How to Stay Safe When Moving Heavy Furniture

Introduction

Even if you’re someone who’s used to working your body hard and doing lifting at a gym, moving furniture around your home or helping someone else move to a different house can require you to use your body and your muscles in ways that you may not be used to. And when this happens, your chances for getting injured skyrocket if you don’t take care of yourself and learn how to safely complete these tasks.

Three Simple Safety Tips for Lifting Heavy Furniture

To help ensure that you’re able to stay fit and healthy after something like this, here are three health and safety tips when moving heavy furniture.

1. Learn Proper Lifting Technique

If you’re someone who’s used to doing weight lifting, you likely already know how to protect your body when doing heavy lifting. But because lifting a queen bed frame or a couch can be a lot different from lifting weights at a gym, it’s wise to go over how to properly lift these kinds of objects before you do any of the actual lifting.

When picking something up, you’ll want to be sure that you don’t bend at your waist. Rather, you should use your legs to lift up the heavy furniture. The same goes for putting that item back down: you’ll want to squat with your knees as opposed to bending over. And when you’re actively carrying something heavy, try to keep the item below your waist level to best protect your body.

2. Use Straps To Manage The Weight

Some things are simply going to be too heavy or too cumbersome for you to really carry well with just your body. In these situations, using straps can help immensely.

There are a few different kinds of straps that you can use when carrying heavy furniture. Shoulder straps and forearm straps are the most common and will give you the best leverage when carrying heavy furniture. Just make sure you have someone on the other end of the straps that can handle the weight as well as you can to ensure that you both stay safe while carrying.

3. Get Yourself A Dolly

For items that carrying them isn’t really an option, using a dolly can help make moving the furniture or appliance much easier.

To use a dolly, you simply have to lift the item onto the dolly and then use the wheels to roll the dolly and the item to wherever you need it to be. Just make sure you’ve thought ahead about how to manage any stairs that you might come up against when moving furniture while using a dolly, as stairs and dollies don’t mix well when moving.

The Bottom Line

If you’re going to be moving some heavy furniture in the near future, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you do this as safely and comfortably as possible.

About Theresa Duncan

Originally from Detroit, MI, Theresa has been offering health and fitness advice for the last 30 years while working as an engineer. She decided to turn her passion into a profession, and finds nothing more satisfying than helping others reach their health and fitness goals.