How to Garden without Breaking Your Back

Now that the weather is starting to warm up, a lot of our patients are heading out into the garden. Who can resist the allure of fresh air, sunshine, the feel of dirt in their hands, and the promise of delicious, homegrown fruits and vegetables? It's a wonderful thing to grow some of your own food. But gardening is an inherently challenging activity for people who have any kind of weakness in the back, so it's important to take precautions while in the garden.


Why does gardening cause back problems?
Part of the reason gardening causes back problems is that it's a weekend warrior activity. You go for months and months without gardening, and then you end up doing a physically demanding activity for an extended period of time that your body isn't used to doing. In particular, gardening involves a lot of forward bending, which loads a tremendous amount of pressure on the discs and joints. The Oklahoma State University website does a good job of explaining this phenomenon:

Think of your back as a lever. With the fulcrum in the center of the lever, it only takes ten pounds of pressure to lift a ten pound object. However, if you shift the fulcrum to the side, it takes much more force to lift the same object. Your waist actually acts like the fulcrum in a lever system, and it is not centered. In fact, it operates on a 10:1 ratio. Lifting a ten pound object actually puts 100 pounds of pressure on your lower back. When you add in the 105 pounds of the average human upper torso, you see that lifting a ten pound object actually puts 1,150 pounds of pressure on your lower back.[i]

Oftentimes, not only are you bent forward when you're gardening, but you're attaching something to the end of your hand, like a shovel with a mound of dirt, which makes the lever even longer and thus puts even more pressure on your back.

[1] Oklahoma State University. Back Safety. http://ehs.okstate.edu/kopykit/Back%20Safety.pdf

Tips for pain-free gardening

1. Be careful of forward bending for too long
Don't bend over in an uncontrolled position for hours and hours. Either kneel, sit on a little stool, or figure out what the best posture position is for you.

2. Take frequent breaks
Every 30 minutes, get up and stretch your back. Even short breaks can prevent back injuries.

3. Do backward bending exercises
To counteract all that forward bending, do some backward bending exercises if they work for you.

4. Hire out the hard stuff
If you need to do some digging, and digging is really hard on your back, hire someone to dig for an hour for you. The rest will be easy!

5. Quit when your back feels tired
If you feel your back starting to get tired or painful, stop. Frequently injuries happen when the back is tired.

Remember, a lot of chronic back problems start with either minor tears in the discs or strains to the ligaments, and those things can easily occur with gardening. That doesn't mean you shouldn't garden. Gardening gives you an opportunity to connect to the earth in a very profound and deep way. So do it, just take care of yourself while doing it!

Sincerely,

Marc Heller Matt Terreri