Don’t Let a Surgeon Plan Your Life: Why Lifting Your Suitcase Shouldn’t Be a High-Risk Activity
Recently, The New York Times ran an article called “The Bad Habits Spine Surgeons Say to Avoid”—a clicky little chat where surgeons told us the everyday actions that allegedly ruin your back: lifting heavy luggage, helping friends move, even leaning over to tie your shoes.
And here’s the thing: I don’t doubt that these surgeons are highly skilled professionals. I also don’t think they should be giving advice about movement. Because here’s what most folks don’t realize: surgeons are trained to fix injuries, not to prevent them. That’s not a knock—it’s just not their domain.
It would be like asking me, a fitness coach, how to perform a spinal fusion. I might know vaguely where your spine is and what the operation does, but I’m not the guy you want in the OR. In the same way, surgeons often lack training in how people move, adapt, and strengthen themselves to avoid injury in the first place. They mostly see patients after the worst has already happened. That gives them a skewed perspective—it reminds me of the story about planes coming back from air battles with holes in their wings and the argument about where to up-armor them.
So when a bunch of spine surgeons tell you to never lift more than 25 pounds, never twist while bending, and maybe just avoid helping anyone ever again—what they’re really telling you is how to survive if you’re already hurting. Not how to live well.
Let’s be clear: this is terrible advice if your goal is to stay functional, strong, and independent. Sure, you could avoid lifting your suitcase into the overhead bin. Or you could train your body to do that movement with ease, so it’s not a problem in the first place.
Because here’s what I’ve seen, again and again: we don’t get hurt because we move—we get hurt because we don’t prepare to move. We fail at the margins of our experience. If the heaviest thing you’ve lifted in years is a grande latte and a tote bag, then yeah—trying to move a couch on a whim is going to wreck you. But if you regularly train with moderate intention and progression—even twice a week for 30 minutes—then that same task becomes no big deal.
At Lumos, we work with people of all fitness levels. Not elite athletes. Not meatheads. Just regular people who want to feel good in their bodies and move through life without fear. And we see it every day: people who couldn’t squat without pain when they started are now helping friends move, hoisting kids in and out of car seats, loading their own bags into the overhead compartment—without second guessing it.
This isn’t magic. It’s not even that hard. It’s just exposure, progressive overload, and consistency.
And here’s the real kicker: it actually improves your quality of life. The NYT article reads like a checklist for how to narrow your life down into a manageable corridor of sedentary safety. Don’t help people. Don’t carry things. Don’t lean forward. Don’t take risks.
That’s not health. That’s fear masquerading as wisdom.
We should be aiming for movement freedom—the ability to bend, lift, twist, run, jump, carry, and play without pain. And that goal doesn’t require you to live in the gym. It just requires you to show up, move with purpose, and stay curious about your own body.
So yes, I understand where the surgeons are coming from. But I’m here to offer the other side of the coin: you don’t need to compromise how you live just because you’re getting older. You just need to train for it.
And if you’re not sure where to start? That’s literally what we do. Every day. For people just like you.
