“I do gardening”, I often hear readers and clients say when I ask them the question “do you exercise?” And then I feel like a jerk for bursting their bubble, and explaining why gardening is not exercise.
Original source: here.
In the interest of pre-emptively addressing it, so that it happens less often, I’m writing this article, with a detailed explanation of why gardening is not exercise. Movement – yes. Exercise – not even close.
Why People Think Gardening is Exercise
There are a few reasons why people think – or want to think – that gardening is exercise. In no particular order:
- You sweat. Sweating though, is not a criterion for exercise. If you sit in a sauna, you’ll also sweat. But you’re not exercising. You can exercise and sweat, or you can exercise and not sweat.
- You’re outdoors. While being outdoors is generally a good thing, this is also not a criterion for exercise.
- You might get sore. You know what soreness is not? A criterion for exercise. Try scratching a spot on your back that’s really hard to reach, while only using your hands (no cheating by rubbing up against a door frame, or using a tool). You might also be sore the next day. But it’s not exercise.
- It takes time and energy.
- My inner cynic also wants to say that sometimes you just want it to be exercise, to avoid real exercise, because real exercise is hard work (harder than gardening). On the surface, you really, really want to believe that you’re exercising. And kids really, really want to believe in Santa Claus (if you still believe in Santa Claus, don’t let me tell you otherwise). But deeper down, you know that if you’re not reaching your fitness goals, gardening sure isn’t doing the job. Sometimes, delusion is not the solution.
What is Exercise
Another reason why people think that gardening is exercise is because they don’t understand what exercise really is. So let’s define it.
Exercise is a deliberate attempt to improve a fitness quality. Let’s break it down:
- Deliberate: it means you are purposely – not accidentally or as a side effect – making progress at something.
- Improve: you are trying to get better at it. There’s progression involved. You’re going to be slightly better at it the next time you do it.
- Fitness quality: there are 3 major fitness qualities – strength, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility. There are also other secondary fitness qualities, like speed, agility, muscular endurance, balance, and others.
If you compare the definition of exercise to gardening, you’ll see that there are no similarities.
Gardening is not deliberate. The purpose of gardening is to well… garden. Not to improve your fitness.
Gardening is not progressive. You’re not counting the number of weeds you pull, and trying to beat that the next time. You’re also not lifting a bag of dirt, with the aim to lift a slightly heavier bag of dirt the next time.
Gardening doesn’t improve strength, endurance or flexibility. Why? Because it’s not strength, endurance or flexibility training.
What is cardiovascular exercise? It’s a 2-part definition. The two parts are:
- Intensity: you have to work above 65% of your maximal heart rate.
- Duration: you have to maintain that heart rate for a minimum of 20 minutes (as a beginner. More if you’re past the beginner stage).
While gardening meets the duration threshold usually (most people do gardening for more than 20 minutes), it doesn’t meet the intensity threshold. Most gardening happens at a heart rate that’s just slightly above resting.
So no, it’s not cardio.
It’s also not strength training for reasons that I cover in my article on what is strength training.
Lastly, it’s not flexibility training. For it to be flexibility training, you have to identify a target muscle, take it to the end of its range of motion, and hold it for 30+ seconds. You would repeat that with a bunch of muscles. You’re not doing that when gardening.
Do you see now why gardening is not exercise? Not to say that it’s not good for you – it is. But it’s not exercise. Don’t confuse movement with exercise.
Why It Matters
Why am I making this distinction? Because as much as we want to live in la-la land, and believe that gardening is exercise, health and fitness markers don’t lie. You could be gardening a lot, but if your cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure or liver enzymes are elevated, then clearly, gardening is not doing the job you hope it’ll do. It’ll give you a nice garden – but not good fitness levels.
Additionally, you could be active, but still unfit by every measure of fitness – strength, endurance and flexibility. Active is not the same as fit. Active just means that you’re moving around. Fitness means that you’re deliberately trying to improve a fitness quality. You could be an unfit active person. That’s why things like gardening, playing with your kids/grandkids and taking 10,000 steps per day don’t get you fit. Is it better to be active than sedentary? Absolutely. But it’s even better if you’re active and fit, as opposed to active and unfit.
Another reason why this distinction matters is because if someone really, truly believes that they’re fit as a result of being active, they have a false sense of accomplishment. Your sense of accomplishment from gardening should be based on having a nice garden – not a high fitness level. You could be gardening all day long, yet still wondering why you get winded going up the stairs, or having a hard time carrying your groceries and moving furniture.
This false sense of accomplishment makes you think that you’re exercising. Gardening should not be a way to avoid exercise. Remember what exercise is – a deliberate attempt to improve a fitness quality.
It doesn’t have to be gardening OR exercise. It should really be gardening AND exercise.
For some people, gardening is their raison d’etre. Some of our clients deliberately seek to improve their fitness so that they can do more gardening, and they can do it better. Gardening is their “sport” and they train for it. If that’s you, and you want to improve your fitness for gardening, just respond to this email with the words “fitness for gardening”, and we’ll chat. Doing this doesn’t obligate you to anything. It’ll simply set up a quick chat where we’ll talk about your situation, and see whether our services are for you. There’s no pressure, and no sales pitch.
