Investigation of Linguistic Expressions of Lifting Motion or Posture among Experts in Exercise Instruction

The manual lifting of objects is considered to be a risk factor for low back pain (LBP). Although the association between lifting motions and LBP is controversial, it is believed that lifting motions that involve flexion of the knee joint as well as the hip joint (squat method) are appropriate for preventing LBP, in contrast to motions that do not flex the knee and involve forward bending of the trunk (stoop method). The purpose of this study was to investigate how experts in exercise instruction linguistically express lifting motion or posture by the squat method. Twenty-seven high school or university physical education teachers or certified exercise instructors were presented with a photograph of a lifting motion and asked what expression would be used when instructing about the squat method. 70-80% of the participants answered that it was easy to give instructions about the lifting motion verbally. The most common expressions were those relating to ‘hip position’, squatting, ‘trunk posture’ and ‘gaze’. However, the highest response rate for these expressions was 55%, and there were no common expressions among most of the participants. These results indicate that there is a variety of terms used to express the same motion or posture, even among experts in exercise instruction, and they suggest that expressions vary among different experts.