DIY Network

Gardening a Productive Road to Fitness

Master gardener Maureen Gilmer, host of Weekend Gardening, explains how doing yardwork can substitute for a trip to the gym.

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	Gardening keeps you grounded to the simpler, more fulfilling aspects of natural living. (All photos courtesy of Maureen Gilmer)
	Growing beautiful flowers creates a peaceful escape from daily stress.
	Exercise and time spent outdoors is the recipe for a rewarding garden.

Benefits of gardening extend beyond those of a gym

By Maureen Gilmer

Do you go to a yoga class? It's the question repeated every day in America, as our aging population seeks to improve coordination and flexibility. I thought about yoga for a while, but after a weekend working in my garden I'd had all the flex and extend I could handle.

A recent study has proven that gardening activities can parallel many of our most popular exercise routines. Pruning trees and shrubs takes the same amount of effort as walking. Raking and gathering leaves equals riding a bicycle at 10 mph. Digging, laying sod and stacking wood is as strenuous as playing softball. Mowing the lawn may just be as good as aerobics for keeping fit!

While there are a lot of variables in those examples, they illustrate how doing real work in your yard can substitute for a trip to the gym. A typical day working in my garden has me on my knees, stretching into shrubs and trees, digging, pulling weeds, hauling garbage cans filled with refuse and carrying big bags of amendments. It makes me strong in ways that are practical, if not ways governed by a gym exercise machine.

There's also solid evidence that working in your garden can save you the cost of a therapist! It's considered an ideal way to free the mind from the complexities of work, family life and social issues. It's also the antithesis of the sedentary high-tech world of computers. Gardening puts you back in touch with the earth and natural things that rekindle your connection to your environment.

Taking care of plants also satisfies the human instinct to nurture. There is a big payoff for these efforts when a plant grows and blooms spectacularly. There is no question that we gain a far greater personal reward from a homegrown plant brought up from slip or seed than one we purchased all grownup.

The Virginia Cooperative Extension Service has put together a really great collection of informative articles on the benefits of working in your garden. You'll find them online at www.ext.vt.edu. For those with disabilities or anyone in their mature years, the site's gardening and health section also features excellent writeups on how to garden more wisely. It's convenient to find such an inclusive series of illustrated articles in one place that is accessible and printer friendly.

You'll learn how to avoid problems with repetitive motion injuries in a piece discussing carpal tunnel syndrome. Another section details helpful tips for those with arthritis. And a piece titled "Protecting Your Knees and Back" will help everyone avoid common stress and strain to these sensitive weight-bearing joints.

To protect yourself from disfiguring cuts, scratches and injury, read "Protecting Your Hands and Feet." Better cope with the heat of the summer season by reading "Summer Heat" and the very important tips in "Sunburn & Skin Cancer."

Don't overlook the detailed files on two very important insect-related issues. "Ticks" helps you avoid bites that can lead to Lyme disease. "West Nile in North America" is an extensive pdf file that contains detailed information on mosquito prevention and control, as well as personal protection.

Despite all these caveats, gardening remains one of the most productive roads to good fitness with a minimal risk of injury.

Many old timers scoff at the idea of going to a gym. They believe that good old-fashioned work in the home garden or vegetable patch is a much better road to health and fitness. In their minds, physical exertion with rewards like fresh veggies, fruits and flowers makes a whole lot more sense than sweating on a treadmill. In so many ways they are right, because the psychological payoff of gardening reaches into more parts of our life than we know.

So ask yourself what sounds better: to create, nurture and harvest amidst the beauty of nature, or pay money to sweat indoors.

(Maureen Gilmer is a horticulturist and host of Weekend Gardening. E-mail her at mo@moplants.com. For more information, visit: www.moplants.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)

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