Thursday, November 20, 2008

A Healthy Pastime - Gardening

By Gary Pearson

Aerobic dancing, jogging, stationery cycling or weight lifting are some of the activities which come to our mind when we think of exercise. As a matter of fact nobody even ever considers gardening as exercise, but that is not correct. There is more than one benefit of gardening, you benefit by way of exercising and it helps you keep a well maintained garden. Isn't it much better to grow plants than to sit on an exercise machine?

You may not realize but while gardening a number of muscles are exercised. It can also be called an aerobic exercise are you are doing the same thing again and again when you are weeding or hoeing.

You may not be using some of the muscles in your daily work but they are exercised while gardening. You might have heard an old adage "muscles hurt that I didn't even know I had". This is true when you do gardening. It is important to exercise all the muscles of the body to keep fit and you can achieve this by gardening.

There is a way of making it more effective. Concentrate on the muscle you are using and make an effort to emphasize on the movement. For example if you are bending and making holes to put in seeds you can do it with more effort and keep down for a longer time. Keep doing the actions for some time.

You can pick you as well as swing the hoe more than what you have been doing to help get more exercise. Do a different action every day and try to get the feel of every muscle that is being used for maximum benefit. Try to do some stretching prior to gardening so that there is no injury to the muscles. Gardening will help you feel as well as look better just after a few days.

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