How to get fit with just 30 minutes in your garden

Is gardening good exercise?

The answer is a resounding yes. Many might doubt the wisdom of ditching the gym for the garden, however GP Dr William Bird, founder of Intelligent Health, told us: “Gardening is a physical activity which can help reduce the risk of obesity, type two diabetes and heart disease.

"It's a great exercise for burning calories and for getting people outdoors and close to nature which makes people feel psychologically energised too.”

Health professionals are urging the NHS to prescribe gardening therapy more frequently, suggesting that every £1 spent on access to outdoor community schemes could save the health service £5 in alternative treatments.

On the face of it, jogging for 30 minutes uses 240 calories, which is a slightly higher count than pushing a lawn mower at 165 calories for the same period. However, many of us might well prefer to swap the treadmill for the garden - and one 30-minute session of gardening a week still works out higher than zero sessions of jogging!

"It's a great exercise for burning calories and for getting people outdoors and close to nature which makes people feel psychologically energised too.”

A recent survey by Mind revealed that since the pandemic seven million people have taken up gardening, claiming their mental health improved from being exposed to nature or just down to chatting to neighbours over the garden fence.

Gardening is a sociable activity too, one we can share with friends, our kids and grandchildren; it's also beneficial for those suffering from ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder) and depression.

According to a recent YouGov poll, the cost-of-living crisis has caused a total of 5.1 million people (that’s about 10% of UK adults) to either cancel or consider cancelling their gym membership.

When you factor in that up to 67% of gym memberships go unused due to members saying they are too busy to attend, have to queue to use equipment, lack the confidence to attend, or just feel it’s a bit of a slog, enjoying free garden workouts is a no-brainer.

Your 30-minute garden workout

Just 30 minutes in the garden can make a difference to your health and your flowers.

1. Start with a 5-minute warm-up

It’s all too easy to dismiss the benefits of walking, yet even taking a leisurely stroll burns five calories per minute and if you take a brisker approach you can up that to 8.3 calories.​

Make your way around your garden - stopping to smell the flowers, of course!

Whilst you’re at it, make mental notes of all the jobs that need doing.

Anything from cutting back bedraggled plants, untrimmed hedges, beds that require mulching, plants that need dividing or unruly climbers wanting tying back and pruning are worthy of consideration.

2. Then a 10-minute weed-up

Weeds are a fact of life, and the simple task of weeding burns 100-200 calories per 30 minutes. They can begin sprouting as early as March, or even sooner if we have an impromptu warm spell.

Hoeing is the best way to deal with them as it’s kinder to your back and poses less risk of strain, as well as being better for the environment.

Removing flowerheads of emerging weeds also means they won’t set seed and scatter a new generation of weedlings, so it’s labour-saving too.

• Weeding burns 200-400 calories per hour*

3: Take 10 minutes to dig

Up the intensity with a bit of old-fashioned digging for 10 minutes since turning over your soil is a turbo-charged calorie burner.

If you’re a vegan gardener you might subscribe to no-dig methods, so swap this activity by turning over the compost heap, mulching your garden borders or a combination of both.

As ever, don’t overexert yourself to avoid sprains or injury and always work comfortably at your own pace.

• Digging burns 200-400 calories per hour*

4. Next up 10 minutes of raking

Once you’re done with the weeding and digging, it’s time to tidy the garden by raking leaves and collecting broken twigs or general garden debris.

There’s nothing like a good spring clean to improve a garden’s appearance and once done it’s satisfying to know you’ve got the jump on all the essential early spring tasks. Add raked leaves to your compost heap or store them in hessian, plastic or strong paper sacks to make leaf mould ready for use next year.

• Digging burns 200-400 calories per hour*

5. End with a 5 minute cool-down

After exercise, a cool-down allows your body to recover from strenuous activity and gardening is no different.

How you cool down is entirely up to you: perhaps choose a gentle activity from watering, picking flowers or vegetables, filling seed trays with compost, sowing seeds or labelling plants.

The versatility and enjoyment of garden workouts are irresistible - in fact you can start right now (assuming you’re reading this in daylight hours…).

Stop whatever you’re doing, turn off the TV or computer, ditch the housework and open the patio doors, step outside, take a deep breath of fresh air, birds are singing, the sun is warm on your face and… begin.

*Based on an average human weight of 155 lbs/11.07 stone Harvard Health Medical School