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If you have ever raked, hoed or weeded a garden bed you already know that gardening is a good workout. However, if you think about it, from the viewpoint of human physiology, no one has ever shown us "how" to garden. We've been too concerned about planting a row of beans, growing our prized rose or maintaining the perfect lawn. And as a result, we strain our backs by bending improperly and become sore from repeating the same motion for hours.
I coined the term "Get Fit Through Gardening" in 1992 to describe a systematic approach to expanding and integrating the exercise, nutritional and psychological benefits of gardening. In this article I will focus on the exercise portion.
Learning Get Fit Through Gardening is, in many ways, best for someone who has never gardened before. I'm asking you to change habits you've developed over many years. In particular, I borrow heavily from aerobics, resistance training and the martial arts. If you have gardened for years all I ask is that you keep an open mind, allow yourself time, and use what is comfortable for you.
Get Fit Through Gardening is comparable to going to the spa and returning to a bushel basket of fresh tomatoes, peppers and zucchini -- every time! It's like running for five miles and your reward is a fresh garden salad. Or power walking for an hour and mysteriously finding a years supply of fresh herbs for your table. Sounds too good to be true? It's not. Get Fit Through Gardening is old yet very new.
Get Fit Through Gardening is simple yet complex.
An Aerobic Gardener gardens while exercising.
An Aerobic Gardener exercises while gardening.
Get Fit Through Gardening will change your life -- style.
An Aerobic Gardener doesn't focus on having a perfect lawn, the perfect rose or the largest tomato. An Aerobic Gardener focuses on exercising while doing something meaningful and enjoyable. It's about eating fresh fruits and vegetables he grows himself, thinking pleasant thoughts and using the gardening process to relax his mind and improve self-esteem.
Sounds way out? Not really. Get Fit Through Gardening is full of old- fashioned family values such as spending time with our children and grandchildren and caring for the environment as well as virtues such as patience, perseverance and tolerance.
Think about it, why is jumping around in leotards for thirty minutes exercise yet digging a hole to plant an apple tree work? It all boils down to one simple concept, changing the way you think about "yard work". Change it to "yard exercise." You're now doing one thing to achieve another. An Aerobic Gardener substitutes the phrase "exercising in the yard" for "working in the yard". It's a subtle yet profound difference.
Please consult with your physician before starting this or any other exercise program. While it may appear strange to request permission from your doctor to garden, Get Fit Through Gardening can be every bit as strenuous as playing tennis or jogging. The core concepts of Get Fit Through Gardening are aerobics, resistance training and balance. Get Fit Through Gardening Plan to garden at least three times a week for a minimum of thirty minutes - preferably an hour. If you're not in good condition absolutely avoid marathon sessions of four and eight hours of weeding, raking or hoeing. You will be sore all week.
Warm up: Stretch your arms and legs for five minutes. Touch your toes. If your knees will permit, bend your legs at the knees in a half-squat position and alternate touching your right hand to your left foot and your left hand to your right foot. Breathe deeply. Walk briskly around the garden. Again, if you're not in shape, work into this slowly. Allow yourself several weeks to build up your muscles.
Start as early in the spring as possible. When it's either too cold or raining outside, stretch inside the house for five to fifteen minutes. Plan out three or more separate activities/motions. Each one can range from five minutes to an hour or more.
Some examples: Six ways to rake, hoe and weed.
Bend one leg, knee down to the ground, keep the other foot flat,
Bend both legs in a kneeling position.
Squatting - known as the "Oriental Squat" this may be uncomfortable at first but can be learned after significant practice. Lunge and weed (my personal favorite). Using a hand-weeder, you will lunge with on leg straight back and bend one knee in front of you.
Sitting: If you're knees, feet or legs won't permit much bending then sit and garden.
Exercise your arms and waist. Use long handled tools.
Standing, with knees bent, back straight in a crouch position, raking in a wide, sweeping motion. Other activities include: mowing the lawn, pruning, planting trees or bushes, preparing flower beds, lifting potted plants, and turning the compost pile.
