Gardening as an Exercise – Here’s How to Do It! What many people don’t know about gardening is how therapeutic it feels when you take it up as a hobby. There’s no pressure, you can make as many mistakes as you want, and it doesn’t matter so long as the plant (and you) end up growing.

 

So it’s no surprise when we say that gardening, in and of itself, boosts both the mental and physical health of an individual. This means that gardening is inherently healthy; however, how healthy is it?

 

Gardening as an Exercise

 

Is gardening an alternative for exercise and gym workouts? Here’s what we found out about growing as an exercise and how you can do it!

 

Gardening – Can It Be Called A Workout?

 

Let’s not beat around the bush. According to the American Heart Association and Physical Therapists worldwide, gardening of any kind can be considered light to moderate exercise.

 

Because of that, the calories that you could be burning in the gym can also burn just by mowing, digging, raking, and overall just working in your garden! Not only is it great at burning calories, but it can also help with your overall endurance, ability, and functional movement.

 

The best part? Working in your garden doesn’t feel as antagonizing and anxiety-provoking as going to the gym. You have all the time in the world when you’re in your garden because there are no strangers around you.

 

Gardening And Weight loss

 

Gardening can indeed help with weight loss. Because of the stress-relief and positive mental health effects that gardening has, it significantly decreases that chance that you binge eat food out of anxiousness or boredom. It also reduces the time you spend in your kitchen or living room where people snack on anything they can get their hands on.

 

Gardening also encourages you to eat many more greens and fruits that may also be attributed to the weight mentioned above loss!

 

3 Ways To Make Gardening A More Intense Workout

 

If you’re serious about turning your gardening routine into a fully-fledged fitness routine, we can help you! These fitness tips can help intensify what you usually do when tending to your garden while not being too intense that you’d be left incredibly sore in the morning.

 

Widening Your Range Of Motion

 

This one is straightforward. Whenever you do anything, such as raking, increase the arc, and enhance how you do the action. A simple way of describing this is basically to try to accentuate over or exaggerate your efforts in the garden.

 

This does make each action incorporate a lot more parts of your muscle when doing something as simple as digging, raking, or even reaching overhead to cut a branch.

 

This will take a lot of practice because your body is already used to the habits that you’ve acquired in the garden, but trust us when we say that this will all be worth it in the end!

 

Lunging By Habit

 

Lunges are a frequent exercise that almost everyone has tried out at least once. You lunge forward with one knee bent, and usually, you’re holding dumbbells on both hands to add more to your weight. What a lot of people don’t know is that you can do this habitually in the garden!

 

The next time you try to pull weeds, dig, or trim the lower side of the hedge, try to lunge while doing it! Make sure your back muscles are straight, and you have a proper stance, though. Doing this with more extended tools will also help keep your back straight and not have to bend down too low.

 

Balance Everything Out

 

When working in the garden, make sure that you don’t have any bias to just one side of our body. This is common since we often feel more comfortable and finish tasks a lot quicker when using our dominant hand.

 

When working, pull one arm in as the other moves out. Do half of the task with one hand and then do the other half with the opposite side. This will make sure that the muscles that you use in your actions are balanced, and you can increase your overall power and muscle mass!

 

If you liked this article be sure to check-out more gardening articles here on Local NYC!

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