Hopefully, you’re all busy in the garden at the moment, no matter how large or small your garden, time and budget!

It seems there are hazards everywhere in life, and gardening is no exception.

According to the Department of Trade and Industry’s Home Accident Surveillance System around 87,000 people go to hospital accident and emergency because of injuries caused by actively gardening or carrying out DIY jobs in the garden!

Watch your back!

As you might imagine, the number one ‘most dangerous gardening tool’ is the lawnmower, but second is …

the humble flower pot!

The rogue flower pot is responsible for over 5,000 accidents per year. I thought it might be through dropping a terracotta pot on your toes, but it’s through back injuries caused by poor lifting!

I guess we see a bit of sun and rush out into the garden to tackle the weeds and beautify our patches. But when you think about it, that’s like going for a run without doing a warmup.

Pilates

Over on Vitalflow; which is a pilates-based lifestyle club, Josie (pictured above; and if she’s an advert for pilates, I’m taking it up this instant!) and Caroline are sharing some free video clips to help you avoid gardening injuries with their simple warm up exercises and stretches.

Based on pilates, these simple exercises can help strengthen your back and help you recover from strain and injury.

Free trial

There are new videos added to the site every month, covering a wide range of topics such as yoga, meditation, the back clinic and yummy mummy - workouts for every trimester and those all important pelvic floor exercises!

There are various levels of membership to choose from, but you can enjoy a free two day trial to see if you think it could benefit you!

What about you - have you tried pilates? How did you get on?

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