Men Beware: The Dangers of Snow

What about statistics for women?

I'm a 74 year old widowed (a little overweight) female, who still shovels snow - with SOME vigor. Though I have a faithful plow guy for the driveway, I still have to shovel lots of walkways and that long rough path from the driveway to the heating oil outlet pipe in my backyard (for the delivery guy) - and sometimes that hillock of icy snow left by the town plows at the end of our driveways.

I do get winded...and there is almost always that gnawing nub of fear that this time could be IT…

I’ve learned to carry my cell in my pocket at all times just in case I fall into a drift (and can't get up!) If such disaster were to occur, no one would find my body till spring!

I'm 70 and have been snow shoveling for some 19 yrs now. There's no one way to run, and there's no one way to shovel snow. I do it very gently, for usually no more than 15-20 mins because then, my hands start to go numb with cold, and I head inside. I make it a point not to break a sweat and try to dress as lightly as possible. Lately, besides a regular shovel, I use a back-friendly one, angled differently. With that shovel, I often dig in and then reverse, and pull it, with the handle in front. It save lifting the shovel. But I use the regular shovel, too. If I have to, I wait about 45 min and go out for a second round of shoveling, occasionally three. A neighbor, on his same old reliable tractor, fitted with a plow, does my driveway and I do the area around the garage door. An average snow fall, maybe 6-7." Hope people find this helpful, and not the way to hospital, either!

I LOVE snow. Yes, it can have it's drawbacks. The snow on my roof once melted, and got into rhe walls, creating a horror movie effect and making me sick. But my Rav 4 took to it like a happy puppy. And I don't have to tell other skiers about the joys of snow. I was just learning to ski in waist-deep powder when I moved from NM to LA. For the first few months I was pseudo-carving turns in our house. I hope to get back to it, regularly, upon retirement. Re skiing powder, the trick is to carve gently with both skies, and, almost NO ONE will tell you this, but keep your weight a bit back. Well, an Olympic Gold nedalist once told me this. But you didn't hear it from me! She added. It's the only way to avoid face-plants. Finally, snow is beautiful. Read Emerson. Or look out your window you lucky snow-country people. The key is preparation. Watch the weather. Don.'t leave your poor cattle stranded out there. Snow can be dangerous. Read Jack London's "To Build a Fire." Back to skiing: focus is important. Don't ski and play football at the same time. And avoid hard runs in the afternoon if you've been skiing all day. Avoid the back country. Otherwise, let it snow!

I read that women run a huge risk of wrist bone fracture during those heavy snow days. Apparently when they see the hard-driving snow they immediately inform their male partner. When he fails to stir from his recliner, they fetch the shovel and remind the dear man of his responsibility with a loving crack of shovel onto skull. As neither hard surface breaks, the force expends itself in shovel handle vibrations, hence the sad and oh-so-common wrist bone fractures of snowed-in females.

im about to turn 60 and i hand shovel all my snow during the storm
sometimes 4 times over the same area depending on the type of storm and often in the dark. its a awesome workout and the air im breathing is fresh and clean untill the parade of plow trucks and snow blowers start up. then its bad gas,Diesel fumes and salt spray i can taste on my lips. if i drop dead shoveling its ok with me cause thats better than death by watching TV and sucking Tailpipe

Allan Rydberg asks: “So is exercise good or not?”
Last year the international Cochrane’s Collaborative updated their older meta-analysis of Randomized Control Trials, the “gold standard” of medical evidence, on exercise programs for cardiac rehabilitation. They compiled the results of 63 studies with over 14,000 participants.
Compared to those not undertaking cardiac rehabilitation exercise, the results were that, while coronary deaths were reduced: “There was no significant effect on total mortality, myocardial infarction, or revascularization.” PMID: 26764059 (Myocardial infarctions are heart attacks.)
So it shouldn’t be a surprise that strenuous activities/exercise kills older folks. Same amount of heart attacks and if those don’t kill you, the respiratory infections you get will.

Whatever. If you are going to get a heart attack from shoveling snow, you are probably not very fit and/or heart healthy to begin with. If you can jog a couple miles you are probably healthy enough to shovel 8 inch of snow. At my house there are usually at least 5 storms a year where we get 6 or more inches of snow on the ground. This year we have had over 10.

So true - my neighbor, a fifty year old man, not overweight, in good health, died of heart attack while shoveling snow. Just one observation but perhaps not unusual or unexpected based on statistics from the study in this article. The only shortcoming is not issuing a similar warning for women over 50 - heart disease is the leading cause of death for women too!

So is exercise good or not?
Maybe instead of knee jerk reactions we need to look a little deeper. Like shovel small sections at a time and rest in between. The problem is not snow shoveling. It is our wanting to do the whole thing in one massive effort.

At my gym, I see middle aged men come in, new members, obviously not in shape - needing to lose 30 plus pounds or more. I seldom see them use any of the aerobic machines. They immediately go for lifting heavy weights 180 lbs or more.
I'm just a customer there, but I'd like to see the gym tactfully guide new members to first work on the most important muscle: the heart.

Studies also show that the Sun rises in the east.

Is there any evidence for women shoveling snow and increased heart attack occurrence? Did the study only look at one gender and not the other when it was gathering it's data?

"The scientists analyzed hospital admissions and heart attack deaths in Quebec from 1981 to 2014."

for the curious, next try looking at toronto, buffalo, syracuse, montreal, calgary, anchorage, moscow,...

No man over 40 or woman over 50 should shovel the snow. Leave that to the teenagers trying to earn some spending money.

Explain to your wives why they should clear the snow.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/well/live/men-beware-the-dangers-of-s...

Of course, on the other hand, never mind.