How to Improve Your Landscaping and Your Health

Summer is the time to go out into your yard and improve your landscaping and doing so will improve your health. Landscaping, even though it is relaxing to work in your garden or yard, is a good source for exercise. With an ever increasing spot light on staying healthy, take advantage of improving your landscaping to improve your health.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Landscaping As Part of Your Daily Exercise
   
   Working on landscaping can easily be integrated in to your daily exercise routine to help burn calories and tone your muscles. Spend some of your workout time maintaining your lawn, cultivating your vegetable garden, or planting and weeding your flower garden. This workout activity will tone your muscles, provide daily exercise and improve your lawn or garden's appearance.

2. Lawn Maintenance Keeps You in Shape
   
   Working on your landscaping can keep you in shape. Using a push lawnmower works your arms and legs as you trim garden edges or create those grassy rows in your lawn. When you rake or use the blower to clean up the clippings this repetitive use of your upper body is a landscaping activity that provides a good upper body workout.

3. Landscaping for Toning Your Muscles
   
   There are lifting activities, which are a natural part of landscaping, that will help build and tone your muscles. Lifting bags of fertilizer, grass seed, mulch, or soil provides an opportunity to use your arm and leg muscles and help out your lawn at the same time. Other tasks such as moving garden equipment, patio furniture and planters help your use your muscles providing a chance to tone your muscles and beautify your landscaping.

4. Exercise in Your Garden
   
   There are plenty of exercise opportunities while you keep your garden looking good. Using a hand trimmer to keep your bushes and hedges in shape will help keep you in shape. This activity works your leg and arms muscles. Other gardening activities that you do on a daily basis, which also work your arms and legs and help exercise your entire body, include using a spade to dig up weeds, bending down to pull weeds or move unwanted rocks from an area, using a shovel to dig the hole to plant your favorite new flower, or using a hoe to plant your vegetable garden and help keep it weed free.

Tips & Warnings

• Improving the look of your landscape also provides an opportunity to exercise outdoors. Working with your landscaping or in your garden will also improve the look and tone of your body. Improving your health by working on your landscaping provides a dual sense of accomplishment.

Resources

• eHow Home and Garden Topic Guide

[xrayness]

on 5/18/2009 Howdy George! Yet another well written eHow article by a talented writer. I had to hire a new landscaper because the guy last year did not communicate well. Luckily I get exercise on the treadmill and don't need to work on the lawn, etc. Frees up my time to write eHow articles (currently at 464 and busy working towards my goal of 500). Six Super Duper Stars******!!!