What is the correct way to shovel snow?

Push it rather than lifting it wherever the surface allows. When you must lift: face the load square, bend at the hips and knees rather than rounding the lower back, keep the shovel close to your body, take a half load, and pivot your whole body with your feet to dump it rather than twisting your spine. Never throw snow over your shoulder — the combination of a loaded lift and a rotating trunk is the classic mechanism for a disc injury. Space your hands well apart on the shaft, with the lower hand close to the blade, because that shortens the lever and reduces the load on your back substantially.

Should I push or lift snow?

Push, for the great majority of the job. A pusher-style blade moves snow horizontally along the ground and never requires you to take the weight, which removes both the lifting and the twisting from the equation. A traditional scoop is the right tool only where pushing is impossible — steps, doorways, the gap beside a car, and the dense berm a plow leaves at the end of a driveway. Most households own two or three scoops and no pusher, which is exactly backward for the way an American driveway is shaped.

How heavy is a shovelful of snow?

Roughly 5 to 7 pounds for a typical 18-inch scoop of average snow, and it can exceed 15 pounds for a full blade of wet, dense snow. A 6-inch fall on a two-car driveway is on the order of several hundred loads. Half-filling the blade roughly doubles the number of repetitions but halves the peak load on each one, and peak load is what injures backs — which is why the professional advice is consistently to take smaller bites and accept the extra time.

When is the best time to shovel?

Early, and more than once. Clear during a long storm at roughly 4-inch intervals rather than waiting for 10 inches to accumulate, because the total effort is similar while the peak load per lift is far lower and the snow has not yet compacted or begun to refreeze. Fresh snow is also far lighter than snow that has sat, been driven over, or absorbed rain. The one exception is that shoveling in the dark on ice is its own hazard, so weigh the fall risk against the load.

Who should not shovel snow at all?

Anyone with known heart disease, a previous heart attack, uncontrolled high blood pressure, or who is over 55 and sedentary, and anyone with an existing disc problem or recent back surgery. The American Heart Association has warned repeatedly that shoveling combines heavy static arm work, cold air that constricts blood vessels, and sudden exertion by people who have not exercised in months — a combination that raises heart rate and blood pressure faster than most people expect. If that describes you, hire the job out or buy a machine. It is a smaller expense than the alternative.

How to Shovel Snow Without Hurting Your Back

Written & researched by Elena Marsh Gardening & Landscaping Editor

Updated October 2026

Golden-hour view of a person clearing autumn leaves from a driveway with a blower

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Push instead of lifting, half-fill the blade when you must lift, keep the load close, and pivot with your feet rather than twisting your spine. Those four changes remove most of the injury risk from snow clearing, and the first one removes the most. A typical 18-inch scoop of average snow weighs 5 to 7 pounds and a full blade of wet snow can be over 15 — and clearing 6 inches from a two-car driveway means several hundred of those loads. Change the geometry of the job and you delete the lifting from three quarters of them.

It is also worth saying at the outset that the injury people fear is not the one that does the most harm. Backs get hurt shoveling; hearts kill people shoveling. Both parts of this page matter.

Start with the tool, not the technique

No amount of good form makes a badly shaped tool safe, and the default American snow shovel — a curved scoop on a straight shaft — is designed for lifting and throwing, which is the motion you are trying to avoid.

A pusher is a wide, curved blade whose only job is to roll snow sideways along the ground. On open driveway and sidewalk it clears faster than a scoop and never takes the weight. The Snowplow Original 30-inch pusher (paid link) is the most-owned example, and owner reviews routinely describe units still in service after a decade.
A shovel with a second handle on the shaft gives you a fulcrum, so you can drive the lift from your legs and forearm rather than hinging at the lower back. The ErgieShovel (paid link) uses a fixed second grip; the Snow Joe Shovelution (paid link) uses a spring-assisted one that pushes back as you lift. Owners with back problems are consistently positive about both, though the spring mechanism on the Shovelution draws more durability complaints.
A bent shaft raises the working grip several inches and reduces how far you have to stoop on every load. It costs almost nothing over a straight handle.
Blade width is not a virtue. A 24-inch scoop looks efficient and is a trap: the wider the blade, the heavier every lift. Wide is right for a pusher and wrong for anything you intend to lift.
Weight matters. The shovel itself is part of every load. A 4-pound tool over 300 repetitions is 1,200 pounds you did not need to move.

The full field is in our snow shovel picks, and if the honest answer for you is a machine, see the electric snow shovel and cordless snow blower roundups.

