Working in the garden is a pleasurable and relaxing task for many, but is a burden for other people. Whichever type you are, you can take advantage of lawn mowing and use it as a form of physical activity to burn calories and to build strength. Although you work harder and burn more calories if you use a manual lawn mower, you can also benefit from the task with any type of lawn mowing machine.
Calories Burned in Lawn Mowing
According to Captain Calculator, if you weigh 73 kg, you will burn 96 calories in 30 minutes of riding a mower. For a light or moderate effort in a power mower, you will burn 172 calories in 30 minutes. With moderate or vigorous effort in a walking or power mower, you’ll burn 192 calories.
You’ll burn the most with 230 calories in 30 minutes by using a hand mower. That’s a lot of total calories burned compared to the 77 calories you’ll burn if you stroll slowly for 30 minutes.
Health Benefits of Lawn Mowing
Lawn mowing is a form of aerobic and resistance exercise. Your heart and lungs work harder when you do an aerobic exercise. Aerobics also helps you work out your entire body as you move. Meanwhile, resistance exercise makes you work against gravity.
With lawn mowing, you perform aerobic and resistance exercise. If you use a manual push mower, you walk continuously and also use the mower to resist the grass and slopes on your lawn.
The best forms of exercise are those that you routinely do. Lawn mowing is a good form of exercise if you don’t want to exert extra effort by going to the gym, or if you think that jogging and swimming are not for you.
Frequency of Lawn Mowing
To keep a healthy lifestyle, you need a total of 150 minutes of physical activity in a week as recommended by the Centers for Disease and Control Prevention. If you want to make lawn mowing as your primary form of physical activity, you need to have to mow your neighbour’s lawns, too! In addition to lawn mowing, you can also prune shrubs and rake leaves as forms of physical activities. You can burn those calories as you wait for the grass to grow again.
Stay Active by Going Outdoors
If your day is packed with commitments and you laugh at the notion of spending time at the gym or running, it doesn’t mean that you can’t work out every day. You can use everyday activities, such as lawn mowing, as part of your routine. Find out activities that you genuinely enjoy and can help you burn calories at the same time. Look for ways that can make these activities more challenging to increase the amount of calories you burn.
You can burn calories and build strength by going outdoors. As much as possible, don’t hire out all your lawn work. Gardening makes you get up and down, stretch, and bend. You can burn calories by raking and bagging leaves, using your hand-held clippers, and by doing other gardening activities.