If you ask fitness gurus if gardening is exercise, they would probably say no.
They would probably say formalized exercise is focused with specific outcomes to build muscle mass or cardiovascular health, while gardening is just digging and weeding. If you ask the same question to a pilates or yoga instructor they may say that gardening does not provide the same level of flexibility or spiritual concentration as the focused exercising found in those practices.
I don't disagree with any of those thoughts. However, the idea that something is work or exercise is just a matter of state of mind. For a workout, try lifting 50 kilogram trees off a truck and planting them into the earth. And consider the exercise value in moving truck loads of soil or gravel by wheelbarrow from the front yard to back yard.
When it comes to spiritual concentration as found in yoga, gardening offers bonsai, which is among the forms of Asianstyle pruning that require singular focus of mind and body to create artistic beauty.
From a strength perspective, focusing specific muscle groups to grow doesn't just happen in the weight room. Try lifting one-metre by fivecentimetre thick bluestone off multiple pallets to build patios or walkways. Do this all day for days on end and your body will start to grow muscles in places you never thought possible. Your stamina will also likely increase dramatically. Lifting bluestone is not work unless you view it that way. To lift large slabs of bluestone over long periods of time one must focus on the ergonomics of body posture to avoid injury while working muscle groups. There is also the added benefit of integrating mind, body and creative consciousness while laying the stone.
When it comes to stamina, I have worked with several gardeners who were very muscular but had poor stamina and flexibility. They simply could not work all day at a good pace because they were conditioned to doing short bursts of weight lifting with rests between repetitions. I can tell you from my experience training horticulture students that physical fitness training is useful but it's no substitute for field conditioning. Muscle-bound people often lack stamina and flexibility because they have not added appropriate training to their program. By comparison, I worked with a turf company once that sent out its top person to lay 16 pallets of roll-on turf. This tall, thin and unassuming guy did not walk when laying 25 kilogram rolls of turf. He would jog to the turf pallet, grab a roll of turf, then jog down the plywood walkway across the newly lain turf where he would lay the next turf roll, and then jog back for another roll. He did this all day long for two and a half days and installed 16 pallets of turf and cleaned up, all by himself. I am not suggesting we should get exercise by running while laying turf. But the example does show how strength and stamina training are not mutually exclusive. And his task required a singular focus to complete.
Focus comes in one form - you are either focused or you are not. Contrary to popular belief that building gardens is just hard work, building gardens requires stamina, muscle power, focus and a vision to create beauty.
Focus in the garden can become a time-warp kind of thing. I regularly experience periods of time building gardens where my focus is so concentrated that I lose track of time and several hours go by in a span of time that seems like minutes to me. My hyper-focused time experience occurs when doing specialized work, such as site grading, laying bluestone patios, pruning or seeding, and so forth. The focus required in those jobs takes awareness of time away from the conscious mind - hours become minutes of creative and spiritual connection. I am sure there's a name for the experience but I don't know it.
Many people do not experience warping of time while gardening because they view gardening as work, instead of seeing gardening as a complete mind and body experience.
Would I ever go to a gym to improve strength or stamina? Probably not. Instead I would go out in the garden and use my mind and body to improve the garden. I would lift, bend, reach and work my body while using my mind to guide my physical development, producing an overall toning of my mind, body and spirituality. But that's just me.
Physical exercise in a gym is a worthwhile pursuit. But to answer the question: Is gardening exercise? Gardening, in its many forms, is the creative expression of exercising mind, body and spirit. If that's not exercising, I don't know what is.
Todd Major is a journeyman horticulturist, garden designer and builder, teacher and organic advocate. stmajor@shaw.ca
