I’ve toyed with this idea for a few years, and I think it’s time has come.
As we wind down our gardening year, more time is spent indoors, contemplating, planning, dreaming, and drooling over seed catalogs. Creating beautiful new spaces for the next gardening season, our off-season has us exercising our brains a lot more than our bodies.
Contrast these things with the whirlwind of activity that gardening season brings us and you have a recipe for injury.
Once we start implementing our plans, we find ourselves tackling gardening chores from sunup to sunset. After a hot bath to soak aching muscles, we fall into bed and rise the next day sorely wishing we could accomplish more.
This is where we get injured
During the cold winter months, we do a lot of sitting, thinking and dreaming and while these are important activities that prepare us for the season ahead mentally, we neglect ourselves physically.
Gardeners have a long season of frantic activity that we need to be prepared to tackle.
The first warm days of spring give in to a hurricane of garden activity that doesn’t cease until we fall into our chairs with our first pumpkin spice latte and favorite seed catalog.
Then we go straight from our comfy chair to bending, lifting, and hauling without any preparation.
Folks, that’s got to change.
We are gardening athletes and we need to be in training for this growing season marathon.
So, I started working on a gardening fitness program for myself.
I was tired of resolving to get fit in January and giving up after a few weeks, I knew it was time to reevaluate.
Why do we give up on our resolutions?
Often, it’s a lack of a compelling reason to meet your goal.
You see, my problem was, I thought I was using time when I wasn’t actively gardening to do something that I’m supposed to be doing. A chore to be check off the list. And there was nothing compelling about this chore to make me want to do it.
For most people, a compelling reason might be getting in shape for an upcoming significant athletic or social event. Whether it’s a marathon or a wedding, these events create motivation to stick to your goal, but even then, our brains will constantly try to talk us out of doing the work. If your reason is compelling enough to you, then desire, not willpower, is your driving force and success is much more likely.
With the state of my degenerative joint disease and chronic pain, I will not be training for a marathon or even a fun run, but maybe I do have a compelling reason to train.
What if I could be training for the garden?
What if creating and nurturing beautiful gardens all season without injury is enough of a compelling reason for me to commit to a plan?
Could I develop a program that would allow me to be fit for the gardening season?
Gardening is a physically demanding hobby. Yes, it’s exercise, but these activities are not strengthening your over-used joints, if you’re not moving correctly. Using the gardening off-season to build the strength required and train your muscles to move correctly just makes sense. It’s too easy for the overzealous planning of January to have us down with aching backs in March.
People dealing with chronic pain have typically completed several rounds of physical therapy. Once PT is completed the therapist sends you on your way with the printouts of exercises. Few people continue to do them. They are boring. There is no motivation to do them. They seem too easy – how can this possibly be helping your overall fitness level. And then you re-injure yourself.
Continually pushing through the pain causes long-term damage to your body and reduces your range of motion further, eventually putting a stop to the activities that bring you so much joy.
The reason you garden is not to give you to pain.
Your garden is what brings you joy. You were made to create. Growing and nurturing plants for food and beauty is how you manifest your destiny. But when faced with injury and degenerating joints, we give up on gardening. It’s too hard. Our bodies are not able to do it anymore. Well, what if we could design a fitness program that would enable us to get through and enjoy the gardening season without injury? Could those discarded PT exercise sheets be key to developing a compelling fitness program? What if this program could keep us from ever having to throw in the trowel on gardening?
Inspired by this thought, I set about creating my own fitness challenge. I call it the Fit4Gardening Challenge and in the next posts I will share the other 5 steps I used to create it so you can create yours too. If your plan relies on you waking up in the morning motivated, you will fail. In Fit 4 Gardening Parts 1-6, you’ll find every tool you need to get you in top shape for gardening season!
Start with the most important element, finding your compelling reason.
Step 1
Find your compelling reason to commit to a fitness program. Examine your own life and decide where you can commit. Where is your passion? Where is your desire so strong, that it will always keep you forging ahead?
For me it’s definitely gardening. Gardening without injury. I’ve lived in fear of having to give up my gardens for too many years. I’m ready to take back my gardening life.
Are you ready to join me in this journey?
