There is nothing more therapeutic or rewarding than looking after and taking care of your garden. In this vlog Nick gives you some tips and exercises that you can do, that will help you to take care not just of your garden, but also your body whilst you’re gardening.
The main thing that Nick looks at in this vlog, is how to get up, down and out of the positions that you need to be in whilst you’re gardening. As well as the exercises that you need to do to make sure that you don’t injure yourself in the process.
When we’re gardening, we spend most of our time bent over, Nick recommends getting into a kneeling position. This is safer than bending over from your hip. In our vlog, Nick shows Helen how to get into the kneeling position, she does this by putting one leg forwards, then gradually moving into a lunging position and sitting back on her heels. From there, she can comfortably lean forwards and undertake activities such as weeding or potting plants.
Nick also shows us how to comfortably get up and out of the kneeling position. This is done by straightening up our body and bringing one leg up so that one foot is comfortably on the ground. From there, we’ll need to lunge or kneel up, all whilst keeping our backs straight, and our posture in a neutral position.
After we have been leaning forwards weeding or potting plants for a long period of time, we need to do something to balance out the stress on our lower back. A stretch that Nick recommends is putting our hands on our lower back, from there we’ll arch backward, letting our hips come forwards, our shoulders back and then we’ll come back up to straight.
We don’t need to hold the position for a long period of time, we just need to arch backward, putting pressure on, and then taking pressure off of our lower backs. We can do up to ten of these stretches at a time. What this does is balance the forward flexion forces, with some backward forces on our lower back and spine. This balances out the forces preventing any injury on our spines, or the tissues around them.
These tips will help you to look after your back whilst you’re gardening; there are some exercises that may be specific to your individual conditions. To get that information it’s best to make an appointment with one of our Physios today.