That's right - muscles. Gardening can burn an average of 300 calories per hour, and is an effective form of resistance training.
Most people say they garden for the fun of it.
However, according to the experts, moderate-intensity exercises such as gardening and walking, done most days of the week, provide a sufficient amount of physical activity to lower your risk for heart disease, cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure. Whether your goal is a manicured lawn or to be able to walk out your back door and pick the vegetables for dinner, there are a number of books in your local bookstore that can tell you what and how to plant, feed and maintain your garden or yard. Once that step is done, you can focus on getting both you and the ground in shape. Those Muscles Remind yourself that the tasks of gardening require the use of muscles that may not have been active for awhile. But if you start off slow, you can avoid the back strains and soreness that come from repeating the same motion for hours at a time.