Injury Prevention for Gardeners

Welcome spring and hello gardening season! With gardening there is a lot of bending, lifting and repetitive movements which can lead to sore muscles or injuries. Let’s learn to play in the dirt without injuring ourselves!

GO SLOW

I am sure through the winter months we have all gotten pretty cozy as couch dwellers. Please do not throw yourself into a full day of gardening chores. Some tips to follow to help calm your overzealous gardening soul:

1. Make a list of your gardening tasks and decide what ones are most important then start chipping away at this list each day
2. Gradually increase the amount of time you work at your gardening tasks each day. eg.// start with 30 minutes and then increase in increments of 10-15 minutes every couple of days

WARMING UP & COOLING DOWN

No matter what tasks or activities you are doing in life, this is super important. Your warm-up should reflect the movements that you need to do while gardening (lifting, reaching, bending, pulling, etc.). Here are a few exercises you can do to get your joints and muscles ready to move in the garden:

1. LIFTING: overhead presses, bicep curls
2. REACHING: side reaches, arm circles
3. BENDING: plank to downward dog, body weight squats, deadlifts
4. PULLING: rows, tricep kickbacks

In the off season the above exercises can be used in a daily program to build strength and mobility in preparation for gardening season. After spending time in the garden you want to make sure you stretch the muscles that you used. Here are some examples of static stretches to do:

1. UPPER BODY: pec stretch, tricep overhead stretch
2. LOWER BODY: quad stretch, seated hamstring stretch
3. SPINE/TORSO: child’s pose

USE PROPER FORM

I think that this is the most important prevention tip for injuries when gardening! In short: NO OVERREACHING!!! Tasks like raking or pulling old plants can cause us to overreach and start pushing our boundaries to our maximum ranges. To prevent overreaching you want to minimize your working space:

1. Get really close to your plants or tool to have a more stable stance
2. Small movements (eg.// short rake strokes)
3. Keep your feet moving to be stacked under your hips

I hope these tips help get you through your gardening task with ease… Happy Planting!

*Make Waves Therapy & Fitness is now located at Anytime Fitness gym in Kindersley*

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