You will not appreciate your back until it is injured. United Kingdom residents do not tend to worry about their back and its muscles until they suffer from a back injury and end up lying flat on their back and missing the days in which movement was easy and pain free. Once injured, most people take steps to ensure that their backs stay as healthy as possible. The most frustrating part of injuring a back muscle is the knowledge that a few simple precautions could have kept the injury from happening altogether. Here are some suggestions to keep back injuries from happening.

1. Instead of using your back to sit up when you wake up each morning, use your hips to lean forward. Do not arch your back. Instead use your elbows as levers to raise your upper body up off of the bed and then balance your weight on your hands as you let your legs carry your body around and into a sitting position.

2. If you are a person who likes to sleep on his/her back don't let your legs lie flat. Try to bend them a little or use a pillow (placed underneath the knees) to support the weight of your legs while you sleep. This will ease the strain that your legs would usually put on your back while you sleep.

3. You should avoid sleeping on your stomach if at all possible. It is terrible for your back.

4. Invest in a good firm mattress because it will be better for your back than a soft mattress. If you suffer from a back problem consult your doctor before you go mattress shopping.

5. Rotate your mattress every few months and flip it at least twice during the year to ensure that it wears out evenly and provides your back with as much support as possible.

6. Let your knees and your hips help you when you lift heavy things. Lift with your knees. Do not lift with your back.

7. Always have proper posture while you are sitting or standing. This helps your body better support the weight of your upper half and takes the strain off of supporting your weight off of your spine. It also looks a lot better than slumping over your desk or leaning back in your chair!

8. When you get out of a car, you want to bend at your knees and hips and use the momentum from swinging your legs out of the car to turn your upper body. Let your arms and hands do the work of bearing your weight and either pushing you up off of the seat or pulling you out of the car by holding on to the car frame or the door.