There’s really something to be said for some good old-fashioned manual labor. It can keep you engaged with your lawn and the surroundings of your home, it’ll boost endorphins in your brain, and, most importantly, it’ll keep you toned and ready to go.
It’s truly great to put your muscles to use and then count up the calories that you’ve burned in the process. Let’s go ahead and take a look at the different ways that you can keep those muscles toned and fit while taking care of your yard.
Use the lawnmower
It is true that having a mechanical implement in the way of the heavy labor will decrease the amount of exercise that you get. With that said, you should consider ditching the riding mower and instead opt for the traditional push mower instead. This will give you a calf-punishing cardio workout. In the process, you’ll be burning calories. A 108-pound man can burn 450 calories an hour doing this.
You can always check out a weed wacker while you’re in the lawn trimming game. Come and read some weed wacker reviews to get yourself acclimated with what the best options would be for you to try out.
Trim the hedges
Again, there are automatic hedge trimmers that you could easily use, but here you should opt for the manual ones instead. Getting a pair of gas string trimmers can also help easy up the work. These will stimulate muscles in the forearms and shoulders and can burn more than 200 calories in an hour.
Rake the leaves
It’s logical that you’d want to wait for a calm day for raking the leaves, but it’ll actually make for a better workout to wait for a windy day and then do the chore accordingly. In fact, raking the leaves for even one hour will burn close to 300 calories, making this one of the best choices for getting your workout in.
Chop firewood
If you decide to go back to your lumberjack roots, not only will you look badass while wielding an axe, but you’ll get a great workout too. This will affect your arms, shoulders, back, and core, so if you want an all-inclusive workout to try, this really is it.
Even just 30 minutes of this badass workout will burn close to 250 calories. It’s hard to get much better than that, especially for a workout that only lasts 30 minutes.
Weed the garden.
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You might have covered all of the practical aspects that go into a yard like the lawn, the leaves, the shrubs, and even the firewood, but now you need to make sure that the yard actually looks good. Weeds are a sore spot in your otherwise beautiful garden, so you might as well get rid of them once and for all.
If you dig, hoe, water, and plant your way to a beautiful garden, not only will your yard look great, but you’ll be burning around 160 calories in just 30 minutes.
Which one is the best?
Just going by the numbers, it seems like mowing the lawn the good old-fashioned way is the best way to burn calories and burn them fast. Even so, it’s important to remember that it’s an all-inclusive concern. You want to make sure that you’re working out every muscle group possible. While lawn mowing burns the most calories, it also only works out the calves really.
So in terms of most muscle groups worked out, the trophy definitely goes to chopping firewood. You’re burning calories while working a number of muscle groups all at the same time.
Getting a workout gets increasingly difficult the older and busier we get. It can be hard to pencil in any amount of time towards keeping yourself in shape. The best way to counter that problem, then, is to bust out the equipment and get to work on your own yard.
This will save you money on hiring landscapers and mowers, and it’ll also give you the satisfaction of knowing that you and you alone have created your beautiful yard as well as the fact that you’ve become jacked in the process.
While this list isn’t exhaustive, it should give you an idea as to what you can do to keep fit while not breaking the bank.
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