It’s Garden time again!

It’s that time of year again when the weather starts to get nicer and the green fingered among us are back in to garden. It seems no surprise then that May is our busiest months, after a long winter cooped up, going into the garden and doing too much.

Here are some tips and hints to help stay pain and injury free this spring.

Before you start don’t forget to warm up!

Dynamic stretching is movement with stretch to prepare your muscles for action, things like arm windmills, gentle lunges (use a wall for stability if you need). Often ignored or forgotten about because your ‘only doing a bit of gardening’, a warm up is especially essential when you have been less active over the winter months.

Top Tips:

• Start with the easy jobs first and work up to the harder jobs, this way you easing back into things.
• Give yourself small jobs and try to stop every 20-30 minutes to give yourself a rest, have a stretch or just a walk around. If you are one of the many who get so engrossed in what they are doing, take the kitchen timer out with you as a reminder to stop regularly. This maybe frustrating to leave something half done, but is less frustrating than injuring yourself and having to stop completely.
• Vary your activities using different postures to give your muscles and joints time to rest and to engage different muscle groups.
• While digging try to keep your arms close to your body and not to lean forward too much to avoid over straining.
• Try not to twist your back, pivot with your feet if you need to using your whole body.
• Use a kneeling pad to protect your knees and remember to spend no longer than 20-30 minutes in any position.
• Don’t carry too much, do more trips with less to carry.
• Always lift with a straight back and bent legs
• Get the right tools for the job – for example, long handled pruners and forks will reduce the chance of injury. I personally have found you can get a weed grabber which allows you to lift the weeds directly without having to be bent over, very affordable and makes weeding much quicker!
• Listen to your body, if there is pain – STOP – this is your body’s warning system, listen to it.
• Keep hydrated - ensure your drink enough water.  As well as making you take a break it will ensure that your muscles will be more flexible and therefore less likely to suffer an injury.

Don’t forget to cool down!

Gentle stretching or a walk after you have finished and a warm bath or shower can help to relax muscles that you may have forgotten existed over the winter. 

General 

Get a good night’s sleep – your body does the vast majority of its healing overnight where possible try and get your 7-8 hours (We realise that this may not be possible with four little ones between us we really understand this).

Stretching wakes your muscles up, so have a good stretch before getting out of bed.  If you are prone to lower back pain, give your knees a hug and hold for 10-15 seconds then release.

If you struggle getting out of bed, roll onto your side facing out, hang your legs off the side of the bed and push yourself up. Then pull in your stomach muscles and imagine clenching a coin between your buttocks before trying to stand up as straight as possible as leaning forward can put excess strain on the back

Seek advice – if you do become symptomatic with back pain or similar and it doesn't ease within a few days, do get an Osteopath to check it out.