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Getting ready for spring – gardening as exercise

Not only are vegetables good for you, but if you grow your own, gardening is great exercise if you can learn to think of it as a fun and enjoyable way to get fit rather than a chore. Not only are you breathing in the fresh air, gentle exercise like watering or gentle pruning is also is a stress reducer which cuts your chances of getting heart disease and high blood pressure. Heavier work, such as weeding, digging, hoeing, trimming and raking can burn up to three hundred calories in an hour and heaving digging, lifting, and raking certainly improve your muscle tone and strength. Gardening at a constant pace will also add aerobic benefit. Using manual clippers and a push along mower, rather than power equipment will give you an added exercise boost.

Of course, like any other exercise, you should warm up and stretch your muscles for ten to fifteen minutes before you begin gardening, and you might want to invest in one of the many bath products that contain kelp or other ‘muscle relaxing’ ingredients to give yourself a reward after a couple of hours of toil. Wearing gloves will help prevent blisters and cuts and never ever forget to apply sun cream of factor 15 or above to your face and hands if they are exposed. Even on a chilly day, the sun can be strong enough to burn you, and accumulative skin damage from sun exposure can lead to skin cancers.

Pay extra attention to your back when gardening. Use long-handled gardening tools to prevent improper bending. Bend at the knee and step forward as you raise and dump each shovel of soil. When picking up tools, bend at the knees and hips, not from the spine.

Exercise photograph by Deep9x, used under a creative commons attribution licence

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