Read the transcript for this video:

Good morning and welcome to your Weekly Cup of Joe. My name is Joe King. I'm the owner of Physical Therapy Advantage in North Aurora. And today we are on our third and final series piece on Gardening tips. First one we talked about using a bench or a cart, kneeling using pads; whatever it might be to help ease some of the pressure and be in better positioning so you can garden for a little longer period of time. Last week we talked about, if you were going to do anything from the standing position to use may be such as a, we call a golfer's reach or at least being in a staggered stance and squatting, and being a little more supportive there, or using a shovel or a cane or something else as I have here, we are demonstrating with the Dowel rod and use that outside too.

This week we're going to talk about just some general tips on helping you make things a little bit easier for your gardening. One is to soften the ground. Hard ground makes it a little bit much more difficult for your back and your knees and your hips if you're having to dig some things, whether it be with the trowel or whether it be the shovel, whatever. So if you can soften the ground, put some water down a little bit to soften it up, or just going out in the mornings when the dew is there, it's a little softer. Making sure you have sharp tools that also help take a little pressure off of things so you're not having to pound and pound and pound.

One of the big things that we talk about a lot of our clients in the clinic is pacing yourself when you're gardening and getting outside, taking frequent breaks, even stretching on those break periods. So maybe you can't go for an hour and a half straight. Maybe I have to go 20 minutes, 25 minutes and take a small little break, sit and rest, or do a couple stretches and then go for 20, 25 minutes again. I can still go for an hour and a half at length. I just may have to take a five to ten-minute break in between and just give my body a little rest, like I said, and that's okay too. Just got to know what's going to be good for you and that you don't want to aggravate any injuries that you're dealing with.

And third and final, is just body and lifting mechanics. So making sure that if you have to lift things that you are using good body and lifting mechanics, so you're keeping the object close to your body and here instead of out in front of you, and that you're doing a good squat and you're lifting it and lifting with your legs instead of trying to lift just with your arms and picking things up. If you've got a big pot, even if you use a cart and you put that big flowerpot and or flat of plants and you're hauling across the yard, but you just don't want to use bad mechanics by lifting and being bent over too much. So if you can remember those things and even as we talked about in our first video, more kneeling, half kneeling, and or using a card to sit on the bench or just bringing something out there; crate, a milk crate, or something like that to sit on to do a little more gardening. Whatever works for you, you can make shift a lot of different things to ease the burden on your body and decrease the stress.

Hope these gardening tips over the last three weeks have helped. Good luck to you this season. If you have any questions whatsoever about health needs, physical therapy needs, these last three weeks of gardening tips, please don't hesitate to give us a call out at, (630) 892-8003. We'll have those links below as well for your resources, so hopefully, they'll help you out and maybe give you some tips and pointers and like, oh wow, that might help me decrease my stress this year. That might be the one thing that might make my hip or my knee or my back feel just a little bit better this gardening season, so you can have a fun and more enjoyable time out in the yard. All right, we're looking forward to seeing you next week on your Weekly Cup of Joe! Bye