Exaggerate your motions. Keep them smooth and steady. Rake or hoe in wide, sweeping motions. Maintain a steady breathing rate as you rake, dig or hoe. For optimal aerobic benefits, strive to elevate your heart rate to 80% of maximum.
Cool down: Walk briskly around the garden. Plant or pick flowers or vegetables.
Resistance Gardening Resistance Training is often associated with lifting weights and youth. However, recent studies have shown that resistance training is beneficial at any age, and particularly good for seniors.
Resistance training concepts can be added to gardening motions: Repetitions and sets: A repetition is how many times you do something. For example, raking in and out twenty-five times would be twenty-five repetitions. A set is how many groups of twenty-five you do. Therefore, you can rake in five sets of twenty-five. Do you need to count? Absolutely not. But thinking in terms of repetitions and sets increases the exercise benefits of gardening.
Breathing: Breathe in and out as you garden. While this might appear obvious, you would be surprised and how often you hold your breath during strenuous activity. When you rake, breathe out as you extend the rake, breathe in as you pull it in.
Lifting: Whether you're lifting a wheelbarrow, a potted plant or concrete blocks the motion is the same -- keep your back straight, bend from your knees and use your legs not your back. Done properly and in moderation, lifting heavy objects can be beneficial to your arms, shoulders and legs. Once again, since the focus is now on your needs, avoid planting twenty bushes or moving a ton a sand in one day.
Digging: While digging the motion is the same, bend your knees as you dig. Use your legs, your largest muscle alternate between a right-handed and left-handed stance.
Post hole digger: Typically we use a post hole digger when building a fence. But as your newest exercise tool, use it frequently for short periods of time. Once a week dig one or two holes for bushes or perennials. As part of a balanced workout, plan to use a posthole digger for five minutes every time you work out in the garden. I enjoy fishing during the summer and I use the posthole digger to create deep holes for my fish discards. It's an organic fertilizer, a lesson in recycling, and a great workout.
Add resistance: Sometimes, when I have only twenty to thirty minutes to exercise in the garden I strap on wrist and ankle weights. Weights are available in one, two and three pound increments. If you use extra weights, keep your motions smooth and start slowly. As soon as your feel tired, take them off.
Add Workout Structures to your garden: I've built a pull- up/chin-up bar, a dip bar and a sit-up board in my backyard. My "gym" is only a few steps away from my back door. After mowing the lawn, planting some flowers or picking vegetables, I always try to get in a few sets of pull-ups, dips and sit-ups.
Balance: Think of how your parents or grandparents gardened. The garden was usually large. It required a tiller. The focus was on large quantities of vegetables and they often spent all day digging, weeding and picking, sun-up to sundown. That's not our goal. My goal is to inspire you to add a component of Get Fit Through Gardening into your lifestyle. How much or how little is up to you. Therefore I recommend balance:
In the context of gardening for exercise, the term balance has many meanings. Here are but a few:
| Traditional Gardening | Balance | Get Fit Through Gardening |
| Large, Unmanageable Garden | ...migrate to... | Small, Stress-Free Garden |
| Summer Garden | expands exercise time | by planting a Spring, Summer and Fall Garden |
| Raking right-handed | alternate with | Raking Left-handed |
| One stance / motion | ... now you will ... | Vary between six ways of weeding and multiple standing stances |
| Grow lots of one type of vegetable | ....now you will... | Grow a few of a variety of interesting or unusual varieties. /TD> |
| Grow fruits and vegetables for survival | ...now you can... | Grow fruits, vegetables and herbs for fun /TD> |
| Garden for 4, 6, 8 hours in one day. | ...as exercise... | Garden in short sessions of twenty to sixty minutes |
| Heavy Workouts | ....alternate with.. | Light Workouts |
| Sports & Exercise for fitness | cross training with | Gardening for fitness |
| Exercising to Garden | alternate / do both | Gardening to Exercise |
| Use same muscles all day | ....focus on.... | Varying garden workouts to purposely exercise arms, legs, back, stomach and chest. |
Traditional Gardening Tools
Most garden tools were not developed ergonomically -- that is, with human anatomy in mind. One example is the multitude of tools with short four foot handles. Unless you're about four foot-eleven, a four foot handle will cause you to bend over from the back as you rake, hoe or dig. This will strain your back. Poorly designed tools are one of the leading reasons why so many people injure their back while gardening.
