Gardening Exercise Day

What the day is

Gardening Exercise Day is observed on June 6. Its premise is that gardening is exercise, which people who garden tend to notice the following morning and people who do not tend to doubt.

Origin and background

The origin of the observance is not documented.

The physiological case is solid. Digging, turning compost, hauling bags and pushing a loaded wheelbarrow are moderate to vigorous activity by any standard measure, comparable to brisk walking or light weight training depending on the task. Even the gentler work involves repeated squatting, kneeling, standing and reaching, which maintains the mobility that sedentary life erodes.

What makes it unusual among forms of exercise is adherence. Most people abandon gym routines; comparatively few abandon their gardens, because the activity has a purpose beyond the exercise and produces a visible result. Add daylight, which regulates sleep and mood, and outdoor physical work compares well with anything done indoors on a machine.

The injury profile is specific and predictable. Back strain from lifting badly, knee damage from prolonged kneeling, shoulder and elbow problems from repetitive pruning, and cuts that turn septic are the common ones. Gardeners also account for a steady number of tetanus cases, because soil is where the bacterium lives.

How to take part

• Warm up before heavy digging, particularly the first session of the season after a winter indoors.
• Lift with your legs and turn your feet rather than twisting at the waist with a loaded spade.
• Change tasks every twenty minutes or so. Most garden injuries come from doing one motion for hours.
• Use a kneeler or knee pads. Cartilage does not recover the way muscle does.
• Check your tetanus booster is current. It is the one genuinely serious risk of the activity.
• Drink water and wear a hat. June sun does more damage than the digging.

If you have no garden, allotments, community plots and volunteer days at parks and churchyards all need hands, and none of them require owning land.