Gardening and Your Back Pain


If this title caught your  attention, you must probably love gardening. How nice it is to tend to a  beautiful garden, but I am pretty sure you don’t appreciate the discomfort and  pain in your back that most often comes with it.

Gardening involves a lot of  bending, reaching, pulling and twisting. We may not realize it now, but the  effort we exert and how we carry out these physical activities can affect our  over-all health. An improper bend or twist can gradually wear out our spine and  strain our muscles in the back, shoulders, legs and wrists.

If you experience pain or  occasional aches due to gardening, now is the time for you to make changes in  your gardening routine. Chiropractors suggest a proper way to sit, bend, reach,  and twist the body in such a way that you put the least pressure on your spine  and muscles. An improper body technique, posture and form while gardening can  put undue stress on your body. Thus, you must kneel instead of bending, and  alternate your stance as often as you can to maintain your balance.

Aside from this, you should have a  proper warm-up, stretching and cool-down period as in any other physical  activity. Your stretching exercises do not have to be rigid; you can do the  simplest stretching you know for at least 10 minutes.

Gardening is a fun activity, but it  can involve some work that may wear out our spine and muscles. However, if you  are careful, you can prevent possible spinal and health problems. For more  suggestions on how to take better care of your body, you can visit a  chiropractor nearest you.