By Lauren Haughey
Going to thegym can feel like a lot of bother - even if we know that exercise is essential to stay healthy. But doctors now say that gardening can actually burn more calories than you might expect - but does it count as a workout?
Kieran Sheridan, a UAE-based physiotherapist, seems to think so - but claims it all depends on the type of backyard tasks you're getting up to. "According to CDC, you can burn about 300 calories with just 45 minutes of gardening," he told The Mirror.
"Planting and potting for an hour can also burn 200-300 calories. It targets a lot of muscle groups because of all the strenuous physical activity - such as planting, watering, even digging and lifting fertilizer bags."
For context, if you weigh around 10 stone, you'd burn about 258 calories an hour if walking on a treadmill at a brisk pace of 3.5mph, according to Very Well Fit. Up this to 6mph, and you'd burn 680 calories per hour.
Like walking, Kieran explains that gardening can help work the muscle groups in various parts of the body, including your arms, buttocks, abdomen, back and legs. Digging in particular will likely burn the most calories, as the action of pushing down on a spade can help work many of these groups simultaneously.
He continued: "It's also required to stretch first to build your strength before gardening and also to avoid cramps and overworking the muscles after gardening. These gardening tasks also helps burn calories just like a simple exercise would do.
"I advise mixing things up when gardening. You can't do one task alone because it could strain your muscles. For example, just planting and carrying bags of mulch will be physically straining, which can lead to injuries and body pain. I'd suggest doing other tasks such as pulling weeds and raking."
Aside from burning calories and building strength, exercising can have countless other benefits too. Claire Steves, a professor of ageing and health at King's College London, recently told the ZOE Podcast that just a 45-minute walk three times a week is all you need to bolster your brain's cognitive function.
In time, this can help reduce your susceptibility to dementia - a condition that often occurs later in life, making it difficult for sufferers to remember, think and make decisions independently.
Dr Alexis Missick, a GP at UK Meds, also told The Mirror: "Gardening activities such as digging count are beneficial forms of exercise as they help build our strength. Like other forms of exercise such as brisk walking, studies have found that daily gardening can reduce the risk of dementia.
"Getting yourself moving around more by gardening can promote cardiovascular health and helps to reduce your risk of coronary heart disease (CHD),and keep your blood pressure at a healthy level."
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