Jerry Hall Finds Gyms Boring. Can Gardening Replace Strength Training?
UPLIFT IRON CLUBJerry Hall Hates the Gym, but She Hasn't Chosen a Sedentary Life
Jerry Hall has an unusually straightforward answer to the modern fitness industry's endless search for the perfect routine: she doesn't enjoy going to a gym. At 70, the model and television personality prefers gardening, walking her dogs, canoeing and caring for animals. Her daily life involves movement with a purpose. She has plants to grow, pets to look after and grandchildren to spend time with. None of that requires a mirror-lined weight room, a wearable recovery score or an inspirational alarm set for four in the morning.
The distinction matters because disliking gyms is not the same as disliking physical activity. Plenty of people abandon exercise plans because the activity itself feels like an unpleasant appointment. Hall has built movement into activities she actually wants to do. Digging soil, carrying tools, walking outside and managing a busy household all require muscular effort and energy. That makes her approach more sustainable than a membership that remains unused for eleven months of the year.
But there is a trap in turning a celebrity's lifestyle into a universal prescription. We cannot infer Hall's bone density, muscle strength, cardiovascular capacity or injury risk from her appearance or her account of daily chores. A life filled with gardening can be substantially more active than a desk-bound routine, yet it may still lack the deliberate resistance required to increase strength over time. The right question is not whether her routine is good or bad. It is what that routine trains well, and what it leaves untrained.
The useful lesson is about adherence. A perfect program that never happens is less valuable than regular movement that fits into real life. Walking a dog twice a day creates repeatable activity without requiring constant motivation. A garden creates a reason to bend, reach, carry and get outdoors. Those are genuine benefits, particularly for people who spend much of their week sitting. The next step is to identify which physical qualities those activities do not challenge enough.
Nobody needs to become a gym enthusiast to train those missing qualities. Two short sessions at home can complement an active lifestyle without taking over it. That is a more interesting response than telling somebody who hates treadmills to force themselves through an elaborate five-day split. Enjoyable movement can be the foundation; a little structured strength work can make the foundation more complete.
Gardening Is Real Physical Work—But the Intensity Changes With the Job
Gardening is not one exercise. It is a shifting collection of tasks, from gently clipping herbs to moving compost, pushing a loaded wheelbarrow and repeatedly getting down to ground level. The energy cost changes enormously. Picking vegetables while standing and walking can be around three metabolic equivalents, while moderate raking or planting can demand more. A metabolic equivalent compares an activity's approximate energy requirement with resting expenditure; it is a useful population-level guide, not a precise calorie counter for one individual.
That means a productive afternoon outside can contribute meaningful moderate-intensity activity. Digging and raking can raise breathing and heart rate, especially when repeated for long enough. Planting often requires controlled squatting or kneeling, then standing again. Carrying soil and watering cans demands grip and trunk stability. The garden may feel less like exercise because attention is on the task rather than the discomfort of a workout, but muscles and the cardiovascular system still respond to the work.
The problem is inconsistency of load. A heavy bag of compost may challenge the legs and back once, while most of the next hour consists of light watering. The body receives movement, but not necessarily a progressive stimulus. If the same light watering can is carried for years, it does not automatically become a muscle-building program. Likewise, an afternoon of hard digging after months of inactivity can create soreness without creating a sensible training progression.
Technique matters when the activity is repetitive or awkward. For a heavy pot, bring the load close, keep the path clear and use the legs and hips instead of twisting while bent over. For digging, change sides periodically, take short breaks and avoid repeatedly reaching far beyond a comfortable stance. Kneeling pads, raised beds and lighter loads are sensible modifications, not admissions of weakness. If an unfamiliar job feels heavy, divide it into smaller trips rather than treating the garden as a competition.
Gardening also offers a reward that a treadmill display cannot: the work produces something tangible. That can encourage regular participation and time outdoors, with social and psychological benefits alongside movement. But the best description is physically active recreation, sometimes reaching exercise-level intensity. It is not automatically a complete substitute for targeted strength training, just as playing tennis is not a substitute for every lower-body exercise.
Dog Walks and Household Chores Build Activity, Not Automatic Muscle
A dog walk may look ordinary, but it solves one of the hardest problems in fitness: getting somebody to move on days when motivation is low. Pets need attention regardless of mood. Those repeated trips add up to steps, outdoor exposure and opportunities for brisk walking. Household chores work in a similar way. Cleaning, carrying laundry, climbing stairs and walking between rooms raise daily energy expenditure above what it would be during continuous sitting.
