Is it possible to get a workout from weeding? You bet. Trim your flowerbeds and burn calories when you combine exercise, spring cleaning, yard chores and crafts to create a family-friendly National Gardening Exercise Day celebration on June 6 that will get the whole gang moving!
Whether you have a large landscape, small city lot or garden in containers, indoors or out, this is your opportunity to go out and burn off calories and have fun doing it. Plus, you will be nurturing beautiful flowers for bouquets and fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs for your dinner table.
The reality is, gardening IS exercise. The various tasks of gardening ultimately use all of the major muscle groups, not to mention that strenuous gardening activities such as raking, hoeing and digging are both aerobic and muscle strengthening.
So get out in the fresh air and substitute the phrase “yard work” with “yard exercise!” With a few small tips to get the most out of your gardening workout, tending your lawn or garden will no longer be a “chore” but a great way to achieve physical fitness:
Warm up by stretching your muscles for 5 to 10 minutes before heading out to the garden. Stretch again after 15 to 20 minutes of gardening. Treat gardening as you would any physical activity. Stretching will help relieve back strain and muscle soreness and avoid injury.
Mix it up. Using a variety of motions at a steady pace, perform the following moves: raking, mowing, weeding, pruning and digging. Alternate between them, every 15 minutes or so.
Bend at the knees, not at the waist, especially when lifting heavy items, and use long-handled tools for raking or hoeing to avoid back strain and pain.
Cool down by walking, picking flowers or vegetables or just enjoying the fruits of your “exercise.”
Now’s the time to go out and exercise with, and among, your plants!
