My Health “Gardening”

Have fun but don’t hurt yourself in the garden. Although you may not think of gardening as a sport, in reality it can result in as many injuries as a number of sports. One of the main contributing factors to gardening injuries is that many gardeners think of the activity as a casual afternoon and therefore inadequately warm up, stretch or prepare. Don’t worry the warm up “will grow on you”

Asides from doing a proper warm up there are several gardening tips you can heed to avoid ending up in a vegetative state!

• Use a gardening stool or pad for extended periods of weeding or planting.
• Plant as many of your plants in raised flower beds in order to avoid the need for bending much at all!
• Take frequent breaks to mix up your positioning, no body part takes kindly to sustained positioning.
• Do one light task such as weeding for around 20 minutes, then switch it up to something heavier, like digging or hauling dirt for another 20. To make it easy, think about getting three types of gardening activities in each hour.
• When lifting heavy items including soil bags or your wheelbarrow use your legs and not your back. Keep your back in a fairly straight position and gently pull in your tummy muscles before lifting in order to help support your torso. Your legs are strongest when they are bent only halfway so don’t squat too far before standing back up again. Keep the load close into your body and don’t twist while lifting or setting items down; move your feet to get the item there.
• Twisting can easily cause injury when weeding or doing light tasks, try to turn your feet and or hips as often as possible to complete your tasks to avoid unnecessary stresses on your back.

Common gardening injuries include:

• Neck Pain
• Lower back pain
• Shoulder Tendonitis
• Tennis elbow
• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
• Patellar bursitis

Your Chiropractor can help you with stretches and exercises to help prevent problems, or if you have already hurt yourself are well placed to treat all common garden injuries.