Gardening is something very liberating and a lot of gardening fans use the time between their own beds to relax and regain their mental strength. This is often quite easy for young people, but the body can cause problems as you get older. According to an AOK evaluation, in 2010 there were, for example, over 1.2 million cases of temporary incapacity for work due to back pain ( more information here ). This guide is therefore intended to show how the sometimes quite difficult gardening work can be made easier.
Making gardening easier – Which work steps are particularly stressful for the body in the garden?
When working in the garden, the joints and the spine are particularly stressed. This sometimes leads to pain and can also permanently contribute to health problems. This is particularly intensive in the following work steps:
- Weed weeds on your knees
- Dig up beds
- Rake or hoe in a stooped position
- Transport earth with a wheelbarrow
- Activities that require you to bend down
As you can easily see, a lot of basic work is required in the garden to activities that strain the joints and the back. For this reason, it is important to take countermeasures at an early stage so as not to have an additional negative impact on your own health.
Making gardening easier – how can it be made more gentle?
The possibilities in the area of simplifying gardening are quite diverse and can be divided into different categories:
1. Limit the work to a tolerable level per day
If you notice that your own body suffers from gardening, you should divide the work steps every day only do as much as he can really handle. According to a guide on flexo-trim.de, false ambition is counterproductive in such a situation. In addition, it makes sense:
- to carry out the individual work steps without hurrying
- to take small breaks again and again2.
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2. Maintaining correct posture when gardening
Tinkering in the garden is almost inevitably associated with activities such as lifting, bending, and kneeling. However, those affected should always pay attention to the correct posture so as not to unnecessarily strain the back and joints:
- Never bend down with a hunched back, but instead crouch
- Always carry heavy loads close to the body
- Even work close to the floor preferably from the crouch do it
- avoid twisting the torso at all costs
- adopt varied postures (never remain in the same posture for 30 minutes)
This point, in particular, can contribute significantly to making your own gardening less problematic in the end. Squatting down may feel unfamiliar and exhausting at first, but in the long run, it is easy on the back and joints.
3. Make gardening easier – use special gardening tools
In order to avoid the constant work in a stooped position, rakes and hoes with adjustable handles can be purchased today. In this way, it is not a problem to adjust the length of the working equipment to your own height. In addition, special tools such as so-called “women’s spades” can be used, with which less effort is required for individual work steps.
4. Build on electrical equipment
If you also rely on electric hedge and pruning shears, it is ultimately much easier when pruning bushes and trees and can do the necessary work in a significantly shorter time. If it is also possible to do without a cordless tool, the corresponding trimmers and scissors do not bring too much weight with them.
5. Use protectors on the joints
Since the joints are particularly stressed when kneeling, it makes sense either to put on knee pads or to buy a garden mat. This cushions your own weight slightly and thus ensures that the joints are not stressed so much.
With the measures mentioned here, it is quite possible to do the usual gardening and still listen to warning signals from your own body. Even if some points may be unfamiliar at first, they ultimately have a positive effect on your own health.
Making gardening easier – what else should you watch out for?
If you already have back pain, absolute rest is by no means always the magic bullet. In consultation with the attending physician, exercise can in principle even have a positive effect on back pain. Nevertheless, of course, nobody should torment themselves. So if the back pain is too severe, it is important to stop working. In principle, however, moderate stress can help in the treatment of back pain. Here it is very important to divide up the work accordingly to adapt to your own performance. The most important points at a glance:
- Gardening, if carried out correctly, can have a positive effect on back pain
- If the pain is severe, those affected should not work in the garden
- It is best to clarify the appropriate measures with the attending physician
- Adapt the physical strain to your own performance
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Maintaining the garden yourself even in old age – not an impossibility
While very young people rarely have problems with gardening, things can look very different as they get older. Joint and back pain means that the individual work steps can only be carried out very slowly. If you put too much strain on yourself and also adopt the wrong posture, the symptoms ultimately worsen significantly. For this reason, it is important to focus on your own back when it comes to posture. Appropriate equipment can also help that you no longer have to bend down or carry heavy loads. Those who take these aspects to heart and divide the work according to their own capabilities can often work their own garden comfortably even at an advanced age.
Work comfortably in the garden even at an advanced age
