Enjoy a real Garden of Eden at your own home. Let us imagine a world of beauty and bounty. For a few minutes think about what a Garden of Eden means in terms of all bliss and no work. What is the difference between this magical world of just the bounty and what we have actually experienced for the last millennia? What inspires us? What cold, hard reality invades our happy thoughts of joy and satisfaction? It is the understanding that many hours of hard work are required to yield the many rewards obtained from our gardens.
If we consider the human being IN nature, with the absolute basics being health and joy, human are, in a sense, a garden. We are vertebrates, and this is an important fundamental term for later discussion. We have an amazing immune system that is both a hospital and pharmacy built within us. We have a nervous system that is designed to work with a proper balance of electrolytes. We are blessed with all the basic structures from our genetic makeup to be fully functioning humans. However, all the fuel and lubrication comes from what we choose to ingest, and how much attention we pay to our physical activities. Humans thrive when eating healthy food and exercising muscles.
The lesson learned from this perfect world thinking is that being in a garden environment is a natural state – a state of health. We understand that this makes sense, and yet there has always been a caveat, a universe of reasons, problems, and finally excuses, why we don’t engage in one of nature’s optimal activities; the best activity to promote health as well as feelings of well-being and joy is gardening, yet many stand back envisioning sore backs and knees.
Let us analyze what work means in a garden. Exercise is a form of work, and typically we consider exercise to be something positive. The Greek root for the word work is “ergo”. which we often hear inappropriately used to describe many items and tools as “ergonomic”. In a few moments I will address the true meaning of “ergonomic design” as it applies to garden tools. For now, let us list all the tasks that require the type of heavy, physical work which often deters us from engaging in what can be a healthy activity:
- Lifting rocks
- Lifting weeds
- Lifting invasive roots
- Lifting root crops
- Lifting shrubs
- Lifting over-wintered plant stumps
- Lifting plants, transplanting
- Lifting grasses to start a garden
Notice there is a theme here? 90% of this work is the hard stuff, the cringe worthy body movements that actually create many legitimate concerns about safety, accidents leading to infirmity, and injury.
90% of these tasks entail LIFTING. What if there was a tool, constructed in the proper sense of “true ergonomics”, that is a force multiplier by design. The technical function of a true tool is a device that delivers mechanical advantage (not just an extension of one’s body). For a thousand years or more humans have used shovels and forks as an extension of THEIR BODIES, hurting themselves in the process. The Earth Lifter Tool (ELT) is a true ergonomic tool in the sense that the tool has a built-in mechanical advantage envisioned by Archimedes over 20 centuries ago. The Earth Lifter Tool LIFTS with gravity, not against it. The ELT takes ¼ the effort, the power, and the strength to complete the tasks listed above, which we consider difficult, hard, heavy, and onerous. The tool does the most difficult work for you.
There is a second major concern and consideration. I used the term VERTEBRATES, meaning we have a spinal column that operates in a certain orientation, forward and back. Visualize the positioning of your spine when you are shoveling snow, or dirt. You bend, then twist, then bend a bit more for lifting leverage, then you jerk the weight and sometimes get hung up on roots as you work against gravity. The spine has buffers between the bony structures called discs. Discs were not designed to have such as awkward orientation, especially with forces squeezing them under a heavy load repetitively. The Earth Lifter Tool not only multiplies your strength while working with gravity, but more importantly, it was designed to allow you to work with a healthy and proper orientation of your spine.
Once you rupture a disc it doesn’t repair itself, it is permanent. Why hurt yourself if you don’t have to? Far too many of us lead a sedentary lifestyle, and too many have jobs where we sit for extended hours in positions that our spines did not evolve to sustain.