Should You Be Shoveling Snow This Winter?

I was half-listening to the news recently when I thought I heard the reporter say, if you can't run for twenty minutes non-stop, then you shouldn't shovel snow. I'm not sure I could run that long, unless I was being chased by a bear. I live in a midwestern state where the average annual snowfall amounts to 40 to 50 inches. That means, come winter, you can often see me out shoveling snow. Should you be shoveling snow this winter? Read this eye-opening article and find out.

Snow May Be Pretty, But Its Heavy
Snow is often described as being "pretty". Songs such as "Winter Wonderland" and "Let It Snow" celebrate its existence. According to Answers.com, snow is "Frozen precipitation in the form of white or translucent hexagonal ice crystals that fall in soft, white flakes." Even though they may look light and fluffy, a shovel full of those flakes can weigh about 16 pounds. If you scoop up 12 shovels of snow in a minute, that means you're moving nearly 2,000 pounds a little over 10 minutes, according to CBS News.com. A classic Volkswagen Beetle weighs about a ton, to give you an idea how much weight a ton is.

Besides the weight of snow, the cold weather puts an added stress on your heart. Your heart beats faster and your blood pressure rises anytime you perform a strenuous activity. When you're out shoveling snow in the cold, your arteries and blood vessels constrict, which puts an added strain on your heart. No wonder heart attacks occur twice as much in the winter as they do in the summer.

Should You Be Shoveling Snow This Winter?
Shoveling snow is such a strenuous activity that only healthy persons should do it. If you are older than age 50, you shouldn't be shoveling snow, according to Barry Franklin, director of Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise Laboratories at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan.

If you are overweight, a smoker, have heart problems including heart disease, have high cholesterol or high blood pressure, you should hang up your snow shovel and hire someone else to clear your sidewalks and driveway this winter. And, if you're out of shape and you're not ordinarily physically active, winter time is not the time to get out and get moving by shoveling snow.

Resources
http://www.answers.com/topic/snow
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/health/healthy_living/main676316.shtml
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/24/earlyshow/contributors/emilysenay/main668725.shtml
http://www.wvseniors.org/news/articles/IsShovelingARiskForHeartAttackYes.pdf
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/02/24/health/healthy_living/main676316.shtml