This category of movement is often called non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT. It includes much of the physical work people do outside planned workouts. It is highly variable: one person sits for most of the day after training, while another spends hours moving through errands, hobbies and work. Two people with the same one-hour gym session can therefore have very different daily activity totals. A smartwatch can estimate steps, but it cannot perfectly translate every household task into calories.
Walking becomes more of a cardiovascular challenge when the pace and terrain make breathing noticeably faster. A slow stroll with frequent stops still has value, but it is not equivalent to a sustained brisk walk uphill. You can make the activity more demanding by choosing a longer route, adding gentle hills or increasing pace for several minutes. There is no need to turn every walk into a race; a mix of easy and more purposeful outings can be sustainable.
What dog walking generally does not provide is enough resistance for comprehensive muscle growth. The legs adapt to the familiar workload. The upper body may do little beyond holding a lead. It does not replace pulling, pushing, hip hinging and progressively challenging major muscle groups. Even a highly active person can be relatively weak in a movement they rarely practice. Activity and strength overlap, but they are not synonyms.
Another mistake is to assume that a higher activity level guarantees weight loss. Appetite, food intake, sleep and individual variation still matter. NEAT can contribute to energy balance, but a calorie number attached to one garden task is too imprecise to justify eating or restricting a specific amount. The sensible target is to sit less, move more often and build habits that can be repeated without constant negotiation.
Hall's routine highlights the social side as well. A walk with a friend or a few hours working in a garden can be more enjoyable than solitary cardio. That pleasure is not a minor detail; it can determine whether a person keeps moving for years. The strongest fitness plan should preserve enjoyable movement rather than replacing it with joyless obligations.
The Missing Piece: Muscles and Bones Need Progressive Resistance
Muscle and bone respond to demands placed on them. Repeating a movement can improve coordination and endurance, but building meaningful strength usually requires resistance that becomes challenging relative to current ability. That might be a dumbbell, a resistance band, a heavier kettlebell or a bodyweight variation made progressively harder. The principle is progressive overload: ask the body to do a little more over time, then recover so it can adapt.
Gardening offers occasional heavy tasks, yet the loads are irregular and hard to measure. A purposeful strength session makes progression easier to control. You can record eight goblet squats with a particular weight, then aim for nine or ten clean repetitions next week. When the upper end of a sensible range becomes comfortable, increase the load slightly. The same approach works for rows, presses and hip hinges. You do not need maximal lifts or bodybuilding-level volume to benefit.
Resistance training is valuable beyond appearance. Maintaining the ability to rise from a chair, lift a suitcase, carry groceries and climb stairs matters throughout adulthood. Weight-bearing activity and appropriately loaded strength work can also support skeletal health. Those benefits should not be reduced to a claim that one specific exercise prevents a particular disease. The goal is broad physical capacity, and it is influenced by nutrition, previous activity, health conditions and consistency.
A simple routine should cover major movement patterns: squat or sit-to-stand, hip hinge, horizontal or vertical pull, push and loaded carry. Two full-body sessions each week can be enough to make progress for many beginners. Choose a resistance that leaves roughly two or three good repetitions available at the end of a set. Perform two sets per movement initially and build from there. Heavy lifting is optional; meaningful challenge and sound technique are not.
Older adults may need more attention to balance, recovery and exercise selection, but age alone is not a reason to avoid resistance. A person with osteoporosis, recent surgery, dizziness or unstable joints may need individual guidance before selecting loads and positions. Pain is not a badge of effort. Comfortable range, repeatable technique and gradual progression should guide the session. If a movement hurts, change the setup or seek appropriate professional advice.
Crucially, strength work need not compete with gardening. Stronger legs can make getting up from the ground easier. Better grip and trunk strength can help with carrying tools. More robust shoulders may make reaching and handling objects feel more controlled. The gym—or a small corner of the living room—can serve the activities somebody already loves, rather than becoming an end in itself.
