Top Tips from Plym Physio for Gardeners!

It’s National Gardening Week from Monday 30th April to Sunday 6th April and at Plym Physio we thought we would give some pointers on how you can keep your body healthy, while you are busy keeping your plants healthy!

It’s that time of year when we decide to get the garden ready for summer. It can be a busy time for Physio’s because if there is ever and example of ‘boom and bust’, gardening is it!!

We go out and bend over, dig repeatedly, prune, weed and all of this generally for hours continuously. In essence you do far more of an activity in one go than you have done for the last 6 months! You wouldn’t go out for a 3 hour run only ever having dashed down a road before, yet we make the most of any good weather and garden, garden, garden.

You could be lucky and just get some DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) or you may fair a bit worse. So what can you do to prevent this?

Top Tips from Plym Physio

• Think about duration – do you need to do it all in one go? Try and break it down into bitesize chunks if you can. We know in this rather wet part of the world gardening has to be done when the weather permits, but perhaps some things can be left for another sunny day.
• Break up and vary activity. For example, 20-30 minutes of bent over weeding then change position, maybe something upright; pruning, raking, mowing etc.
• Leg strength. This is vital for force production and absorption – use your legs and keep your back relatively straight. get the legs, bums and tums doing as much of the work as possible.
• Instead of bending, try 1/2 kneeling or full kneeling but sitting back towards your heels, both with a straight back.
• Break up static postures with some big movements – arm swings, total body rotation, back extensions or leg swings. These exercises (and videos to demonstrate) can be found on our ‘One Simple Exercise’ blog post – click HERE to read.

And if you do overdo it, we are available for Physio or Sports Massage appointments, our contact details can be found HERE and opening times HERE.

So, from our gardening clinic to your gardening home, Happy National Gardening Week!

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