During an hour of digging or raking, 500 calories can be burned. The same time spent at the gym averages 400 calories1. Energy-absorbing gardening activities are more numerous and are increasingly being considered as an alternative to other forms of recreation.
Joanna ERBEL - sociologist, expert on housing and building urban resilience. Director of protopia CoopTech Hub, member of the Board of Directors of PLZ Cooperative. Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board of MOST Cooperative. Member of the Board of the Rental Market Foundation. Author of the books "Beyond Ownership. Towards a successful housing policy" (2020), "Leaning into the future. How to change the world for the better" (2022) and the foresight novel "How Henry gained power" (2023). She is a contributor to the Atypika Foundation, which works on neurodiversity. Agrobodybuilder.
gym in the garden
il: Małgorzata Zmysłowska
garden instead of a gym
On the Weranda Country website, Joanna Derda writes: "An hour of weeding the beds - 250 calories less. Digging the soil - we lose twice as much. The same with raking. When we trim branches, we can count on getting rid of 280 calories. Similarly, when cutting grass with an electric mower." Chopping wood is particularly exhausting - 900 calories per hour. Derda warns, however, not to overdo it - gardening should be undertaken responsibly and with preparation. "Weeding should be approached as seriously as a marathon. Both here and there we are threatened by soreness. So let's get used to daily warm-ups. Gardeners tend to neglect them, and that's a mistake, because when digging you can catch an injury as painful as when lifting weights "2.
He encourages a quick warm-up in the form of walking along garden paths, doing a few squats, arm swings, warming up the body. He warns to take care of the spine: don't bend down - but squat. Carry weights - such as a watering can or bucket - once in one hand, once in the other. Take care to work both sides of the body. Agrobodybuilding is the fitness of the future. An activity that can transform not only our bodies, but also our cities. Everyone can set their own program. Depending on your strength and needs.
yogis
il: Malgorzata Zmyslowska
strong body - calm mind
For the past two years I've been working with the earth regularly: digging, weeding, carrying wood, water and fruit, doing hundreds of squats, harvesting herbs, exercising my wrists, dribbling plums. I do a lot of walking - often over a small area - in the winter, planning spring activities, and over the following months, watching how the ecosystem I care for develops and doing what I happen to need. In the garden, one cannot suffer from boredom or lack of activities. Those who have gone through the cycle of life in the garden know that there is no shortage of work at any time of the year. In February and March, you can prepare embankments, beds and compost piles. Cut excess wood. Designate beds. Plant new trees and shrubs3. If we want to establish a relationship with the earth, there are seasonal holidays: after the new year, these include the Festival of Light (known in Poland as Our Lady of Thunder) or Farewell to Winter, whose heroine is Marzanna.
To the year-round activities must be added the gathering of herbs. In summer they are most abundant, but even in winter one can collect pine shoots, mistletoe, alder fruits, common starflower or cuddly, in autumn - dandelion roots and traveler's chicory. Seeds are also collected for spring sowing. What grows is usually also what we need at any given time to keep us healthy. There is less physical work in winter, but tending the land teaches that not every month is the same and life has its cycles. To operate effectively, sometimes you need to rest. To know where you are going - to take stock of the previous stage and plan the next activities.
When we tie our activity to nature's cycles, the challenge for me becomes not to move more, but to unplug from nature, which pulls in and demands attention, and rest.
Nature's life - unlike a gym pass - does not expire. They are also harder to ignore than the kettlebells lying in the corner of the room or the yoga mat tucked at the bottom of the closet.
dumbbells
il: Malgorzata Zmyslowska
For working with nature comes reward. Not only in the form of harvests. When I look at my body, first of all I am happy that it is limber and strong. I listen to it and make sure that the effort is not excessive. When I think of myself on the farm or in the field, I think of myself as a farmer and agribodybuilder. The joy of building body fitness is just as great as that of growing crops - better condition is an additional reward for the effort put in.
