Connections: Strength Training in the
Garden
By Nancy Yergin, MS,
RD, LDN, Forest County Penn State Extension
I love
to garden because it's one of the best ways I know of getting in some
regular exercise. I get up every day and walk around the beds, discovering
what grew since yesterday, getting at least one of my five or more-a-day
vegetable servings by nibbling on raw vegetables (asparagus this month), and
pausing here and there to lean over and
tweak out a weed seedling. I even enjoy pushing the lawn mover around my
yard. I push myself to complete the job in an hour or less and collapse into
a chair on the porch to catch my breath and (eventually) admire the end
result.
My friend visiting from the big city sits in the shade and watches me push,
shove, and sweat. I stagger out of the garage with a mattock and shovel and
attack the remains of
an old fruit tree stump which has annoyed me since I bought the property.
She snaps a picture of me, triumphant and sweaty, standing next to the huge
upturned root mass
which I've pried out of the ground. "I don't know why you don't get someone
to do your lawn work for you," she says, "You look exhausted." "What?" I
gasp, mopping the perspiration off my face, "and let someone else have all
the fun?"
Yes, it's true; I garden for the exercise it provides. Physical exertion is
a great stress buster. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
recommend increased and sustained cardiovascular elevation for thirty
minutes daily. Gardening does this for me. The American College of
Sports Medicine recommends twenty to sixty minutes of aerobic exercise (same
thing), three to five times a week, for optimal fitness, with two to three
strength workouts per week. Heck, I can do this twice a week just pushing
the lawnmower.
Most notably, this type of exercise strengthens your heart and lungs. These
two vital organs -- especially the heart -- bear the brunt of the body's
physiological stress response, constantly being called upon to "fight or
flee" from job, school, family, financial, relationship, and every other
kind of stressor we confront daily. I feel stronger when I garden. I am
flexible enough to still get down on my hands and knees
(getting up is a little harder) but I can do it. Heel spurs and arthritic
hands slow me down but the tasks get checked off on my "to do" list.
Gardening means different things to different people. To me, gardening means
sweating and getting dirty. Gardening means having four different kinds of
work gloves and still getting dirt under your fingernails because you never
have a pair on when you discover a clump of grass wedged behind a perennial
clump. Gardening includes knowing how many bales of straw will fit in the
back seat of a Toyota Corolla, buying more seeds than you can possibly
plant, turning a compost pile, and keeping after the weeds. It's more than
food and more than exercise. Gardening is fun--and I intend to do it for a
long, long time.
Questions or comments on this or other columns? Nancy Yergin can be reached via email at
NLY1@PSU.EDU.
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