Turn Real-Life Tasks Into Safer Squats, Carries and Hinges
A good functional program does not need to imitate every household task literally. It should strengthen the movements that make those tasks easier. Carrying a watering can resembles a suitcase carry: the load hangs at one side while the trunk resists leaning. Lifting a pot from the ground uses a hip hinge and leg drive. Standing up after planting calls on the quads, glutes and balance. The gym versions allow you to practice those demands with known weights and predictable conditions.
Start with the carry. Hold one manageable dumbbell or kettlebell at your side, stand tall and walk ten to twenty metres without leaning. Switch hands and repeat. When both sides feel controlled, use two weights for a farmer carry. The goal is steady steps and an upright torso, not a dramatic struggle with the heaviest bells available. If grip is the limiting factor, shorten the distance rather than allowing the weights to slip.
For squatting, a chair is a useful reference. Sit back under control, briefly touch the seat and stand without pushing off with the hands when possible. Progress by holding a light weight close to the chest, lowering the seat slightly or increasing repetitions. The best depth is one you can control comfortably. Knees moving forward are not automatically a problem; individual anatomy and symptoms matter more than a rigid universal rule.
A hip hinge trains the pattern used when picking up tools or moving a bag of compost. Begin with a light Romanian deadlift: soften the knees, send the hips back, keep the weight close and return to standing by extending the hips. The torso will lean, but the motion should not become a jerky pull from a rounded, unsupported position. Two sets of eight controlled repetitions can teach the movement before heavier loading is considered.
Add a row for the upper back and a push-up against a counter or wall for pushing strength. The row balances the frequent forward-reaching of garden work. The incline push-up allows the difficulty to be adjusted by changing the height of the hands. Neither exercise requires a machine. A resistance band, adjustable dumbbell or sturdy household setup can work, provided the equipment is secure and the resistance can be progressed.
Do not treat a real gardening session as a secret extra strength workout that must be pushed through regardless of fatigue. If you have spent hours moving heavy bags, reduce the next day's hinge volume or choose an easier session. Training should increase capacity, not turn a pleasant hobby into an injury risk. The sensible version is deliberately boring: repeat good movements, add difficulty gradually and let the results show up in everyday life.
A Two-Day Strength Plan That Leaves Room for the Garden
Here is a realistic four-week framework for somebody who likes walking and outdoor hobbies but has no desire to spend hours in a gym. Keep the enjoyable activity. Add two nonconsecutive full-body strength sessions of roughly twenty-five to thirty-five minutes. A pair of dumbbells or a set of resistance bands is enough to begin. Warm up with five minutes of easy walking, arm movements and unweighted squats. Nothing needs to be exhausting before the first working set.
Session A, early in the week: perform two sets of eight to twelve chair squats or goblet squats, two sets of eight to twelve resistance-band rows, two sets of eight to ten incline push-ups and two short suitcase carries per side. Rest around sixty to ninety seconds between sets, longer if breathing or technique needs it. Choose a level that allows controlled repetitions with a little capacity left. If balance is uncertain, keep a stable support within reach.
Session B, two or three days later: complete two sets of eight to twelve Romanian deadlifts, two sets of eight to ten supported split squats per leg, two sets of eight to twelve dumbbell or band presses within a comfortable shoulder range, and two short farmer carries. A supported split squat can begin with a shallow range and one hand on a rail. If overhead pressing is uncomfortable, substitute a wall push-up or another pain-free pushing movement.
Week 1: learn positions, record the resistance and stop each set before form deteriorates. Week 2: add one or two clean repetitions where the current load feels easy. Week 3: increase resistance slightly on exercises that have reached the top of their repetition range. Week 4: repeat the same movements and compare the log rather than testing risky maximums. Progress can be an extra repetition, a steadier carry or better range—not only a heavier dumbbell.
Between sessions, keep walking, gardening and moving through the day. A brisk twenty- to thirty-minute walk can be useful on days without lifting, but pace should reflect current fitness. Add short balance practice near a counter if appropriate: two or three comfortable single-leg holds on each side. Avoid stacking a hard leg workout immediately before a major digging or lifting project. Rest and sleep remain part of the plan.
This routine is a starting template, not a medical prescription or a claim about what Jerry Hall personally should do. People with significant limitations may need a clinician or qualified coach to adapt it. The larger lesson is that exercise does not have to look like somebody else's lifestyle. Enjoyable activity gets you moving; two purposeful strength sessions help maintain the capacities that activity may miss. You can love your garden, dislike the gym and still train intelligently.
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