Do you suffer from a painful back after gardening?
This is the typical story, I don’t know what happened, I just got this pain in my back.
When did it start?
Oh, Monday actually. I didn’t do anything.
What did you do on the weekend?
Oh, I actually did some gardening. I was digging a trench.
How long were you doing that for?
About 2 hours on Saturday & Sunday.
There’s your answer.
You see gardening is the silent back pain cause. Especially common the day after the weekend.
The thing is, gardening can cause back pain because it’s so different to what we normally do during the week. Unless you’re a landscape gardener, you’re probably not digging trenches, sweeping leaves, weeding, building a retaining wall or mowing every day of the week. If you’re like most of us you’re sitting in front of a computer for 60+ hours a week.
So what can you do to avoid back pain after gardening?
The answer is simple. You need to warm up and cool down just like you would if you were at a gym or playing sport.
Here’s the analogy. If I asked you to go to the gym on Saturday & Sunday next week and spend 2 hours lifting, bending, twisting, reaching and arching, you’d probably end up with back pain on Monday.
Gardening or going to the gym have different outcomes, one makes your garden look nice the other makes you look & feel good. We don’t think of warming up because we don’t think of gardening as exercise. But it is.
So you need to perform a warm up that mimics the actions you are about to perform in the garden before you garden.
If you’re about to weed, then why not perform 20 squats as warm up?
If you’re about to sweep the drive, why not repeat the action of sweeping or raking? First without the rake, then with the rake.
If you’re about to clean the gutters, why not find a step and perform some step ups?
It’s easy copy what you’re about to do in the garden with a warm up exercise.
After you garden, you will need to do some static stretches. Static stretches are ones that you hold for 20+ seconds. Repeat them about 2-3 times.
In summary, prepare for gardening like you prepare for exercise & remember to cool down after you garden.
Dr Wayne
