Equestrian Cross-Training: Improving Your Riding Through Other Sports

Many equestrians promote cross-training in their riding programme. By avoiding overuse of particular muscle groups, it enhances musculoskeletal and cardiovascular health and helps a horse avoid becoming bored or reluctant to work. Stress on bones and tissues repeated over time can weaken them. Changing the activities helps to balance these stresses and maintain the strength and health of bones.

Swimming

Though you most likely know swimming is beneficial for your body, did you know it might also help your riding? A low-intensity workout that builds muscle strength and endurance, swimming can help prevent injuries. Horses recovering from lameness problems will also find great benefit from this exercise. It lets the horse release their skeleton and prevent repeated mechanical strain that can induce microdamage, therefore weakening their bones. Swimming is easy on these muscles unlike biking, which may be taxing on the legs, shoulders and back. It can also be done routinely without requiring specific tools or sizable facilities like a pool. It's entertaining and a wonderful approach to guarantee your workout is even. On horse-related pursuits like cross-country training, visits to the gallops or shows, it can also save time and money. If you lack the means to daily train a horse, this is extremely beneficial.

Hiking

Hiking increases stamina and teaches the horse to work for longer stretches of time. It also enables the horse to grow used to different surroundings, therefore relieving stress on bones, joints, and muscles. Equestrian athletes must augment their training with various forms of exercise, much as marathon runners must. This helps them to prevent injury, increase flexibility, and strengthen muscles. To improve the rider's capacity to negotiate different locations and circumstances on the horse, cross-training can entail jumping, trail riding, or even attempting western riding. This can enhance the relationship between the rider and the horse, foster a closer degree of knowledge, and enable the horse to be more flexible and competent to succeed in several equestrian sports. To equip the horse for a range of equestrian events, including dressage and showjumping into their training schedule improves agility, rhythm, and precision. This also improves their enjoyment and performance quality at these activities.

Pole Work

For many purposes, pole work is quite beneficial; it teaches your horse to use their back and core (proprioception). By pushing your horse to walk fewer steps between the poles, you can help them to develop their rhythm and the proper pace. As you may start on the ground over poles in walk and trot and then go to canter, it is also a fantastic introduction to jumping. Pole work also keeps things exciting and fun, which helps your horse stay from becoming sour on work. This also facilitates muscle replacement and repair, therefore eliminating the lactic acid accumulation that can cause soreness. It also triggers the neurological system to gather more muscular fibres with higher force, thereby enabling a conditioning impact in their regular activities including running large distances and dressage motions. (3)

Trail Riding

Getting horses off their ring schedule and onto trails lets them operate in the real world. Obstacles challenge the horse and it must learn to react fast to the rider. This develops ability for both mental and physical problem-solving. Furthermore demanding rider core strength and stamina is trail riding. Maintaining a correct posture and balance in the saddle depends on this. The horse has to be powerful enough to carry the rider up and over hills without becoming unstable and to walk up and down slopes. One excellent approach to help a horse develop its gaits and transitions is trail training. Different terrain encourages the horse to move from side-to- side and helps to strengthen lateral movement. It also offers a chance to hone greater suppleness and work the horse's topline. Since they have to try to keep the horse balanced, conditioning on a trail also helps to improve the horse's reactivity to the riders aids.