Warmer days are upon us which means we will be getting back to working in our yards. Learn how functional strength training can help while gardening.

A lot of our members love to work in the yard and garden during the summer. Gardening and doing yard work can supplement your current fitness routine. However, this activity shouldn’t be the only thing that you do to help stay active during the warmer months. It is important to learn how to utilize your strength training routine that will help with the yard work this summer.

Your current fitness routine helps this activity to become effortless to continue to improve your overall fitness. This is what living a healthy lifestyle is all about so that you can continue doing whatever you’d like to do in the future and making sure your body doesn’t become your limitation.

Yard work can be hard work and can work up a sweat! To stay healthy while gardening, we need to continue our current fitness routines to make sure our bodies can be strong enough to be in the yard.

How can you challenge yourself during strength training so it helps you while working outside? Continuing to up the weights in your strength training routine can help to make those bags of mulch seem like you’re lifting a bag of feathers.

Our flexibility routines continue to help so that we can get on our hands and knees to dig out those weeds without our lower backs feeling it the next day. Our weekly fitness routine is what helps us to do what we love doing outside of the gym.

Below is a Strength Training Workout that will help you keep your body strong during Gardening Season:

Warm-up:

• 5-10 mins of cardio

Mobility: 3 rounds of 20-30 secs each exercise

Foam Rolling

• Quads
• IT Bands
• Piriformis
• Back

Kneeling Stability Ball Roll-Outs

Strength Training: 3 rounds of 10-12 reps

• Loaded Step-ups
• FreeMotion Lat Pulldown
• Dumbbell Hip Hinge
• Dumbbell Bench Press
• Goblet Squat
• Dumbbell Lateral Raises
• Farmer Carry (1 lap around the track)
• Alternating Medicine Ball Toss

This workout has been added to the On-Demand Workouts in the Performance Health and Fitness app and is titled, Gardening Workout . If you haven’t created your account yet for our app, please email Lynde at lweatherford@perfther.com to resend your invitation. If you already have your app set up just click on the kettlebell icon at the bottom of your screen to access this workout. Happy Gardening!