(C) Photo by Lisa from Pexels
Every Spring, I look forward to being outside. At first, depending on the weather, it might be a few minutes here or there, or a few hours spent reading and enjoying the warmer weather. Not too far into the season will come the invariable yard and garden chores I love doing every single season. Actually, since I am not much for just sitting around all the time, the tasks give me something to do while I enjoy the season. Not to mention that it’s a blessing to be outside.
The chores begin. I prune my flowers back, deadhead them, remove debris from the winter months, and clean up the old mulch. Once the season progresses, I plant any new plants I want to add. Once the frost date passes, all fun breaks loose! I get to plant colorful annuals to enjoy throughout my garden. To some, this may seem like a lot of work, but for me, I look forward to it. And, then there’s the 225 bags of mulch!
And then it starts… pain. And, lots of it. Somewhere at the beginning of my garden projects and chores, I developed excruciating pain in my lower back, hips, knees, and feet. “YOUCH!” is a common word in my vocabulary. This is caused by sitting and bending more than I am used to doing. When we emerge from the winter season, I am not accustomed to doing anything physically demanding.
Over the years of my life, I haven’t been the wisest about starting the season. Sometimes, I’m so excited that I jump right into the chores and suffer the consequences later. One year, it was too early to do most chores, so I grabbed my edger tool and began edging the garden. I paid for it with rough hands and blisters. However, I have been trying to change that behavior.
Since the edging incident, I never start any chores without proper tools. For edging, I always wear my garden gloves. Edging is an easy task to accomplish, as the weather doesn’t have to be perfect, unlike when planting annuals, for example.
To spare myself the excruciating pain that goes across my back and legs every spring, I have tried to develop a simple routine that I learned from my chiropractor. The first few times the pain started up, I asked my chiropractor what could be done about it. I learned that that particular area of the body doesn’t have much, if any, treatment to relieve the pain. The chiropractor would put a hot pack on me, because I can’t handle a cold pack, to help reduce the pain. After a few spring-summer seasons of working with my chiropractor on this issue, I learned I need to determine how long I will be sitting to work on a project, i.e., planting or mulching.
Start with a warmup. I usually take time to walk my dog before starting any gardening project, unless I’ve already had a workout, such as at the gym. Doing so will make the yard work less challenging. Abby and I typically walk almost two miles almost every day. The time with Abby is excellent, and it does activate the muscles needed for my chores.
Determine how long you will need to sit on a garden cart or chair to complete the gardening project. Planting annuals and perennials doesn’t take long to plant, but if several are involved, it can take more than a few minutes.
A simple stretching exercise helps. Before I begin my chores, I sit down and do a simple stretch to help prevent pain. I put my hands on my hips and twist right as far as I can go followed by twisting right as far as I can go. Sometimes, I will hold a ball in my hands to give a bit of weight to the twisting.
As I work in the garden, sitting on my garden cart, I try to pay attention to how much time I am spending bent over planting. I usually have several plants to get into the ground each season. After about ten minutes, I stand up and walk around a bit. Sometimes, I repeat the stretching exercise too. Walking is vital because the pain is in my legs, too. It helps eliminate it.
Usually, within a week or two, my hips and legs will no longer hurt because the exercises I’ve done have helped. Also, I haven’t stopped doing planting and chores, I keep on going as I know my body will adjust.
