Exercising Your Green Thumb: Considerations when gardening in terms of body positions

We are a little late to the garden party this year as we just moved into our new home in the Slocan Valley at the very end of April. We have since developed a feel for the yard and mapped out the garden to-be a little bit. We decided to plant some basics for now: herbs, salad greens and tomatoes. The garden had been neglected for the better part of the last year as we weren’t yet occupying our property but making infrequent visits once per season. We are excited to observe and get a better understanding of how the land works its natural magic.

We both know a handful of avid gardeners so we thought we would shed some light onto ways to best position your body as you put your green thumbs to work. Here are some suggestions of how to orient your body:

Holding a hip hinge with a straight spine

This position is the most difficult to sustain for any extended duration. It requires the use of the hamstrings, glute muscles, lower back muscles and abdominal muscles to work together to hold you up actively against gravity.

Passive Squat

For the sake of the purpose and context of this position, we’ll differentiate an active versus a passive squat here.

An active squat uses more muscular energy in order to keep the spine straight, prevent the pelvis from posteriorly rotating in the bottom, and keep tension in the leg muscles. This version is best employed when needing to support or move moderate to heavy loads.

A passive squat is more energy efficient as it is not as muscularly demanding to sustain isometrically (meaning not moving). The spine can round, the pelvis can tuck in the bottom and the leg muscles do not need to hold a lot of tension. It does require more joint flexibility and mobility, however, to comfortably sit in an end-range squat position close to the ground. This version is useful for activities like gardening where you need to be lower to the ground but you are not supporting any load on your person.

Kneeling or Half-kneeling

This is great for including an extended hip in your rotation of ways to position your body. So far, the two positions mentioned above have the hip in a bent position, so it will feel nice to extend the hip as well. You have the ability to level-change by kneeling tall, or sitting down on the heel(s).

Supported Spine Flexion

In this position we see the spine is rounded, but one hand is supporting on the knee. It is a more passive bent over position compared to the unsupported hinge with straight spine as you don’t need as much muscular engagement.

The most important thing regardless of how you organize your body positions, is changing your shape often. Try not to stay in one position for extended periods if you can avoid it. 

For the same reason that sitting is not inherently bad for you, it’s the chronic sitting for extended periods of time without changing your position that could be problematic in the long term. 

Keep moving, switch it up and enjoy the fruits, flowers and veggies of your labour !