It’s no secret that regular physical activity is beneficial for your joints and muscles, and can reduce pain and stiffness.
Gardening encompasses many types of exercise which can so easily be adapted to suit your ability, and is the perfect way to stay active and to keep your joints flexible and healthy.
Here at Churchill Private Hospital and Specialist Centre, our joint specialists consider gardening a great way to regain or maintain physical fitness and mobility.
In fact, if you break it down, gardening could be considered a complete workout for every part of your body. How?
Squatting
If you’re weeding, planting seeds or seedlings, then squatting is a good way to get down to the garden bed while getting a workout. Do this a few times, and you’ve probably done the equivalent of session at the gym on leg day.
Do you find squatting too hard on your knees or hip joints? Simply swap the squat for sitting or kneeling.
Bending
Bending down to pluck the weeds in the garden bed stretches your back, legs and arms – but only if you do it properly.
Remember to bend at the waist, try to keep your legs slightly apart and prepare to feel those hamstrings stretch.
Do you still find it difficult to bend far enough to reach the ground? Build a garden that is raised to suit your physical ability and bend only as far as you want to – but enjoy the stretch when you do.
Walking
Considered as one of the best types of exercise, walking is a given when you’re in the garden.
Think how much you move between the shed, the vegetable garden and the compost bin… or how many laps you do around the garden centre. It’s the perfect way to please your joints while doing something you enjoy.
Lifting
Like bending, lifting is beneficial to your joints if you do it right.
Remember to bend your knees, not use your back as a crane. And the item you’re lifting doesn’t need to be a 10kg bag of potting mix – even a shovel-full of dirt or a half-full watering can is enough to give your joints and muscles a good workout.
Hand and arm strength
Gardening is great for maintaining and building on strength in your hands and your arms. Pruning the fruit trees above your head, digging small holes for seedlings, tying up the tomatoes or bringing a rogue shrub under control is as good, if not better, as lifting a few weights in the gym.
Churchill Private Hospital and Specialist Centre is proud to support Rapaura Springs Garden Marlborough, 5 – 8 November 2020.
