Body Mechanics & Yoga for the Sustainable Gardener

Keene Valley Library Gardening Series

Tips to maintain a sustainable gardener.

1. Set a time limit to avoid overdoing.
2. Set an area in your garden to focus on.
3. Perform a simple warm-up to prepare your body for the gardening tasks you plan to do.
4. Within the area of focus switch tasks every few minutes (ie. weeding, pruning, planting, raking, etc.)
5. Take frequent active rest breaks to perform movements opposite of those you used gardening. Yoga is a great way to do this.
6. Use proper body mechanics performing any task, the rules of proper body mechanics includes:
   1. Plant your feet side enough to create a stable base.
   2. Bend your knees, keeping your knees back behind your toes
   3. Maintain good spinal alignment by keeping a long spine, maintaining the natural curves, hinging at your hips, and keeping your head in line with your spine.
   4. Keep shoulder hugged in to the back rib cage, to reduce tension in the neck and shoulders.
   5. Shorten the Lever Length: Keep arms in close to body. If lifting something move up close to the object perform lifting it. Lift/lower object with bent arms. When weeding avoid over-reaching.
   6. Pivot turn vs. twisting.
   7. Use your core muscles when lifting (4 abdominal muscles and scapula muscles)
   8. Protect your skin to avoid skin damage that could eventually lead to skin cancer using protective clothing/gear, such as, sunscreen, sunglasses, hats, sun protection clothing, and gloves to protect your hands.

 Poses to Warm-up the body:

1. Mountain – Stand in mountain pose, grounding all 4 corners of our feet. Palms forward at your side, Core engaged. Breathing in through nose and out through nose (if you can). Inhale into the belly, chest and throat. Exhale as you tighten your abdominals.  Feel your connection with the earth. (Center and focus on your intentions for yourself and garden)

2. SunFlowers – inhaling sweeping arms out and up, exhaling taking our tailbone back, hinging at our hips, drawing hips in line with knees. Sweep arms towards floor. Purpose to build heat in entire body.

3. Swan Dive to Fwd Fold to Reverse Swan Dive (Continuing to build heat- release tension in hamstrings, spine and neck)Bend knees, hinging at hips reach towards floor or shins with hands, then lengthen legs into forward fold, lifting tail bone toward sky. Reversing the swan dive, reach arms out to side, bend knees, lift from your navel arm and gaze, slowing return to mountain from the power of your legs and core.

Chair Flow to Extended Mountain (Warming up the legs): inhale sweep arms up into extended mountain. Exhaling, sit into a chair: pressing our tail bone back, lifting our arms to shoulder height or keeping them on our thighs. Repeat Inhaling into extended mountain, exhale into chair.