SAFER WAYS

The healthiest ways to do household chores. This week: handling wet washing BEND from the knees to take yourself down to the level of the washing machine, rather than bending from the waist to pull washing out, so you don’t have to reach and lift at an odd angle, says Jon Bongcawel, a senior physiotherapist at Physio Med in Leeds. This is particularly important when washing is wet, because a wet load can weigh twice as much as a pile of dry clothes. This is true particularly if you fill a 7kg-capacity machine, which could see you lifting out as much as 14kg (30lb) of washing when it’s wet — that’s around the average weight of a twoyear-old child.