We Brits love our gardens, don’t we? And this is the busy time of year where spring has sprung and you get the one job done and suddenly there’s another one shooting up in front of you.

An old Chinese proverb says:

“If you want to be happy for a lifetime, plant a garden.”

The management of spring growth and planning and planting our lush flower borders, not to mention mowing the lawn and cutting the hedges, mean that this is also a busy time in my clinic for gardening injuries… and why is that?

Call for a chat: 07816 303 742

Is Gardening a Sport?

Well we don’t think of gardening as being particularly sporty – we don’t warm-up and warm-down for the gardening activities like we might warm-up and down in a sporting event but that is one reason why the body, suddenly faced with an activity, reacts with pain due to lack of preparation for the task. And coming out of winter and early spring, often not prepared, we suddenly launch into gardening overdrive…

And we might’ve forgotten, in our haste to get on with an activity, that we lifted the heavy lawnmower out of the shed or that we nipped down to the local gardening shop to get several bags of compost loaded into the car…

In the workplace we often have manual handling training for health and safety purposes but in our own lives we tend to just “grab and do” and so there could often be a simple reason that we’ve overlooked as to why we latterly feel a twinge of pain.

I find this is especially so with tendon injuries – unlike muscular injuries that let you know immediately when they happen.

Tendons may be fine on the activity day but then be painful a day or two after… and by then we may well have forgotten what we did…

My combination treatments work well on injuries, read more about this is my Why do Combi-Treatments work Well blog.

Are you Lifting Safely?

In the revised NIOSH Lifting Equation, a weight “can effectively exert 2.5 to 3 times more stress on your lower back and joints when held at arm’s length versus close to the chest”. In truth, we don’t always lift things in a correct and mindful manner…

Also, a thistle won’t weigh much when in our hands but when its roots are still tethered in the soil it seems A LOT heavier than that, doesn’t it? Meaning it has much more resistance than you might expect when pulling it up!

For example, if I were a the gym and I were holding a 10kg weight in front of me (with my eyes closed) and you unexpectedly loaded another 30kg on then my muscles would most likely injure… It can be the same when we weed and try to pull out plants that still have roots in the ground.

Call for a chat: 07816 303 742

Injury Prevention Advice

Another lovely bit of Chinese wisdom for our consideration when gardening is…

“A drop of prevention is better than bucketload of cure.”

How to work safely

  • Drink enough water to avoid dehydration
  • Warm-up and stretch before, after and during your gardening tasks
  • Plan and be mindful when lifting, considering when loads might not be what you are expecting them to be
  • Avoid working in fixed positions or doing the same activity for long periods

What Treatment works for a Gardening Injury?

I offer a range of treatments to help you to recover more quickly. These include: Acupuncture, deep tissue massage, osteopathy, and K-Laser (low level laser therapy), which I use individually or in combination to ease pain and facilitate recovery.

I charge a flat fee of £55 for a 40 minute appointment and I will check for your consent each time about which therapy (or therapies) I will be using and why. See my Pricing Options.

I just want to choose the best methods to get you moving more comfortably and to speed up your recovery. We can chat together about how to do that and come up with a plan in your first consultation.

Call for a chat: 07816 303 742

Want to know a bit more about K-Laser? Take a look at my blog: Low level laser treatment: The facts