Another problem is the motion of certain tools. For example, the motion of hoeing is not particularly good for you. Continually picking up the hoe up and down favors raising it from you lower back. Always strive to use your legs, arms and shoulders as you rake or hoe. New tools, such as the scuffle hoe, and swan-neck hoes and rakes (available from Gardeners Supply Co. 1-800-955-3370) have an angled cutting edge and are mainly used in a pushing and pulling motion, not an up and down motion. This pushing/pulling motion is an excellent cardiovascular motion that exercises legs, arms, shoulders and back.
Hand tools My favorite hand tool is the hand weeder (available from Smith and Hawken, 1-800-776-3336). The razor-sharp, thin blade is perfectly angled for digging or slicing weeds at the base. Also, the tool is used in a pushing / pulling motion as opposed to a chopping motion. Both right and left-handed models are available furthering their value as an exercise tool.
Top ten misconceptions about gardening for fitness
| Gardening Misconception | Get Fit Through Gardening Way of Thinking |
| Being fit is exercise or sport | Doing something meaningful can help you be fit. Get Fit Through Gardening is good for the environment and can be a primary fitness program. |
| A bigger (vegetable, flower, tree) is better than a smaller one. | An artifact from 4-H clubs and county fairs. Bigger is not better. Smaller, younger vegetables taste better. |
| Bigger, taller, faster is part of fitness. | Again, part of the bigger is better mode of thinking. Gardening is a fitness program where young and old, fast and slow, big and small all compete on the same playing field. |
| It's better and cheaper to just buy fruits and vegetables at the grocery store. | Every apple tree I plant, every flower bed I prepare expends thousands of calories. Why is it running nowhere for a half hour is exercise and planting four tomato plants or raking leaves is work? |
| There's nothing to do in the winter. | Buy a greenhouse, join a gardening club, start plants from seeds, rake leaves, recycle aluminum cans, cross-train, turn the compost pile, edge your garden beds with a spade, build a hot bed/ cold frame. Keep busy. Stay active. |
| Gardening is work. Gardening always makes you sore. | This idea is perpetuated by the media (easier is better), bad tools, bad habits and gardens that were too big or not suited to the local climate. Instead, embrace the physical part of gardening. Exercise! |
| You have a bad back, bad knees, bad feet, or arthritis. You are too old, too young or too tired. Therefore you cannot garden. | Horticultural Therapy deals with techniques and tools that allow those with physical disabilities to enjoy gardening. Raise the garden beds to waist height. Use adaptive tools, select varieties for hardiness. |
| You have a brown thumb. | There is no such thing. Growing plants is not magic.
It is a matter of:
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| Traditional gardening is the same as Get Fit Through Gardening | No. Traditional gardening focuses on the plants we grow. Get Fit Through Gardening focuses on people. Adding stretching, aerobics, resistance training, and balance dramatically increase the physical benefits of gardening. |
| If it's not perfect, why bother? | Striving for perfection can often add stress to an already stressful life. Plants are non-judgmental and very tolerant. Grow a wildflower garden, a butterfly garden, or a cottage (freeform) garden. Gardening is the perfect complement to an exacting profession such as computer programming, medicine, law, accounting and engineering. Your personal enjoyment is paramount (not what your neighbors think!) |
For more information, my book, Fitness the Dynamic Gardening Way, is available!
Get Fit Through Gardening Home Page | In a Nutshell | Overview | Misconceptions | National Gardening Exercise Day | Get Fit Through Gardening links | vs sports | /Swap for a thighmaster offer | Top Questions | Traditional Gardening | Jan2000 article | Feb2000 article | My Turn article | Top Questions | What You Can Do Today | Stretching Program | Dynamic Gardening | Biography | Politics | E-Mail
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| Home Page | This page updated March 17, 2008 |