Do you experience pain after gardening?

We’re coming to that time of year where a sun-filled weekend means more time working on the garden. For most of us, this results to a sense of achievement and a more aesthetic space to enjoy. Others can end up experiencing pain after gardening which then affects other aspects of their life.

Gardening is one of those activities that tends to be something that we don’t do all winter. We then get carried away as soon as we have a few dry days in a row. Add to that the fact that most of the gardening jobs early in the year involve heavier work such as digging and weeding.

The problem with doing a strenuous activity that you haven’t done for 6 months is that your body is not as prepared as it could be. This is why many people experience pain after gardening. Their muscles, joints, etc haven’t learnt to tolerate the demands that gardening places on the body.

If you haven’t read my previous post on Load Tolerance, I highly recommend that you go back and read it. The post covers in more detail why suddenly exposing the body to more load than it can tolerate can lead to pain and sensitivity. It also covers the difference between sensitivity and damage. Understanding this can help when making a plan to recover from your pain.

Imagine the following…

• Getting up and down from the floor multiple times.
• Pulling on stubborn weeds or tree roots.
• Shifting a heavy plant pot.
• Moving a full wheelbarrow to the other side of the garden.
• Clipping hedges whilst holding the clippers above your head.

These are just a few examples of the strenuous tasks that gardening entails. They also happen to be a lot of movements that our bodies aren’t exposed naturally on a day to day basis.

Just thinking of doing these for 3-4 hours straight is exhausting. It isn’t hard to see why some of us will experience pain after gardening.

This doesn’t mean stop gardening!

Now, this isn’t a post designed to put you off gardening due to fear of injury. Far from it, gardening is a fantastic activity and is a great form of exercise to keep doing. I want everyone to stay as active as possible!

I’m also not going to tell you that you are only allowed to do 15 minutes in the garden at a time before having a 30minutes break. Whilst it is an approach that can help avoid pain, I realise that this is very unrealistic. Most of us get stuck into a project and carry on till it’s done, only after finishing do we realise that it has taken 2 hours to complete.

So how do I prevent pain after gardening?

For those of you that have read my previous posts, you won’t be surprised by the approach that I recommend to reduce the chance of pain after gardening…

…Prepare your body in advance!

Many of the movements listed above can be replicated in the gym (or your home gym). By loading our muscles, joints, etc in advance in the same way that gardening will, we prepare the body for a weekend in the garden.

Lets look a the list again and see what exercises might replicate them:

• Getting up and down from the floor multiple times.

• Pulling on stubborn weed or tree root.

• Shifting a heavy plant pot.

• Moving a full wheelbarrow to the other side of the garden.

• Clipping hedges whilst holding the clippers above your head.

You now have a strength program!

We have identified 5 exercises that replicate 5 gardening movements that I quickly thought up on the spot. (p.s. I’m no gardener, just decking and paving in my small garden). This is the start of a nice program that you could do 2-3 times per week.

Not only does it contain 5 of the 7 Functional Movements, but it is built with you and your gardening in mind. This makes the motivation to continue with your strength training much easier as you can imagine yourself in the garden whilst doing each exercise. You can read more about maintaining motivation in my post on Goal Setting.

Thinking of Starting?

If you are thinking of starting strength training after reading this then there is one more post I recommend you read. What are reps and Sets? This will give you an idea of how many repetitions of each exercise you should be doing to achieve your goals.

If you are unsure or lack the confidence to start then I recommend you see a physiotherapist or strength and conditioning coach to help get you started especially if you are already experiencing any form of pain.

Can you think of any other movmements?

What other movements do you do in the garden? What exercise can you think of that replicates these? Leave a comment below and let me know what you think of.

This post was written by myself, Chris Tiley, a physiotherapist based out of Movement Therapy Clinics in Harborne, Birmingham. For more information on how I can help you visit christileyphysiotherapy.com