Many of us do not find the time to hit the gym on a daily basis. Due to a hectic lifestyle and a stressful work-life balance, it is hard to find time to exercise. However, physical exercises are important for your mind and body. There are a number of benefits of exercising and if you think you will never have the time to do them, you can do them in your own garden. You no longer need to head to the gym at the prescribed time, rather, make the most of your time at home with these simple but effective garden exercises. You can do these exercises while you are gardening, which means you get dual benefits from one activity!
1. Front loaded squat
You can do this exercise by carrying bags of compost, rocks and soil amendments in front of you. It will help strengthen your entire core and is the best exercise you can perform. You need to keep the weight on your heels and point the toes upwards to ensure that you are squatting back and not down. You need to keep the lower back in alignment throughout the exercise and start with minimal weight so you can work up as you get stronger.
2. Diagonal wood chop
Pulling and reaching items in the garden, chopping logs and rotating to weed is a great all around exercise and helps incorporate strength as well as stability. When you chop wood, you strengthen the abdomen, back and your arms. This means you have less fatigue and back pain even after a long day of work in the garden. You can perform wood chopping with different degrees of squat and with lighter weights, you need less squat at the beginning of the lunge.
3. Walking lunges
This is basically weeding. When you get down on one knee and pull a weed, it is a lunge. This exercise works on your butt and thighs and is ideal for balance and stabilizer training. You need to focus on the strong down up motion of the torso in the lunge. You should not lean down and forward with each lunge. Rather, you need to think of a smooth drop as well as an engaged lift. Once you manage the lunge, you will be able to take up a walking lunge that is performed with additional weight.
These are the most basic activities you perform in your garden but if you remain cautious about your movement and the weight, you will be able to turn these activities into physical exercises that help your body. With regular exercises, you can avoid a number of bacterial and yeast infections like the Candida infection. You need to ensure that you eat healthy and exercise regularly so as to avoid falling prey to any infection.
Try to spend maximum time in the garden and look at your body movement when you perform different activities, this will help ensure that you have a healthy and fit body without having to hit the gym.
