Skip to main content

How to turn your gardening routine into a workout

Gardening: it’s a hobby, a lifestyle, a passion. But did you know you can also utilize gardening as exercise? It’s true! Gardening can actually benefit your health in so many ways, and with a few focused changes, you’ll be able to turn your routine into a workout just in time for National Gardening as Exercise Day.

A woman inspecting and harvesting crops
Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock

Is gardening really a workout?

The American Heart Association considers gardening to be a form of moderate-intensity exercise. Not only are you getting your body moving, but you’re also engaging muscles in your legs, arms, and core as you dig holes, rake leaves, and squat down to pull weeds and plant seeds. It keeps your joints and bones moving, gets you outside for some fresh air, and let’s face it, who doesn’t love counting their passion as their daily workout routine?

Gardening can also help you maintain a healthy bone density. A study done by the University of Arkansas found that “bicycling, aerobics, dancing, yard work, and weight training were linked to higher levels of mineral density. The researchers then performed a regression model analysis — a statistical assessment that examined each activity independently, ensuring that no two overlapped. The results showed only two activities to be significant for maintaining healthy bone mass — yard work and weight training.”

Although gardening is a good workout practically speaking — it engages the four main types of exercise: balance, strength, flexibility, and endurance — it’s also good for the mind. You’re outside in fresh air, soaking up sunlight, and you get the satisfaction and reward of admiring your hard work when it’s done.

How it can improve your overall health

People who utilize gardening as exercise enjoy a variety of health benefits, including a reduction in BMI. Studies have linked gardening with weight loss, showing that the odds of gardeners becoming overweight are lower than that of nongardeners. Plus, there’s nothing better than growing your own fruits and veggies! Gardening encourages you to adopt a healthier lifestyle by growing your own salad makings in your backyard. It fosters a feeling of deep satisfaction that you were able to successfully grow something edible as well as enjoy its delicious taste. It’s much more rewarding than a trip to the store!

It benefits your mental health, too!

Although the physical benefits are great, gardening has the ability to improve your mental well-being, too. You get time in the sun to absorb some vitamin D, which not only improves your mood but is a vital nutrient for organs like the brain and heart. Plants also enhance a sense of relaxation and comfort, decreasing stress and anxiety (if only for a short time). And when we look at a larger scale, community gardening can help decrease feelings of isolation and loneliness. Even if you aren’t directly interacting with anyone, you’re around other people doing something you love, and that creates a sense of belonging.

A couple gardening together
wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock

Ways to enhance your gardening routine

So, what can you do to help make your gardening routine a workout? It’s actually easier than you think. There are five simple steps you can take to make sure you’re getting the most out of the hobby you love:

  1. Increase your range of motion when raking or weeding. Gradually reach further and further within your limits, slowly stretching and engaging different muscles.
  2. Use those larger muscles. Engaging your glutes, core, and quadriceps while gardening will help keep soreness at bay, take the strain away from smaller muscles in your arms and lower back, and help you burn more calories.
  3. Adopt the lunge-and-weed method outlined in Jeffrey Restuccio’s book, “Aerobic Gardening.” In a lunging position, rest your left arm on your left knee and weed with your right hand. This method makes use of a long-handled tool, since you’ll need to make sure your back stays upright. It may take some practice, and you can easily alternate hands if you need or want to by lunging with the other leg.
  4. Turn your tasks into repetitions and sets. When raking, this can be something like 10 brisk sweeps, rest, repeat. This won’t work for everything, so you’ll have to evaluate what can be turned into repetitions based on your own routine.
  5. Balance it all out. If one arm is outstretched, bring the other in. If one leg is forward, put the other back. Balance is key here to prevent any muscles from being strained or overused and it evens out how much each one is being worked.

For people who love to grow their own plants and tend to flowers, utilizing gardening as exercise will help save time in your day and be an enjoyable form of exercise. You get to grow your own greens, help beautiful flowers bloom, and spend some much-needed time outside while improving your bone density, boosting your mental health, and keeping your heart healthy.

Editors' Recommendations

Kiera Baron
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Kiera Baron is a freelance writer and editor, as well as a budding digital artist, based in Upstate NY. She is currently one…
The best sprays to keep pests off your delicate hibiscus plants
Safe and effective sprays for your hibiscus
Close-up of a red hibiscus flower

Garden pests range from minor annoyances to plant-destroying nightmares, but controlling them can be tricky. While commercial sprays are effective and easy to find, many of them include harsh chemicals that are not good for the environment. On top of that, some plants are too sensitive for sprays like that! Hibiscus plants in particular can suffer cosmetic damage from certain chemical sprays. If you need help keeping pests away from your hibiscus, here’s what you need to know about finding the right insecticide for hibiscus plants.

Why are specialized sprays so important?
Insecticide or pesticide sprays have a job to do. They’re made specifically to kill insects and keep them away from your plants. Most plants can withstand the chemicals used in these sprays without issue, but some plants, like hibiscus, are particularly sensitive.

Read more
Amazing tips for forget-me-nots care so they don’t take over your garden
Everything you need to know about growing forget-me-nots
A bumble bee on blue forget-me-not flowers

If you’re looking for a dainty, lovely flower to use as a ground cover in your garden, you can’t go wrong with forget-me-nots. Delicate in appearance but deceptively hardy, they make the perfect additions to cottage or woodland-style landscape designs. However, these sweet-looking flowers are native to Europe and invasive in the U.S., and they can quickly spread out of control.

If you want to grow these beautiful flowers without them taking over your garden, this is the guide for you. To keep your flower healthy and under control, this forget-me-nots care guide will break down everything you need to know.

Read more
9 low-maintenance outdoor potted plants your patio needs to be its brightest, most inviting self this summer
Add color to your patio with these low-maintenance potted plants
A patio with colorful potted plants surrounding a bench.

It's hard to resist the call of warm weather. Sitting outside on your patio with your friends or just a good book can be so relaxing, and adding your favorite flowers to the mix makes it even more so! Some bright colors and interesting plants could liven up this gathering spot, but what if your thumb isn't even remotely green? No problem. We've collected our 9 favorite low-maintenance outdoor potted plants for you to add to your patio. Whether you need sun-loving flowers, plants that prefer shade, or shrubs to fill the space, this guide to low-maintenance patio plants is sure to satisfy.

Have a patio that gets baked by the sun all day? Try these plants
Many of our favorite plants would wither up and die if exposed to the harsh sun all through the day. Here are some sun-loving beauties that thrive in full sun and are resistant to drought. 
Marigolds
Marigolds are one of the most popular flowering plants to place in pots on front porches or back decks. With their bright yellow and orange blooms, it's easy to see why! Not only are they gorgeous flowers, but they require almost effortless care. They prefer to dry out between waterings, and they love full sun. That means you can let them hang out in the sun and not worry about killing them if you miss a watering day.

Read more