Gardening Is the Sneaky Workout You Already Love

I have never once woken up wanting to exercise. I have frequently woken up wanting to see whether the tomatoes have come on.

That, honestly, is the trick. Gardening is a full-body strength and balance session wearing a hat, and you do not notice you are doing it because you are busy being interested in something.

What an hour in the garden actually does

• Squatting and kneeling works the legs and hips — the exact muscles that keep you getting out of chairs.
• Carrying watering cans and bags of compost is loaded walking, which is what builds bone.
• Reaching and pruning overhead keeps the shoulders and ribs mobile.
• Standing, bending, twisting all day is balance practice disguised as pottering.

The best exercise is the one you forget you are doing.

Making it kind to your body

Gardening gave me a sore back exactly once, and it taught me three things I now never skip.

Raise everything. Raised beds and tall pots mean less bending and more enjoying. It was the single best money I have spent on the garden.

Kneel on something. A foam pad by the beds means I actually kneel instead of doing that terrible stiff-legged stoop.

Warm up first. Five minutes of the movement routine before I go out, and I am a different gardener. Twenty minutes of digging cold is how backs go.

The social part nobody mentions

There is a community allotment group two streets away and I now know more neighbours than I did in the previous decade. We swap seedlings, complain about slugs, and one of us always brings cake. If you do not have a garden, that is where I would start — a shared patch is a workout, a social life and a supply of courgettes in one.