For amateur and professional gardeners alike, the choice to use ergonomic gardening tools is fast becoming the accepted norm. Whether you do gardening for a living, or simply enjoy spending time working in your backyard garden, the reasons for wanting garden tools that reduce strain on your arms and body are many. Gardening invokes plenty of repetitive motion tasks that could potentially cause strains or injuries to the body.

Tasks like digging, hoeing, pruning and weeding all have the potential to cause unnecessary strain. Like any other work-related task, it's wise to find the optimal tool for the job at hand. Working in the garden is no exception to this rule. Many manufacturers of garden tools now offer several ergonomic gardening tool options that will assist in making the pleasurable hobby of gardening more of a joy, rather than a chore.

Some of the various hand tools that now offer ergonomic design are spades, hoes, pruners, shovels and rakes. In fact, most any of the garden tools that requires the use of the hands, arms and shoulders are seeing upgrades in ergonomic design to make them easier to use.

Features of ergonomic design for garden hand tools might include the following:

Comfortable and specially shaped handles that are curved in a manner that allow for the wrists and hands to remain in a more natural position while performing that task that a specific tool is designed for. These special handles might have a fatter grip and more curved shape as to provide this more natural positioning of the hands.

Specially designed aluminum or magnesium blades and cutting mechanisms make for a lighter tool overall as the steel element of the tool is the heaviest part generally. With advanced design, these special metals can actually make for a more sturdier and durable product, while making the tool lighter and thus very ergonomic and easier to use.

Additionally, sturdier plastics and rubberized handles are incorporated into the tool design to make gripping more ergonomic and less of a strain for the user. These rubberized handles also make the tool easier to grip, thus reducing strain in eliminating blisters as well.

People that suffer from conditions like arthritis also welcome more comfortable gardening tools design as this allows them to partake in their favorite hobby, and not exacerbate their arthritic conditions. Not only arthritis sufferers, but anyone who might suffer from repetitive motion syndrome, (RMS) or carpal tunnel syndrome are potential users of more ergonomic garden hand tools.