According to LifeMark Health Physiotherapy, the average gardener spends three hours at a time in the garden. That’s three hours of usually repetitive motions (hoeing, weeding, digging, raking) that can result in lower back injury, tendinitis, or other strain injuries.
“Back pain will affect over 85% of the population at some point during the course of their lives,” says LifeMark, so it’s worth taking steps to make gardening easier on the back. Here are some tips from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (OHS), which advises workers on safe job performance, along with some stretches recommended by LifeMark.
Table of Contents
Gardening often involves lifting, loading and unloading, and other motions similar to those of a materials handling job, so these suggestions from OHS have been adapted to the garden:
Other gardening tasks such as raking or digging also involve repetitive motions that can lead to back injury.
Just as a workplace will offer ergonomic workstations and special equipment to reduce injury, so to do garden centers offer a variety of aids to make gardening jobs easier.
OHS recommends that workers take frequent small breaks (where management permits) to stretch out, and the gardener should follow this advice. OHS also suggests planning heavy jobs for morning and lighter jobs for afternoon. In the garden, plan tasks such as hauling dirt or fertilizer for early in the gardening session when the body is fresh, and save lighter tasks for the end when you’re more tired.
LifeMark Health specifically recommends these stretches for gardeners:
For the arms:
For the Back & Legs
Although this information comes from qualified sources, please consult a physician or other healthcare professional for specific advice concerning the performance of these or other exercises.
Readers who found the tips in this article helpful may also want to read the following:
Most homeowners have probably spent hours looking at the different types of garden seeders. You may have even come across…
When it comes to vehicle lovers, cleaning their cars on a regular basis is essential to maintaining the paint job's…
Gas chainsaws are the perfect tool for a variety of outdoor tasks, including chopping up logs for firewood, clearing brush…
A home can be a daunting project, one that takes some time and energy to maintain. With hard work, determination,…
Today ginger is grown all over tropical and subtropical regions in Asia, in parts of Africa and South America, and…
Onions are one of the most popular vegetables in the world, and growing onions is a snap in the home…