Everyone moves them around differently.  
 

I have a solid plan.  Usually I don’t put my truck at the boat ramp. I unload my kayak, put the wheels under it, toss everything back in haphazardly and roll it all back to the truck.  
 

yesterday the lake was quiet and the ramp was empty. I took my truck in to the ramp.  I put away gear and then lifted my kayak into the truck. 
 

now my back is tweaked!  Sore and tight.  Nothing serious.  Nothing rest and sticky pain pads won’t fix.  Plus time.  I’m gonna lay off kayak fishing for now.  We are in a hot post spawn too!!   Bah!  I visited stupidity, now I’m paying the cover charge.  
 

lift smart, fellow kayakers.  Don’t let the afterglow of a great trip erase your wisdom. Like it did me. 

I'm 31 and no stranger to back pain, but over the years I've learned to slow down a bit and think more about those kinds of lifts/movements. It's tough when you're amped up to either get out on the water ASAP or coming back in and already fatigued. 

I'm 60 in a few weeks.  I fish from my kayak a couple times a week nearly year round.  I haven't been pain free since sometime in 2015.

Back pain stinks.  I have a bit of lower back pain, but the killer is up in my neck.  It doesn't actually hurt up there, but if I tweak it, my hands go numb and there's pain in my upper arms.  Usually takes a couple visits to the chiro to fix it all.

I fractured two transverse processes in my lower back in a fall several years ago. I could be in a wheelchair or a cremation urn, so I try not to complain a lot about back pain. But it does limit my activity and I’m careful when I lift or bend. 

21 minutes ago, BrianMDTX said:

I fractured two transverse processes in my lower back in a fall several years ago. I could be in a wheelchair or a cremation urn, so I try not to complain a lot about back pain. But it does limit my activity and I’m careful when I lift or bend. 

Yea. I quit hunting out of a tree stand because of the potential for falling. And I have a great harness. I’m just not a great climber. Awkward almost. 
 

im glad you are okay. 

I am almost finished getting my Outback to the point where it can accept third party rails, which means I can get a Hullavator or other lift-assist system.  I am (relatively) young and in (relatively) good shape, but I had a near miss last year on a windy day. My choices were to let the yak fall and hit the ground from shoulder height and maybe hit my feet, or push it into my car.  I picked the latter and now have some nice scratches in the paint.  If that had failed to stop it then my side mirror would have been hit.  I looked around at the replacement cost for the mirror and decided that $600 for the Hullvator didn't sound so bad.  

18 hours ago, J Francho said:

Back pain stinks.  I have a bit of lower back pain, but the killer is up in my neck.  It doesn't actually hurt up there, but if I tweak it, my hands go numb and there's pain in my upper arms.  Usually takes a couple visits to the chiro to fix it all.

I have some weird upper neck stuff going on lately. Going to a chiro on Thursday for the first time ever, after years of my wife nagging me to because she loves going. Really hoping it's something they can help fix! At the very least maybe help fix my bad posture. 

Good luck, man.  Chiros are a little weird.  Take a good long walk after wards.  It helps settle things down.  I always walk after an adjustment.

I'm 50 and I've come to realize getting old means having some kind of discomfort almost constantly. Also, now I can choke on air and I'm clumsier than I've ever been. My balance sux. I get on the floor and put my feet up on an ottoman and stretch my back and neck when I've tweaked something. A weightlifter told me to always stretch whatever's sore and it definitely helps.

Once you tweek your back the first time, it never stops. Mine was cutting a full truck of firewood, no problem at all. Went to close cow gate and the spasms began, they haven’t really stopped since and that was a decade or so ago. Once I made a doctor appt because I couldn’t figure out how to put my feet on the ground from my bed. By the time the appt rolled around I was healthy and the doc of course didn’t help any, maybe a few decent pointers on how to lift a log. Sounds like you already know the drill, just rest it for a while 

3 hours ago, the reel ess said:

I'm 50.......Also, now I can choke on air .

Haha.  Man that was awesomely funny.  The other day I was talking and choked on my own saliva!   Preaching to the proverbial choir