Is it normal for my back to hurt the day after gardening?
It's not uncommon, but it's not normal, and it's not the end of the world unless it sticks around. A stiff, achy lower back the day after a big session in the garden is something we hear about in clinic every spring. What matters most is how quickly it settles.
Yes, gardening is physical work, and some soreness after a day your body isn't used to makes sense. But the mark of a healthy spine and nervous system is for that pain and stiffness not to stick around long term. If it doesn't settle, that is a sign of a body that is at or past capacity for what you are asking of it.
Think of the ligaments along the back of your spine like a woollen jumper hung on a hook by its neck. Leave it there all afternoon and it stretches, and it doesn't spring back the moment you take it down. Your spine's soft tissues behave in a similar way when you hold one position for a long time, which is why the first few steps after an hour of weeding can feel so stiff.
Spring brings out the jobs that keep you bent over for hours: weeding, power hosing the drive, digging new garden beds, or deciding to re-landscape the whole backyard in one weekend.
Why does gardening make your back sore?
The main thing we see causing problems after gardening is holding the same posture and muscle contraction for a long time without taking a break. It could be weeding, or it could be power hosing the drive. In both cases you sit in one bent position and keep working.
Researchers in the US looked at exactly this. In one study, healthy adults held a fully bent-forward position for 10 minutes. Their spines gradually sank further into the bend as the ligaments and other passive tissues stretched, and their back muscles worked harder to make up for it. Ten minutes of standing upright afterwards wasn't enough for those tissues to fully recover. A 30 second break halfway through the stoop eased the effect (Shin, Mirka and Loboa). The same group concluded that enough rest between bent-over tasks matters, and that heavy lifting straight after a long stoop is when the back is most vulnerable (Shin and Mirka, 2007). This is the picture behind the stiff first steps: weeding is hours of this posture, often followed by lifting a full bucket or a bag of mulch.
The second pattern is the overexcited weekend warrior. He works in an office during the week, then decides to re-landscape his backyard on the weekend when his body isn't used to the physical work. Unfamiliar work, especially lowering, digging and carrying, causes small amounts of damage in the muscle fibres, and the repair process that follows is what makes you sore. This is called delayed onset muscle soreness, and it tends to peak 24 to 72 hours after the work (Cheung, Hume and Maxwell, 2003). So the day after is often worse than the day itself.
How long should soreness last after gardening?
Soreness from a big day you weren't conditioned for should be clearly easing within a couple of days. The review above found this kind of soreness usually fades by around the end of the first week, and the trend should be steadily better each morning.
We're more interested in the pattern. We will all have pain from things like gardening every now and then. If you're sore after every session, if it's not easing day by day, or if it keeps coming back in the same spot, your body is telling you it's at capacity. That's the point where it's worth finding out why.
What should you do while you're gardening?
People forget how physical gardening is, so they often skip breaks and don't do any gentle mobility or stretching afterwards. They're more likely to collapse on the couch or crack a refreshing beer!
The main advice we give is to take regular breaks and reverse the postures you've been using. If you've been bent forward over a garden bed, stand up, put your hands on your hips and gently lean back. If you've been reaching and pulling, open your chest and roll your shoulders back. Vary the work where you can, swapping a stooped job like weeding for a standing one like pruning or sweeping, so the same tissues aren't loaded for hours. And keep your water bottle nearby, because it's easy to forget to drink when you're absorbed in a job.
What should you do after gardening?
Go for a bit of a walk at the end of the day. Gentle walking gets everything moving again after hours in one position. Then do a few simple stretches:
Happy cat, angry cat: on your hands and knees, slowly arch your back up towards the ceiling, then let it sink down as you lift your head.
Child's pose: from hands and knees, sit your bottom back towards your heels and stretch your arms out in front.
Lumbar rotation stretch: lie on your back, bring one knee into your chest and let it fall across to the opposite side, keeping your upper back flat on the floor. Repeat on the other side.
Pec stretch: rest your forearm on a door frame at shoulder height and gently step through until you feel a stretch across the front of your chest.
A lot of people also book in for an adjustment the Monday after a heavy weekend to help them recover more quickly.
Should you stop gardening if it hurts your back?
Not usually, but it depends on the pain. If you're in a high amount of pain after gardening, or the pain comes on as soon as you start, get it looked at as soon as possible rather than pushing through. If it's low level (around 4 out of 10 or less), you should be ok to keep gardening as long as you're taking breaks, reversing your postures and varying the work.
We don't want to put anyone off gardening, because getting outside and getting your hands in the dirt is great for your nervous system, your mental health and the healthy bacteria that live in your gut.
A meta-analysis of 22 studies compared gardeners with non-gardeners, and people before and after taking up gardening. Gardening was linked with better health across the board, with the strongest effects on wellbeing (Soga, Gaston and Yamaura, 2017).
A randomised trial in Denver took 291 adults (average age 41) who had never gardened and were on a waiting list for a community garden plot. Half were given a plot straight away and half stayed on the list. By the end of the growing season, the gardeners were eating more fibre, doing more physical activity, and had greater drops in stress and anxiety than the group still waiting. The people who started out most stressed improved the most (Litt et al., 2023).
The soil itself plays a part too. A study in Illinois followed 10 families who gardened for more than 30 minutes a week and 9 families who didn't, testing their gut bacteria and their garden soil before the season in April and again at its peak in August. By August, the gardening families had a more diverse range of gut bacteria and more of the bacteria that ferment fibre. Some bacteria found in their garden soil also turned up in their gut samples, and the changes were seen in family members as well as the main gardener (Brown et al., 2022). It's a small study, and the gardening families also ate more fibre, which feeds those same bacteria. Both are part of what gardening gives you: time in the dirt and the food that comes out of it.
If your back is sore the day after gardening and it isn't clearly easing, or it's the same sore spot every time, you can book an initial consultation with us online or call the clinic during opening hours.
References
Cheung K, Hume PA, Maxwell L. Delayed onset muscle soreness: treatment strategies and performance factors. Sports Medicine. 2003;33(2):145–164.
Shin G, Mirka GA. An in vivo assessment of the low back response to prolonged flexion: interplay between active and passive tissues. Clinical Biomechanics. 2007;22(9):965–971.
Shin G, Mirka GA, Loboa EG. Viscoelastic responses of the lumbar spine during prolonged stooping. NIOSH-supported report, CDC Stacks.
Soga M, Gaston KJ, Yamaura Y. Gardening is beneficial for health: a meta-analysis. Preventive Medicine Reports. 2017;5:92–99.
Litt JS, Alaimo K, Harrall KK, et al. Effects of a community gardening intervention on diet, physical activity, and anthropometry outcomes in the USA (CAPS): an observer-blind, randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Planetary Health. 2023;7(1):e23–e32.
Brown MD, Shinn LM, Reeser G, et al. Fecal and soil microbiota composition of gardening and non-gardening families. Scientific Reports. 2022;12:1595.
