As I sat outside the other day enjoying this great weather listening to the buzz 
of activity in the local gardens it occurred to me what a great exercise gardening is. Its out in the fresh air and involves a lange of movements that activate all the muscle groups.
If you came to me at the gym I would take you though a balanced routine involving pushes, pulls, lifts, core and some cardio vascular activies. This would use several muscles and avoid over-working any particular group. It’s also a good idea to include a variety of activity in the ‘garden workout’. If I asked you to spend three hours doing
‘squats’ in the gym, you would probably be quite sore the next day and wouldn’t
thank me at all! Just like the gym, doing 30-45 minutes of activity three time
per week will help get better results that an occasional ‘warrior’ session
lasting several hours leaving you painful and regarding the activity as a
chore.
I’ll leave you to work out your own routine, and here are some thoughts you might like to try:
- Do warm up before getting the spades and hoes out: this prepares the body for action. Take each joint gently through its range of motion.
- Alternate low level activities like planting and weeding with high level activities like pruning every few minutes and try to change position frequently.
- Mow the lawn using a pushing and pulling pattern first with left foot forward and then right foot forward or mow the lawn in stripes, so that you turn left at one end and right at the other.
- Make sure you engage the core muscles (think about squeezing the navel to the spine) each time you lift, push or pull.
- Use the powerful leg muscles to lift and stand from kneeling, rather than bend over from the waist.
- Separate rubbish into smaller bags and do several smaller lifts rather than a single maximal weight lift of a heavy bag which might cause injury.
- When doing low level work, try a lunge position and support the upper body using one arm on the front leg if necessary and then swap sides.
- Do cool down and gently stretch after the session to let the muscles relax.
Do enjoy your garden.
