Garden Your Way to Health and Fitness

You don’t need to drive to the gym to get a good workout. You can just step into your front yard and do a little landscaping. Machines have made life easier when it comes to landscaping but you can lead a healthier life if you give the machines a break occasionally. There are many ways that homeowners can shape up their yards and themselves at the same time, it’s not hard too

Activities to Garden your way to Health and Fitness.

Raking is one of the best exercises that a homeowner can do while taking care of his or her landscape. There are many devices on the market today that will blow, vacuum, and mulch leaves. These machines definitely make the tedious job of raking leaves a lot easier. However, if you want to get in shape, then you cannot take the easy path.

Raking is a good workout for your upper body and core muscles. As the arms are raking, the core muscles in the stomach and back are working to stabilize the body. It is estimated that a person can burn about 150 calories when raking leaves for 30 minutes.

Another great workout is mowing the lawn. Of course, sitting on your shiny, new riding lawn mower and doing laps around the yard is not going to give you much of a burn. However, pushing a mower can truly be a great form of exercise. Just don’t cheat and use the self-propelled variety.

Pushing a hand mower gives both your upper and lower body a workout. Both your arms and legs are working together to propel the mower forward. In fact, according to calories perhour.com, a 150-pound person can burn about 408 calories per hour pushing a hand mower. If you have a lot of uphill mowing, then it can be even more than that.

Trimming trees or shrubs can also give a homeowner a good workout. Using an electric trimmer can be fun but you can burn many more calories using a good pair of hand trimmers. Using hand trimmers is also good for building up muscle strength in the upper body.

Fitness Mower

Other ways to get some exercise in while landscaping include using a shovel, using a wheelbarrow, or simply bending over to pull some weeds. As with any workout, it is important for homeowners to do some stretching before beginning landscaping. Stretching can help prevent pulled muscles or muscle soreness the next day.

It is also very important for anyone who is performing landscaping duties to drink plenty of water. Raking leaves or pushing a lawn mower in the hot sun can easily cause a person to become dehydrated. Remember, grass and flowers are not the only things that need to be watered while landscaping.

Landscaping is something that has to be done anyway, so you might as well get some exercise in while doing it. Cutting grass and trimming trees can help you cut calories and trim your waistline. In addition, it can be a great way for the whole family to get outside and get a workout in together.

Yes we know it’s not an electric lawnmower but seriously there are some very good manual lawnmowers about nowadays. If time or money is a consideration on keeping fit, mowing your lawn frequently with a push mower makes so much sense. You’ll save lots of money on gym memberships, keep your garden looking good and what’s more it’s by far the most green method of mowing your lawn.