My Warsaw place of work with the land is MOST cooperative urban farm. I happened to get on my bike and ride first thing in the morning to Siekierki to dig up the sod for the sorghum spiral or spruce up my herb circle. Such a trip during the week is a surge of dopamine and a double joy: from an optimally tired body and doing something that is tangible. At the same time, more than once the earth thing has allowed me to arrange in my body what I couldn't arrange in my head. Intellectual approach to the world has its limitations, working with nature teaches that different processes have their cycles and not everything can be rushed. It teaches patience and humility.
generations of gardeners
il: Małgorzata Zmysłowska
Agrobodybuilding is also about saving money. Tools are bought once, but also not always by yourself. You can share them with others, as we do at our MOST cooperative farm. The fee for joining the cooperative and the right to co-determine the development of the farm is 400 zloty. That's less than a six-month gym pass. You can come and work out with us every Saturday. For free. We also decide on the distribution of the harvest together4. In addition, there is a therapeutic dimension. Working with the earth allows you to integrate your emotions, regain calmness and get fit. Body work based on physical fatigue is an underestimated therapeutic element of active contact with the land. Physiotherapeutic.
There is much talk about the salutary effect of greenery on our psyche. Catherine Simonienko in "Forest Therapy" writes that "an objectively healthy and biodiverse forest positively affects the well-being of people who walk in it, regenerates their immune system and reduces the stress experienced."5 This is because "nature for hundreds of thousands of years has been and continues to be our actual environment." The forest as a biodiverse space is more than just greenery. "It is also emotions, intellectual challenges, feelings, creative inspiration and spiritual experiences. "6 Looking at the horizon, our eyes rest; it only takes six meters of free space for our eyeballs to regenerate7.
lasoteriapia
il: Małgorzata Zmysłowska
We know that contact with nature is calming and stimulating at the same time. It's a perfect combination for people on the autism spectrum and with ADHD. There is harmony, but no boredom. The presence of nature and, in the case of buildings, biophilic - that is, referring to natural materials - design is the basis of design for neuroatypical people, that is, people whose minds work differently from the averaged norm. That's about 30 percent of the population8.
What's more, while walking through forests and parks is soothing, caring for a particular piece of land allows one to regain a sense of agency. This, in turn, as psychologist Martin Seligman explains, is a prerequisite for us to transcend our limitations9.
At the same time, we still associate hortiterapy with activities mainly for the elderly. Growing your own garden as a health-promoting activity is a retirement plan or an image from the pandemic past. So instead of talking about hortiterapy, let's perhaps start talking about agrobodybulding as a new form of activity - good for people of all ages. Especially since it's combining the pleasant with the useful: we take care of our mind and body, and produce food at the same time.
preserves
il: Małgorzata Zmysłowska
grow the city
Agrobodybuilding is also a new form of right to the city, understood after David Harvey as the right to "change and reinvent the city as we want it to be. "10 After all, can't we expect our cities to be spaces that allow us to stay healthy and fit? And at the same time give access to healthy and affordable food? However, if urban agriculture and its accompanying agribodybuilding are to be a common recreational activity, a change in approach to city planning is needed. Growing one's own garden, especially in larger cities, is still an elite activity. It requires many years of seniority, residence that allows inheriting a house with a garden or a garden in Family Allotment Gardens, or a lot of money - plots currently cost money.
Public urban greenery is mostly a place for rest and movement, but very rarely do we have the opportunity to actively (and also legally!) transform it. Fortunately, there are more and more urban gardens - and they take different forms. The leader here is Krakow, which is consistently implementing the Edible Krakow program, introducing crops to schools and city institutions11. A parcel garden is also being created there. Wrocław has launched its urban farm, which will provide food for the city's nurseries. The Olbin Open Garden is also operating there, and urban orchards are being planned.
orchard
il: Malgorzata Zmyslowska
In Warsaw, in addition to our cooperative farm, there is the Motyka and Sun garden, from which our initiative originated, and the Common Garden at the Służewski House of Culture. In Poznan, there is a garden by the Kąpielisko collective and a farm by the Adam Mickiewicz University. In Gdansk there is an urban garden called Plony. In Torun, we can visit the Edible Garden on the campus of Nicolaus Copernicus University and the Free Vistula Community Garden. In Cieszyn, the School of Urban Gardeners is active, with its adepts developing various spaces in the city. Growing spaces have also been created at the Full Life Factory in Dąbrowa Górnicza, while the idea itself brings together more and more people who are looking for spaces for themselves, as in the case of the Tarnogórski Community Garden.
