Tips for staying pain-free in the garden

If you garden, you ache.

Not all the time, of course, but probably after lifting that last bag of mulch. Or, spending too long on your knees weeding the annuals. Or bending over to plant all those tomatoes.

Mary Secor, a physical therapist for Cape Cod Hospital Outpatient Rehabilitation, understands your pain. Besides treating patients, she’s a longtime gardener, growing flowers, berries and vegetables such as greens, eggplant, zucchini, summer squash, tomatoes and red noodle beans. Some Saturdays you’ll find her selling her produce at the Orleans Farmers Market.

“I’ve had sore backs because I worked too long,” said Secor, who turns 59 this year. “When I do a farmer’s market… it’s harvest, it’s weighing things out, it’s loading up my truck with my tables and my sign. And, so, yep, I have.”

Secor says she loves gardening and she loves selling at the market but is learning she has to be smarter about how she uses her body. “As time goes on, I have arthritis in my hands. I have to use gloves. I need to pace myself and do things that are easier on my body.”

So, as an expert on body mechanics and gardening, Secor has some advice for anyone who loves to be out in the yard but wants to avoid any painful payback. Her most important advice? “Keep it fun.” Here are her specifics on how to do that:

• Make a manageable plan for your garden. “If you don’t have a plan, sometimes you just get overwhelmed, or you work too long or too hard. So, have a plan of what you want to do and a timeframe of how long you want to be working,” she said.
• Do a warm-up. Before you go out to work in the garden, take a short walk to lubricate your knees, ankles and hips. Swing your arms. Do 10 minutes of stretching, particularly calf muscles, hamstrings, quadriceps and hips.
• Think about injury prevention. “You want to wear a hat, you want to have some sunscreen on, you want to have your gloves, a bottle of water,” Secor said. Use your legs to lift, not your back muscles. Alternate hands or arms when digging. Take frequent breaks.
• Be smart about tools. Secor loves her long-handled hula hoe, which allows her to weed without hurting her back. Use a wheelbarrow for carrying and a garden kneeler or pads to protect your knees. A milk crate makes a good garden seat, she says.
• Change positions. “Gardeners are often in positions for a long time; it’s just tedious work,” she said. “And so, what’s good is every 15 or 20 minutes get up and stretch, just to straighten your back out. You might even walk a little bit or change that position every 15 to 20 minutes.”
• Raise up your garden. Secor uses fish crates – the plastic tubs used by fishermen to haul their catch – to grow greens. It puts her greens a little higher off the ground, protecting her hips and back. You can do the same with other containers or raised beds.
• Be mindful of body mechanics. “Our lower spine is the number-one condition that we strain, no matter what we are doing, because we tend to bend from there. So, good body mechanics would be to try to bend at your knees and your hips, keeping your shoulders straight.”
• Give it a rest. If you do strain something, use a cold pack on the area for 10 or 15 minutes several times a day. And give your back a break for a few days.
• Keep fit in the off-season. “If you’re not active in the off-season, and you go into your gardening, you’re just going to get really sore,” Secor said. “So, whatever you do (such as) walk or ride a stationary bike or something throughout the winter, it makes the transition so much easier.”