Every winter in the United States, an average of 11,500 people visit emergency rooms for a shovelful of injuries related to shoveling snow [1]. A common type of injury is a muscle strain in which the muscle or its tendons tear apart. This can happen when we ask the muscle to contract too quickly or too forcefully to move a load that is too heavy. A shovelful of snow may seem light, but it can already be too heavy for a muscle that hasn’t practiced shoveling since last winter, and then suddenly at the first snowfall, is required to work in record time to get the car out of the driveway. Another type of injury is a concussion. During a fall, the head may hit the ground, and the brain inside the skull can get injured by hitting the inner walls of the skull.
