Is Gardening the Best Form of Exercise You’re Not Taking Seriously Enough?

After spending a Saturday afternoon in the garden, a certain type of fatigue settles into the shoulders and lower back around four o’clock, making it nice to sink into a chair. The majority of those who experience it do not consider it to be post-workout fatigue. Their perception is that they have been doing chores all afternoon. This distinction turns out to be less important than the fitness industry would have you believe, and a growing body of research is arguing that gardening is a legitimate form of physical exercise on its own terms, rather than as a consolation prize for those who can’t get to the gym.

In addition to water aerobics, brisk walking, and leisurely cycling, gardening is classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as moderate-intensity physical activity. In Harvard Medical School research led by Dr. I-Min Lee, the majority of common garden tasks fall between three and six metabolic equivalents, which is the range that exercise scientists consider moderate to vigorous effort. The cost of weeding and cultivating is five METs, the same as power mowing. Pushing a wheelbarrow loaded weighs 4.8 pounds. Four points are scored by raking. There is no doubt that these figures are important. Taking 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise a day will help you reach 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week by Wednesday.

Calorie counts are also important to consider. For an average-weight person, garden work burns about 330 calories per hour; more strenuous tasks, such as digging and moving compost bags, can burn 400 calories or more. Weeding for thirty minutes burns about 172 calories, which is more than moderate calisthenics. Thirty minutes of digging burns as many calories as playing softball or volleyball. These numbers may seem unbelievable to someone who believes that a playlist and exercise equipment are the only ways to burn calories, but they are true.

Gardening requires a variety of movements, making it physically unique and perhaps more beneficial for long-term health than many traditional exercise types. During a gardening session, you might bend, stretch, kneel, stand, walk, carry, pull, push, and reach. Frequently, these motions are alternated without a set pattern. In that functional movement range, all major muscle groups are worked, including the arms and shoulders from carrying watering cans and turning compound, the legs and glutes from kneeling and squatting, and the core and back from digging and raking. Anastasia Hancock, an eight-year volunteer with GoodGym, a UK charity that combines community gardening with fitness, says it’s strength, cardio, and conditioning all rolled into one. In London, she recalls transporting hundreds of fifty-kilogram compost bags up two flights of stairs to a rooftop community garden. The following day, she complained of pain in her arms and legs.

In terms of mental health, gardening differs from a typical workout in ways that are harder to replicate on a treadmill. The RHS and the University of Sheffield found that gardening daily has the same benefits as vigorous exercise like cycling or running. When you’re gardening, you don’t feel as taxed as you would when you’re doing other activities. Dr. Lauriane Chalmin-Pui, a former RHS Wellbeing Fellow, led the study and called it “effortless exercise.” One of the reasons people who garden regularly tend to stick with it is that they are focused on something meaningful and engaging instead of counting repetitions or monitoring pace. A 2023 study published in The Lancet Planetary Health followed nearly 300 adults who were new to gardening. According to the study, those who began gardening added 42 minutes of physical activity per week, ate about 7% more fiber daily, and reported greater reductions in stress and anxiety than those in the control group. Cardiovascular disease is reduced by all of these modifications. Multitasking was evident in the garden.

This is largely overlooked by the fitness industry, which is hard to ignore. A huge market exists for fitness apps, home workout gear, and gym memberships, but gardening does not sell apparel or make money from subscriptions. Compost heaps do not have marketing budgets. Despite this, the evidence continues to mount — from Harvard, the RHS, and the CDC’s own classification guidelines. As a practical, full-body, moderate-intensity workout, gardening does not cost anything other than the garden itself, has a lower injury rate than running, and produces something tangible and beneficial afterward. Exercise of that kind is really up for debate. There is no longer any debate about whether it counts as serious exercise.