’re not careful. If you are performing a do-it-yourself move then you should take the following tips into consideration as you pack your belongings and prepare to load your truck.

No open-toed shoes on the moving truck! Sandals, heels, and slippers are a poor choice for footwear. You should wear durable sneakers, or boots with steel-toes just in case something drops.

Dress yourself and all your moving helpers as if you intend to sweat, walk, and lift, because that’s exactly what you’ll be doing. Wear sturdy, comfortable, and weather-appropriate clothing. 

If you need to get a firm grip on items like appliances, furniture pieces, and moving dollies then be sure to grab a pair of work gloves to keep your fingers protected.

Selecting the best packing supplies for your move can help prevent moving injuries. Weak boxes or poor quality tape sets your boxes up to spill their contents. If you have the budget for good packing materials, invest in top-notch supplies that will both protect your belongings from damage and protect you and your helpers from injury.

When searching the community for free boxes, always inspect your boxes for damage before you load your belongings into them. Boxes with tears or water damage are better off getting recycled than holding your stuff.

Use as many uniform-sized boxes as possible. Boxes that are all a standard size are easy to stack and move together. Oddly shaped boxes or moving-box alternatives like garbage bags and backpacks often need to be moved one at a time. If you are moving with non-standard boxes, slow down and consider all your movements carefully so that you can avoid getting injured or damaging belongings.

Moving appliances, furniture, and even stacks of boxes gets a whole lot easier (and safer) when you have the right tools for the job. Some bulky items, like refrigerators, freezers, or washing machines, should never be moved without help from the right tool, even if you have a lot of manpower. 

Furniture dollies, appliance dollies, moving straps, and hand trucks can be rented from your favorite hardware store, big box store, or a moving retailor near you. If you hire professional movers, then they should come equipped with the right tools to get the job done.

Extremely heavy items like books, weights, disc-media collections, and vinyl records should always be packed in smaller boxes to avoid creating an unliftable, overloaded box. You can pack larger boxes with items that are bulky but light like bathroom towels, kitchen towels and hot pads, pillows, and linens. Never put items that add up in weight very quickly in a large box.

Check the weight of your boxes before you seal them and make sure you can still comfortably lift them. Overloaded boxes are a recipe for damaged items, and injured movers.

No doubt you’ve heard the old adage, “Lift with your legs, not with your back.” This familiar mantra helps remind gym-goers to practice proper posture when lifting to avoid wear, tear, and outright damage to the human back. When you are lifting heavy boxes and furniture pieces for your move, you might want to remind yourself of the old adage so that you do not strain or sprain your back during the move.

Always start your lifting with solid, balanced footing, a firm grip on the item you are lifting, and keep your back straight while you lift. Walk carefully with your heavy item.

Some large items you should not attempt to move by yourself, even with tools. Another person should share the burden of helping move the item, either by taking on some of the item’s weight or directing you as you move the item. 

Before you set out to conquer your moving day, make sure you have enough friends, family, and recruited helpers to get the job done. Divide the manual labor between several helpers and your move will not only go faster, it will be so much safer for all the movers involved.

One of the best ways to prevent moving injuries is to call in the pros. The teams at All My Sons Moving & Storage are extensively trained in how to navigate lifting, loading, and transport so that the risk of injury is minimized. 

Leave the labor to the experts. Professional movers can save your aching knees, just give All My Sons a call at 1-866-726-1579 to reach one of our 90+ locations nationwide or use the online quote form below to get started on your move.