The Garden Workout

You need nothing to exercise. N-o-t-h-i-n-g. You don't need a gym membership. You don't need junk-molding spandex. You don't even need a block of time.

You just gotta opt for the harder route throughout the day. It's the Way of the Cobblestone. Stairs, not elevators. Parking in the first spot off the street, not the spot closest to the door. Taking a break with a stroll, not a scroll. Killing that cow with your bare hands and harvesting the meat and then running away before the farmer starts shooting, not buying hamburger at the meat market.

Over the course of the day, you'll line up more exercise than Hunter Biden lines up cocaine and whores at Christmas.

But I suppose there are times when you want to get some real exercise. Arnold stuff. Pushing your heart rate into the stratosphere.

For those times, you need . . . nothing. A block of time, yes, but nothing else.

Just ask Rocky Balboa.

The Way of the Cobblestone

Smooth makes things rough. Ease makes life more difficult. Soft makes us brittle. We lost something when asphalt replaced cobblestone. Every step on those old, gnarled stones forced a man’s body to shift, recalibrate, and work. The more cobblestonish the surface, the more micro-exertions. The more asphaltish the surface,

The Daily EudemonEric Scheske

The Soviet Ivan Drago worked out ferociously in the gym, ran on indoor tracks, and used elaborate machines for weight training.

Rocky worked out in a barn, trudged ferociously through snow, and chopped wood like a Russian Old Believer on speed.

Rocky won the fight. Looking back now, it was probably because Drago was using the latest-and-greatest in Soviet technology, which is like using the latest-and-greatest in Amish sex toys, but Stallone's message was clear: Rocky's lumberjack-berserker routine gave him the edge.

And everyone knows, if the Tulsa King says it, it's true.

Rocky IV in the Garden

Gardening provides whatever measure of exercise you want. You can take it slow and enjoy a cobblestone effect. You can shift into Zone 2 by moving a bit quicker. Or you can take it as hard as you can until you're panting on the ground like you just escaped a gang of Muslim groomers who'd mistaken you for a twelve-year-old boy.

The rest of this piece is about that third option: the hardcore garden workout.

The Garden Workout Routine in Three Steps

1. Warm-up by walking around the garden, planning out roughly the kinds of exercises you'll do.
2. Turn on your Garden Workout Playlist.
3. Go hard.

That's it.

There is no routine. Every workout will be different. That's a good thing. You think Rocky stepped in the same snow drift every morning during his run? Frick no.

Keep in mind that, even though your primary purpose is exercise, you're still gardening. Think of it like playing basketball or racquetball. You tell yourself the main purpose is to play the sport, but it's a fiction. You're there for the exercise. The same goes for the garden workout.

I've described a few of my favorite exercises below, but you'll come up with plenty of your own. Without fail, some other way to exercise occurs to me in the middle of every session.

Slashing Furiously with the Wheel Hoe

I'm starting with the best exercise. This one is so important, I dedicate Moonshine Bandit's "Dive Bar Beauty Queen" to wheel hoeing. When my Spotify shuffle rotates to that song, I stop whatever I'm doing and go as hard as I can with the wheel hoe for 3:39 minutes and then walk around with my hands on my head while catching my breath and muttering "f' me" before launching into the next exercise.

Wheel hoeing is brutal, especially if you're using the stirrup hoe implement. The push. The pull. Arms, upper back, lower back, legs, vocals (whimpers and groans). Five hard minutes on the wheel hoe make the holiest man mutter, "Oh, shit. Shit."

Warning: I'm guessing my stronger readers could break the wheel hoe (even I have). Sharpen the stirrup hoe blades (both sides) before your workout. Sharper slicing reduces strain on the frame.

I use the Earthway 6500, btw. I also have the more costly and touted Hoss wheel hoe, but I don't like it nearly as much as the cheaper Earthway.

The Implement Sprint

Create a track around your garden. Fairly wide.

Grab an implement and sprint through it. A rake or shovel in one hand. Maybe the wheel hoe two-hand hoisted over your head. Doesn't matter. My track is only 1/10th of a mile, but when I do one of these toward the end of my workout, you can fork me.

Do you need to be holding an implement? Yes. Ideally, you're transporting it from one area of the garden to another, just taking a loop-plus to do it. Remember: You're gardening, not working out. That's the fiction here that makes the workout relatively enjoyable But even if you're not moving the implement to another area of the garden for your next chore, the act of carrying something f's-up the exercise just enough to add a cobblestone effect.

Shoveling

A low-energy friend of mine once said, "Shoveling is the easiest job in the world. You just have to pace yourself." He's right. So don't pace yourself. Shovel like you're putting out a fire. Don't worry if the results are sloppy.

Moving Things

No matter what you're moving, make it difficult. Shovel the soil into buckets then move them as fast as you can. Maybe situate the buckets 20 feet away and run back and forth with the shovels of soil. If you're going to use a wheelbarrow, pack it full and push it like you're trying to move a house.

Raking

I learned long ago that raking is hard. Sure, you can take it lightly, but done at a brisk pace? You'll feel it the next day. Rake old leaves, the debris left over from your wheel hoe work out, soil that you're fashioning into a bed. Doesn't matter. Dig those prongs deep into the soil and pull like you're extracting a child from the jaws of an alligator.

Squatting

You could do an entire workout just squatting. Don't bend at the waist, don't kneel. Just squat until you're buttocks are nearly scraping the ground, pull the weeds, or do whatever while you're down there, then thrust up like you're trying to bump your head against a cloud. I don't normally make squatting part of my workout, but whenever I'm forced to bend over during a workout for whatever reason, I always squat deeply and come out of it as forcefully as possible, often getting as much as a quarter-inch of air beneath my feet.

It's Tricky

My biggest problem with the garden workout? I can't quantify it. I have no idea how much exercise I'm getting, which leads to practical problems, like the time I went so hard on Monday that I didn't feel normal until Thursday.

But that's part of the garden workout's effective charm. It escapes quantification and our obsession with checking off boxes. It liberates even if we feel like beaten slaves after it's over.