How To Avoid Injuries From Kneading (Here’s 2 Tips)

How To Avoid Injuries From Kneading, to make homemade bread at home without the risk of being injured and getting sore back or arms.

When starting to make your own bread, you might notice you get some sore back and achy muscles in the arms and wrist is normal, but if you notice that the pain is more severe, you might need to visit your family doctor to ask for some advice.

Kneading bread dough is a hard work to do for beginners and for some people, as it needs to work on kneading the dough for some time until dough is done as the recipe says, as there are many different recipes, the kneading time may be different from one recipe to the other.

Note: I’m not a doctor so I can’t give you a medical advice, on my job as a baker in my own small artisan bakery and as a baking teacher, I know people are different and some can do this task well, when some can’t do it, and the best tip for you is if you notice any pain on your back or on your arms and hands, stop baking and get medical advice.

How To Avoid Injures From Kneading

As a person who has been making bread as a hobby or as a small artisan bakery, where the amount of bread is low, I tend to combine kneading dough by hand and with the stand mixer, which it makes most of the hard work of kneading for me.

It’s well-known about the idea of making bread the need to do it by hand, the old kneading fashion, after being making bread for a few years, and taking different baking courses, I see many bakers rely on their machines to do the hard work of kneading any type of dough, and work on the process of shaping the bread by hand.

By doing this way of having a good stand mixer at home, your homemade bread will not lack of the quality of those breads made by hand only, and it will give you the extra hand to do better and without the risk to get any injuries.

But if you don’t have a stand mixer at home, or you don’t want to get one to make your bread in the traditional way, there is two things to pay attention to.

Kneading Table High

If you ever visit an artisan bakery, you might notice every bakery has a big wooden table in the center of the bakery, it’s hard not to notice it.

On this table the baker will do most of the task for making any type of bread, weigh the ingredients, knead the dough, shape the bread, and work on the egg washing and adding the toppings on the bread before putting it in the oven.

Some bakeries will get their work table from a carpenter and with specific measures, by doing this, the baker will know the table will be the best for them to work on all the steps to make any bread recipe.

At home, we can’t have a table with the right measures to make our bread, and also, we all have different heights, our kitchens were made following some measures in general when constructing a house.

Our job as a home baker is to take the time to measure how high is the table where we make our bread, if you are tall, you might need to add a wooden surface on your work table to make easier for you to make any dough.

If you are short, you can get a piece of wood big enough where you can step on while you knead your dough, by doing this, you will avoid getting your back sore or injured and it will also help to avoid any arm pain.

Kneading Technique

Some home bakers are lucky to go to school or to take some courses where they can learn the right kneading technique, by doing this, you can make any type of dough without getting injured.

Some other home bakers, might learn to make their own bread at home as they help another family member or a friend who loves to make their own bread.

We all learn by watching others making something, same happens when we watch someone who is kneading a dough.

If the baker who is sharing with us his/her best tips to make a dough has the right kneading technique, we will learn how to do it by watching him/her doing it.

Some bakers take their time to explain how to do it to anyone who is interested to start baking, you always can approach and ask him/her for their best tips.

If you’re interested on learning about the right way to knead a dough, my recommendation here will be to watch some YouTube videos from a well-known baker and who is sharing some tips about the right way to knead a bread dough.

Listing here the right way to knead a dough, will be hard, as there are many different recipes to make different types of bread, and most of these recipes have their own way to knead the dough.

By my own experience, the best tip I can give you is always as a beginner, start with an easy to make recipe, one that doesn’t require much time kneading, then as you learn how to do it, look for another recipe that might need more minutes of kneading.

Our bodies will get stronger as we work with some easy to make doughs, then you will notice as you get more experience and your body gets stronger, you will be able to make more quantities of bread dough or a bread that has more kneading time and technique.

Related: What Is The Best Way To Learn Baking –

Avoid Injures From Kneading – Closing Thoughts

Learning how to do the kneading technique for each recipe, will help you to make any bread without the risk of getting injured.

Always pay attention to your body and when you notice that your back, arms or wrists are getting sore, look for medical advice from your doctor.

Keep in mind that getting a stand mixer in your kitchen, it will do the hard work for you and your bread will not lose the artisan characteristics.

We hope you find the help you were looking for to avoid any injures from kneading your bread dough at home here, if you have any more tips to help other people who loves to bake their own bread at home, share it on a comment, this way we all learn from each others!

Happy Baking!

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