Wide view of a person clearing autumn leaves from a driveway with a blower, in warm late-afternoon light

Before you start

Warm up for five minutes. Walk briskly, swing your arms, do a few gentle trunk rotations. Shoveling is heavy exercise begun cold, which is not how anyone would sensibly start a workout.
Do not eat a heavy meal or drink coffee immediately beforehand. Both increase cardiac demand at exactly the wrong moment.
Dress in layers you can shed. Overheating inside a parka causes dehydration and makes the work harder than it is.
Wear boots with real tread. Slipping mid-lift is how a manageable load becomes an injury.
Spray the blade with silicone or plain cooking spray so wet snow releases instead of building up and making every load heavier than the last.
Have water within reach. Cold weather suppresses thirst and people dehydrate without noticing.

The technique, step by step

Pushing

Stand square behind the pusher with hands well apart, elbows slightly bent, and walk the snow forward with your legs rather than pushing with your arms and lower back. Take a full-width bite in light snow and a half-width bite in heavy snow — if you find yourself leaning into it, the bite is too wide. Peel the snow to one side by angling the blade slightly rather than trying to shove a growing wall straight ahead.

Lifting, when you have to

Face the load square. Your chest, hips and feet should all point at the snow you are about to pick up.
Space your hands. Upper hand on the grip, lower hand well down the shaft close to the blade. This shortens the lever arm and is the single largest reduction in spinal load available from technique alone.
Bend at the hips and knees, not by rounding the lower back. Keep the natural curve in your spine and let the legs do the work.
Half-fill the blade. Twice as many lifts at half the weight is a straightforwardly better trade for your back.
Keep the load close to your body. Every inch further out multiplies the effective weight on your lumbar spine.
Step and pivot to dump. Move your feet to face where the snow is going, then release. Never rotate your trunk over fixed feet while holding a load.
Walk it, do not throw it. Walking three steps to a snow pile is slower and vastly safer than launching a loaded shovel over your shoulder.

Pacing

Clear in layers. If 10 inches are forecast, go out at 4 or 5 inches and again afterward — the total effort is similar, the peak load per lift is far lower, and the snow has not yet been compacted by footsteps or begun to refreeze. Work for 10 to 15 minutes and then take a genuine break. Alternate which side you lead with, so you are not loading the same side of your spine for an hour. And if the snow is wet and dense, halve everything: half the blade, half the bite, half the session length.

The risk that is worse than your back

Snow shoveling has an unusually serious safety record for a household chore, and the mechanism is cardiac rather than orthopedic. The American Heart Association has warned repeatedly that shoveling combines three stressors at once: heavy isometric arm work, which raises blood pressure sharply; cold air, which constricts blood vessels and reduces the oxygen supply to the heart muscle; and sudden hard exertion by people who have done no exercise in months. Emergency departments see a measurable rise in cardiac events in the day or two following a heavy snowfall.

Stop immediately and seek help for chest pressure or pain, discomfort spreading to the jaw, neck or arm, unusual shortness of breath, lightheadedness, cold sweat or nausea. Do not finish the driveway first. This is the part of the advice people ignore, and it is the part that matters most.

And be honest about whether you should be doing this at all. Known heart disease, a previous heart attack, uncontrolled blood pressure, or being over 55 and sedentary are all reasons to hand the job to a machine, a neighbor or a plow service. So is an existing disc problem. A cordless snow blower costs less than an ambulance ride, and a season of plowing costs less than either.

Wide view of a person clearing autumn leaves from a driveway with a blower, in warm evening lamplight

Afterward

Stretch gently — hip flexors, hamstrings, lower back — while you are still warm. Drink water. Expect ordinary muscle soreness the next day; that is fine. What is not fine is pain radiating down a leg, numbness or tingling in the foot, weakness in the leg, or any loss of bladder or bowel control, all of which indicate nerve involvement and warrant medical attention rather than a heat pack.

For ordinary strain, keep moving gently rather than going to bed — prolonged bed rest slows recovery for most simple back strain — and use ice for the first day or two, then heat. If the pain has not clearly improved within a few days, get it looked at.

The honest conclusion

The best technique for shoveling snow is to shovel less of it. Buy a pusher for the open pavement, keep a light scoop with a second handle for the steps and the berm, clear in layers during the storm rather than all at once afterward, and put ice melt down early enough that you are moving snow rather than chipping bonded ice. If you have a health reason not to be doing this, the machines and the plow contractors exist for exactly that reason, and using them is not giving up.