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Janet Macunovich

Looking for stay-fit tips!

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We've just posted this Green Thumbs Up in our What'sUp news section, in response to a reader's request for tips on physical fitness. It needs more ideas, and more specifics, such as tool names, bootmakers, etc. Can you help by adding to the list?

 

Green Thumbs Up to asking "How can I stay in good shape as I garden or get in shape in order to garden more?

 

The longer we garden, the more we relate to what our mentor, Curt Pickens, said one spring day,

 

Oh why didn't we do this last fall when I was younger and in better shape?

 

So here's our starter list:

  • 1) Wear boots and gloves. We know because we were once there, that it's a challenge to get used to such gear. However, once you do you will notice more and more reason to keep it on!
  • 2) Cover your arms and legs. The skin is your largest organ and first line of defense against almost everything. Don't irritate it unnecessarily.
  • 3) Learn to bend properly to avoid back strain. We accidentally discovered an excellent way to learn this: Carry a baby in a backpack as you work. You must bend properly or the baby will shift or slide out. Don't guffaw. Try it. What we learned gardening with kids on our backs has stood us in great stead for 30 years.
  • 4) Wear padded knee pants. Not strap on knee pads that slip or cut off circulation. Not a kneeling pad that you will almost certainly leave at station 2 as you move to 3 or 4. Pants with pockets at the knee, those pockets filled with the kind of pad a football player wears on his shoulders.
    (We wore and loved Denman Company pants for about 10 years, then Skillers when Denman quit making pants. Now Skillers has closed, too. We may be trying Blaklader company next, or Duluth Trading Company pants, or giving Carhartt another chance.... Tell us what you wear!)
  • 5) Switch activities every fifteen minutes, or more often. Switch which foot you're leading with as you dig, or which hand you're using to pluck weeds. Swap wheelbarrow for rake, rake for hoe, hoe for hedge shears and then back to 'barrow.
  • 6) Use only good tools.
    Look for shock absorbers on loppers and hedge shears, ergonomic rotating handles on pruning shears, and anything that will literally lighten your load -- choose lighter and better balanced tools.
    Keep all tools sharp, including trowels and spades.
    Do not use power tools unless absolutely necessary. Vibration is a killer, and extending one's arms while holding machinery has a tendency to cause strain in many places.

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Gardeners would do well to "plant their feet" for standing tasks, especially tedious pruning. Standing, lift toes and place down, then doing same with heels.Then, flex knees slightly. Need to reach higher from the position - time for a ladder. For lower pruning, use the same planting stand and bend at the hip joints not the waist. With a bit of practice this becomes second nature. Psssst - first tip is a back saver when standing in shopping lines.

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Linda S. sent to me:

Like the safety glasses, my pruning gloves + gauntlets are often left behind in the truck... In our own gardens at home or at work, That has to stop. As someone who has extracted hawthorns from her scalp... been treated for potential rose gardener's disease (sporotrichosis)... and currently has rose-rash and barberry thorn splinters once again, I definitely need to abide by a few New-Garden-Year resolutions!

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Well that is really useful information, I like it because these tips are needed in routine gardening life. Anyhow thanks for sharing these great helpful stuff. and please keep sharing this information.

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I hurt my back a couple of times long ago and said never again. Such misery, to be unable to do ANYthing in any position without hurting. I remember spending about 2 weeks just upright and leaning back on a wall because that was the only way I could stand it.

 

So I started learning about backs and found the very best thing for me was learning to bend properly -- go up and down from the knees, not bend over from the waist. And to bend like this not only when lifting heavy things but EVERY time I bent over. What got the message through to me and I never unlearned it was when I carried a kid on my back in a backpack. (We carried our kids around that way for almost 3 years each and think it was one of the best things we ever did as the child sees what you do at your level and you can talk about it. I walk my granddaughter that ay. Anyway...) When you bend WRONG with a kid in a backpack, the kid falls out over your head! So the stakes are really high for you learn to squat not bend. I've never unlearned it.

You might be able to do it with a small daypack and something small in it, to remind you as its weight shifts if you're doing it wrong.

 

Janet

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