Yesterday I felt like getting in a good, full-body, no-nonsense workout.
So I raked the yard.
Raking leaves used to be a Rockwellian pursuit epitomizing fall in America. A time when we rolled up our flannel sleeves, grabbed the Yo-Ho and dedicated ourselves to a Saturday in the yard. For weeks, it seemed a pointless task: Rake a bunch of leaves, a bunch more would fall. But we persevered until the last fallen oak-leaf soldier had been eradicated. We derived a sense of satisfaction through the process, both physical and in the knowledge that we were keeping the homestead in order.
Then, something happened. The birth of cable TV and the promise of 14 straight hours of college football on Saturday, perhaps? Or was it the invention of the leaf-blower, which introduced horsepower to the task, making it suddenly attractive to our 10-year-old kids? Maybe raking’s demise as an respectable physical activity can be attributed to the lack of a celebrity promoter, a Suzanne Somers or a Tony Little, to add sizzle to the cause.
Whatever, raking leaves has become yet another act of physical exertion that we’ve dropped from our repertoire. Which is a shame, because with the meager investment of $15 for a rake (the Ab Circle Pro, by comparison, is $199.75 plus $34.50 shipping and handling), you can get one good full-body workout.
According to AARP.org, raking leaves offers various benefits. It works your arms and upper body and, perhaps more importantly, tones your core — your stomach and back muscles. Maybe you won’t develop six-pack abs by raking leaves, but you will tone your body’s most important muscle group. (Check out this AARP article for tips on raking and bagging.)
Raking can also offer a good aerobic challenge, especially if you make the activity a challenge in itself. At the risk of raising eyebrows, I try to set a PR every time I take to the leaves. The first time I tackled the yard this season, it took me 23 minutes and 15 seconds to rake the north quadrant of our front yard; Last week, I nearly cracked the magical 20-minute barrier, cause for a victory lap around the cul-de-sac.
Perhaps most seductively, raking burns calories, more than you might imagine. According to the Self.com Health Calculator, a 170-pound person burns 348.16 calories during 60 minutes of leaf raking. That beats the following activities (according to another calculator, the Fitness Partner calorie calculator):
Water aerobics 309 calories
Shooting baskets 347.7
Disco dancing 347.7
Hacky sack 309
Umpiring a softball game 309
Walking 3.5 miles 293.6
Some of you who converted to leaf blowers years ago may be reluctant to switch back, despite the obvious benefits to your health. (Did I mention the infusion of Vitamin D from being out in the sun?) “I don’t have time to rake,” you say. “I’ve got kids to whisk off to a Tiny Tots Australian Rules Touch Football Tournament across town!” It’s my contention that raking actually takes less time than using a blower. Think about it: When your stack of leaves starts stacking up, how fast does the leaf blower propel them? Not too fast. A rake is more effective with high volumes. (I make this assertion despite a Consumer Reports test to the contrary. With all due respect, CR compared a top-end, gas-powered blower to a rake on a 15-foot-by-15-foot patch of leaves. That the blower cleared such a small area in half the time wasn’t surprising; I suspect the results would have been much different had the competition occurred on, say, a 30×30 battlefield.) And I don’t think we need dwell on the fact that raking is infinitely kinder to the ears than the leaf blower.
So, this weekend, which will it be: An hour in a sweaty gym pumping iron or an afternoon in the backyard under the sun returning to our agrarian roots?
Take the rake challenge.
Let me know what you think.*
*Not to influence your decision, but an informal online survey http://www.fitsugar.com/2380805 by Fitsugar.com found that 32 percent of respondents believe “Raking is definitely a workout,” while 55 percent believe “all yard work is exercise.”