Rider Fitness: the secret tool
On my podcast last week, fitness expert Michael Lingenfelter and I discussed the unique demands of riding horses: dynamic and mobile strength. In other words, we need to possess the type of full-body strength that allows us to mobilize and engage an isolated area while remaining stable and flexible enough elsewhere to absorb the horse’s rhythm underneath us.
In that episode, Lingenfelter offered a couple of recommendations for strengthening abdominals in particular. There is also a chapter of rider exercises in my book 101 Dressage Exercises for Horse and Rider.
Without a certain degree of rider fitness, we cannot expect too much of the horse. When a rider is unbalanced or unstable in her joints and trunk, owing to lack of strength, the horse responds by tensing his locomotive muscles. This in turn alters his gaits and eventually the efficiency with which he can use his neuromuscular system. A useful analogy is to imagine wearing a backpack that jostles around a lot or makes constant tiny shifts out of balance. If you jog around with this wiggly and wobbly pack, your back muscles will fire up in all kinds of uneven patterns. Then your hips will begin to hurt and soon your knees will feel the strain, too.
Every month, I receive emails from horse owners around the globe looking for exercises to enhance their horse’s performance or well-being. I enjoy reading their scenarios and assigning effective routines for their horses. One of the bet ways to help our horses use their bodies optimally, though, is to ride them well. And this involves being reasonably fit ourselves.
It does NOT mean a marathoner’s level of cardiovascular fitness nor being the skinniest person in the room. For most equestrian disciplines, the cardio demands are low to moderate. I have often worn a heart monitor throughout the day to track the demands of riding compared to my other sports like running, cycling, or gym workouts. Most of the time when I’m riding, my heart rate is around 120 bpm, which is similar to activities like power walking or vigorous gardening or raking. I make this point to illustrate that one does not necessarily need a superior level of cardio fitness. Sure, it helps if you have it, but it is not an absolute necessity. Motor control and strength, however, are non-negotiable.
If you are going to help your horse use the orchestra of all his muscle groups well, you need to maintain your own. Then, you can be quite helpful assisting the horse to stay sound, symmetrical, and comfortable in his body. My recommendations are to perform a strength-based workout three times a week. The particulars of your workout will obviously be dictated by your individual areas of weakness. But as a starting point, there are a plenty of great rider workouts that you can find on YouTube or Michael Lingenfelter’s on-line group. True, adopting a workout routine might seem like a bit of work, but the outcome is immensely rewarding. If your horse could speak, she would tell you so!