Your very own outdoor gym

Gardening can be a physical work-out, so warm up the muscles before you start.

Your very own outdoor gym


Personal trainer
Paul O'Brien

Summer draws many of us into the garden, as we seek to restock our depleted stores of vitamin D. The garden space also brings us back to nature, offering a meditative return to mental and emotional balance by way of the repetitive and calming tasks we carry out in it.
There is also, of course, a physical aspect to working in the garden, and physical benefits. Spending a few hours mowing the lawn, weeding, preparing soil and planting can be a complete functional workout in itself.
When I look at the movement patterns of my typical day in the garden, I notice that I perform pushing, pulling, rotating, lunging, bending, squatting , lifting and carrying movements. These multi-planar movements provide a great workout for my body, without ever thinking about it.
In order to perform these many movements, it makes sense to prepare the body somewhat for the exertion of working in the garden. This enables us to work more efficiently and to recover more quickly from our labours, thus enabling us to do even more of what we love.
The exercises listed below will help to prepare the major muscle groups used when working in the garden. The short warm-up routine should be done in the few minutes before you starting working. It will help ensure you can complete your tasks safely, with less risk of pulling a muscle and being kept out of your garden for the summer.

Garden warm-up

• Walk around your garden for three minutes to get the blood circulating around your body and warm your muscles. Notice the sights and sounds of the garden but pay attention to your body also. What is it telling you?
• Perform a set of arm windmills, ten each arm. Do two sets, the first slowly, the second a little quicker. Follow this with two sets of heel kickbacks to dynamically warm-up your legs.
• Next, bring your elbows to shoulder height with your hands in front of your chest. Pull your navel back towards your spine and perform 10 torso twists each side. Keeping your hips facing forward, rotate slowly from your abdomen to look over your left shoulder. Come back to centre and repeat in the other side.
• Finally, slowly bend your knees to a comfortable, half-seated position. Then stand up and as you do, reach your arms over your head and come up onto your toes. Repeat ten times.

As a supplement to these exercises, perform a couple of sets of the frontal bridge, side bridge and low back extensions two to three times weekly to help strengthen and stabilise your core muscles. Descriptions and images of all the above exercises can be found online, or email me at paul@bootcampwest.com for a free handout.

Paul O’Brien is a personal trainer and life coach based in Westport.