Back pain and related issues such as hip pain and sciatica are something I see a lot in the riders I work with. It’s something I’ve studied, dealt with in my own body and something I have worked with many clients on-riders and non riders alike.

It’s a complex issue and can be multi factorial so I’m not going say I have all the answers for you. All of my clients have been different in their journeys. Some are non specific back pain clients who just need some guidance and hand holding finding what works for them , some are hoping to avoid surgery and some are post surgery. 

What I find super interesting is the attitudes around back pain with riders. Often someone will still be riding, maybe mucking out etc….but they’re worried an hours supervised exercise with a professional is going to harm them? I can assure you I’d have to go seriously out of my way to actually do that if you’re already managing all that! 

Of course you might have some muscle soreness afterwards but that’s completely normal after any exercise, ask a high level athlete if they get sore after training sessions despite being super fit and they’ll say “heck yeh”. Often part of my job is just reassuring people that discomfort, pain etc is normal and in most cases not a sign of extensive damage. 

Anyway back to the helpful stuff. 

Any Dr worth his certs will tell you that exercise can help manage back pain. However where you start with exercise is the really important bit. As is trial and error. 

Strengthening the muscles around the hips (glutes etc…) and the muscles of the back (you’ll have probably included the rest of the body by doing this so you will have balance) can help but it’s important you start small and focus on good form. This could be Pilates or it could be more traditional resistance training-I tend to do a hybrid with my clients depending on their needs.

For some people Yoga really helps -it’s how I started my fitness journey from back pain so I’m definitely a believer in it’s magic. 

With Yoga I think the physical is as important as the mental, as your emotional state can have an influence on your pain levels and I think Yoga can be a great tool for this. For me and some of my clients doing a flow style yoga switches off the brain, calms the mind and therefore brings with it some relief in pain levels. 

As I said back pain can be multi factorial so you’ve looked at exercise, then your mental well-being so now let’s look at how your day to day movement patterns look.

You could exercise every day but if you then spent the rest of the day either stationary or in a variety of poor postures and repetitive movement patterns that hour isn’t going to undo that.

 The body likes movement, and being stationary even if you held yourself in a “perfect posture “ sat at a desk all day it wouldn’t negate the need for regular movement. On the flip side if you muck out 10 stables all the same way that’s a constant overuse of one set of muscles so is equally not ideal. 

Ask yourself how much time you spend moving each day. If you’re stationary at your desk most of the day try adding in some stretches to open your chest up, do some left to right rotations and stand up or walk around for periods to break up the sitting. 

If you’re fairly active ask yourself what repetitive patterns you do that may not be helpful and see if you can possibly adapt them. If not,  add in some movement the opposite way to help regain some balance. 

Like I said it’s multi factorial so there’s no one size fits all fix, it’s just looking at the obvious factors like daily movement patterns, physical fitness and mental well-being and finding what works for you in those areas. 

It’s understanding that there may be set backs, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working or that you should give up.

If you’re struggling then working with a professional like myself or a Sports Physio can give you the confidence you need to make progress. I know you’d make that kind of investment if your horse needed it so give yourself the same treatment and know that in doing so you’re more likely to still be riding your horse for years to come.

On Sunday I did a workout with a friend that we finished with a short run interspersed with a couple of exercises. 

The aim wasn’t to do it as fast as we could but to do it with enough effort to be tired but be able to maintain form throughout.

We did a ½ mile run then 10 press ups and a 30 second plank, repeated x 3. 

This helps to improve both cardio endurance and muscular endurance. 

This style of training is especially useful if you are an Eventer. During a cross country round you need to be able to maintain your breathing and your stability throughout. 

If you start struggling for breath it will affect your concentration and decision making skills-not helpful when you’re in the thick of it!

If your muscles tire after a short time you won’t be riding well right up to the finish. This affects yours and your horses performance as well as potentially increasing your risk of a fall. 

This is why I emphasise the need to maintain form in this workout. To ride well right to the finish you need the endurance to be strong enough right to the line. Just having the lungs and stubbornness to get you through isn’t enough, you need your muscles to be strong enough to do their job too.

The workout doesn’t have to be complicated or involve equipment-mine didn’t. Just the basic principle of getting your heart rate up then performing some resistance moves with good form, repeated a few times. 

Here’s a couple of other examples using other cardio equipment if you were in the gym or had a skipping rope etc. You could add a slightly longer circuit on the end if you wanted, mix the exercises up and do anything from 3-6 rounds whatever feels right to you. 

Bike-Side Plank-mountain climber

Row 200m -Plank up downs-Side Lunges

Skip 2 minutes-Squat-Press Up

Whilst there are some fitness fundamentals that should be the focus of your programme there will be some areas that need tailoring to you.

Maybe now you’re back out competing you’ve noticed there are still a few areas for improvement.

There are things in competition that you just can’t prepare for at home.

Firstly, there is the excitement and nerves on the day. How you deal with this mentally can have an affect on you physically.

Shallow breathing as a result of nerves means you aren’t sending enough Oxygen to your brain to enable it to focus or your muscles to provide them with power.

If this is you maybe add a breathing focus into your training. Adding a breathing cue to movement can make it a more natural thing for you to do in moments when you aren’t fully focusing on it. Yoga, Pilates and Weightlifting have a coached breathing element to it.

Perhaps you noticed that your body wasn’t up to the extra effort you put in on competition day.

You rode the round of your life but you finished it breathing harder than expected. You may be already doing cardio sessions but could you change them up a bit if you feel like you still weren’t fit enough to perform at your absolute best.

If you’re running or cycling for example you could try training at Threshold pace. There are formulas etc for calculating this if you’re using heart rate monitors but in it’s basic form its training at a pace that’s just harder than your regular pace but not so hard you can’t sustain it. Basically it feels really, really hard! Or you could try interval training-short bursts of high efforts followed by a short rest period. These can be done for set timed efforts or more sporadically if you are outside and just run/cycle faster then slower between different points.

Maybe you lost power in your legs and core so weren’t riding as well as you could for the full round. You need to work on your muscular strength and endurance. This could be adding more volume to your weight training sessions; maybe adding in some isometric work or time under tension training. In simple terms increasing the length of time the muscle is contracting during the exercise.

If you’d like some help with tweaking your training I’ve got space for 121 in person and Zoom training.