Many changes in city planning first need changes in our imagination - in the case of urban agriculture it has already happened. The next move is for local governments to actively support the development of crops within their borders and recognize agribodybuilding as a desirable and worthwhile form of activity to support - as it touches on such important issues as food sovereignty, public health and climate change adaptation. Urban agriculture as a part of building resilience and organizing community life has a long and varied tradition. Growing one's own gardens was promoted during World War II, the development of factory plots had its heyday during the communist era. Nowadays, few of us are tied to one workplace all our lives, but why not have large neighborhood urban farms and smaller - neighborhood - gardens and gardens between buildings, on the grounds of schools or cultural institutions. Especially since we live in troubled times, where access to food, especially imported food, is sensitive to geopolitical turbulence.
Relax with vitamin D
il: Małgorzata Zmysłowska
Urban agriculture has many facets, and growing plants in the ground or in boxes is just one of its forms. Hydroponic farming is also important, and it can bring food closer. For oyster mushrooms, we will go to the basement or attic. They can also make their way permanently into public institutions and workplaces. This topic has been explored for several years by architect Paulina Grabowska, who is bringing such installations into offices, where contact with plants also has a salutary effect - encouraging people to get up from their desks12. Walking at a moderate pace, on the other hand, means about 200 calories burned per hour. Hydroponic growing can also give us exercise when we are indoors. Food will allow us to take care of both our safety and develop cities with respect for the environment. It will make us healthier and happier.
Joanna ERBEL
drawings: Malgorzata Zmyslowska
more: A&B 6/2024 - Health,
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1. after the website of the Mazovian Regional Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, citing the Healthy Food Institute: http://wsse.waw.pl/files/wsse/Do%20strony%20WSSE/Pliki/Aktualnosci_2016/Tabela%20spalania%20kalorii.pdf. Same data on Calorie Burning Table, Fitness Center, 30.01.2014, https://www.centrumfitness.eu/dieta/48-tabela-spalania-kalorii [accessed 4.05.2024].
2 J. Derda, Fitness in the Bed, https://www.werandacountry.pl/weranda-country-nr-42013/fitness-na-grzadce [accessed 4.05.2024].
3. well through the annual cycle in the garden are led by D. Dekarz, Permaculture in the garden. Month by month, Lutynia 2021, and - in a more general way - S. Kulis, Gardening for four seasons, Warsaw 2021. The latter also includes recipes.
4 More on our farm and cooperative model: W. Bochenek, Why do we need cooperative urban farms?, A&B, 13.07.2023, https://www.architekturaibiznes.pl/po-co-nam-spoldzielcze-farmy-miejskie,27575.html, and in the CoopTech Hub report, J. Erbel, M. Kudła, M. Łepkowski, K. Przyjemska-Grzesik, Cooperative Urban Farm, 06.2023,
https://www.hub.coop/publikacja/spoldzielcza-farma-miejska [accessed 4.05.2024].
5. K. Simonienko, Lasotherapy, Bielsko-Biala 2021, p. 9.
6. ibid, p. 14.
7. Best Exercises to Improve Sight - Ways to Fix Tired Eyes, 2.08.2022, https://familyoptic.pl/blog/najlepsze-cwiczenia-na-poprawe-wzroku-sposoby-na-zmeczone-oczy.html [accessed 4.05.2024].
8. J. Erbel, Designing for body and mind, A&B 24.06.2022, https://www.architekturaibiznes.pl/projektowanie-dla-ciala-i-dla-umyslu,11730.html [accessed 4.05.2024].
9. M. Seligman, Agency and Progress: Efficacy, Optimism, and Imagination, 10.06.2021, https://www.media.mit.edu/videos/ml-perspectives-2021-06-10 [accessed 4.05.2024].
10 D. Harvey, Revolt of the Cities. The Right to the City and the Urban Revolution, Warsaw 2012, p. 22.
11. more in the Cooperative Urban Farming report cited above, https://www.hub.coop/publikacja/spoldzielcza-farma-miejska/ [accessed 4.05.2024].
12. URBAN FARMING - Agriculture is moving to the cities! - Conference at Castle Cieszyn - Part 2, Castle Cieszyn, 13.11.2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEILIV_qLzY [accessed 4.05.2024].
