Author: admin

Well I’m going to try and make this short as I’m sure like me you are ready to switch off for a well-earned rest over Christmas. For those of you that have to work I salute you and I hope you at least get a decent Turkey Dinner in!

For those of you that do have some time off and therefore hopefully some more time to spend with your horse why not take the time out to have a look at what are your current strengths and weaknesses as a partnership.

Go for a ride and don’t try and fix anything just listen to your horse and your own body. What do you do well together? Why do you do that well together? Did that come naturally or have you worked on it previously?

Maybe your horse has a lovely trot but your walk isn’t quite as good. Don’t worry about it right now just log it in your brain. Do you find you ride better on the right rein rather than the left? Do you think that is something that carries over into other daily activities i.e. how you sit, drive etc.?

Just note all the good points and perhaps reasons why they are your good points, then what are your not so good points. Then decide what steps you can take to improve it next year.

What can you do yourself to improve it? Do you have weakness; tightness etc. that needs addressing in order for you to be able to ride the particular element yourself better or perhaps to help your horse out a little bit more if he struggles too?
Whilst you may have some more down time than usual spend some time starting to work on those weaknesses so you will be already on track by January.

If you need any help then just hit reply and I can talk you through some programme options.

In the meantime, I hope you all have an awesome Christmas.

I know we haven’t done Christmas yet but I’m pretty sure already you may be thinking about your goals for 2017. I’m already making plans for my 2017!

Did you achieve your goals in 2016? Or is there a list of things still uncompleted?
Don’t worry life gets in the way sometimes and we can lose track of where we are headed.

For 2017 that’s not going to happen. We are going to employ new tactics.
Instead of writing a huge list of things all to be achieved in 2017, not having a clue where to start and rushing out to do everything in week 1 before getting overwhelmed and giving up at the first hurdle we are going to break things down.

In 2017 we are going to break down into 4 quarters. That way we are going to be working towards goals in 12 week periods. They can be the same or they can be a different goal that’s up to you and what you are trying to achieve.

I am going to use the Wobbleberries Challenge as an example for this. So anyone who is not familiar the Wobbleberries challenge is a group of riders who have agreed to take on the challenge of competing in a BE80 event by the end of Autumn 2017 in aid of the Willberry Charity set up by Hannah Francis. These are riders who are not currently out competing or have even not been in the saddle for some time-any of you reading this I take my hat off to you!

So, I imagine at the moment that seems like a pretty big task and you don’t know how you are going to get there.

Plan A: Panic, ride a bit, Panic you can’t do it, Ride and Panic a bit more….
Plan B: Break it down into sections of roughly 12 weeks. I think that gives you 3 sections.

Block 1 will be Jan to March. Although you will need to work backwards from you goal to make the steps once you have done that you are going to forget about them and just focus on block 1 for now.

What steps can you take in Jan to March that will help you reach your goal? Do you need to start a fitness programme for you and your horse? If you start slowly now you will both hopefully avoid injury and overwhelm giving you the best chance of succeeding.

Do you need to book some lessons with your instructor? You could also sit down with her/him and go through your 12 week blocks and put milestones along the way you can work on together.

It will really help if you have mini goals along your 12 weeks as these become you aim rather than the big goal at the end.

You may also find it useful to plan at the beginning of each week what you are going to do that week to help you reach your goal. Each week this gives you a marker to check whether you have made steps towards your goal, if you have that’s great; if not what can you do to achieve next week? This way you will never fall too far off the track.

This structure also gives you time to reflect on your progress as you go along. If you mark in your diary the 12 week blocks at the end of each one you can see how you’re getting on and review if anything needs changing. Have you reached target? If not why not? What can you do in the next 12 weeks to get back on track?

I’ve diarised to check in with you every 12 weeks next year so you will get a reminder from me too!

I’m using it to plan things in my business and my personal life next year to keep me focused for the long term goals I’ve got in mind so I’ll be with you every step of the way!

Hit reply and let me know what you want to achieve next year!

I know we haven’t got Christmas out the way yet but I’m already busy planning both my business and my personal life for next year.

When I am planning business I like to have a look at what is going to be popular I fitness and nutrition for 2017. I don’t necessarily follow the trends if they don’t align with what I am interested in but it is good to be aware of them and actually quite often than not I’m already ahead of the game!

So, I think the Equestrian Fitness world has bubbling and slowly growing for a few years now. The likes of Lindsay Wilcox-Reid of EquiPilates and Jon Pitt from RideSmart have been teaching the benefits of riding for several years however in the main this has been to the Professional Riders rather than Joan and Elsie the happy hackers at your local yard-or indeed you!

Mary Wanless was ahead of her time in teaching how very subtle movements and/or imbalances in our body could affect our horses way of going and knowing that in order to improve we must work on correcting this and being better able to control finite movements in our own bodies.

With this in mind, you will now see the Equestrian Magazines including the odd fitness based article (Yours truly has so far been in Northern Horse and Carriage Driving Magazine) as well as various Equestrian Centres holding classes and workshops for fitness and/or EquiPilates. So, I think Fitness is finally going to come to the fore in the Equestrian World in 2017.

However, what I think will be really cool is the Equestrian Specific classes. Don’t get me wrong if you enjoy going the gym lifting heavy stuff, or sweating it out at a boot camp that is cool and being fitter does help your riding, but what I am really interested in is the specific stuff that seems very little but makes a huuuuuge difference. I’m talking about the stretch that stops you collapsing at the hip, the gym ball exercise that helps to perfect your turns and all the other stuff that they won’t teach you at the gym. Perhaps mixing that with some other fitness stuff could turn you into the all-round Equestrian Athlete!

With this in mind 2017 is the year I want to really get out there and work with the Equestrian Community, so hit reply and tell me what your riding problems are!
What do you struggle with when riding?

What problems do you have when it comes to exercise? Do you like the gym? Can you make the time to commit to an exercise programme?

Would you like to train at the yard as a group with your friends or in your own home?
Let me know what you want to see in 2017 and I will do my best to deliver through my blog, through my online programmes and through workshops and/or classes.

Well it’s that time of year where seemingly every other person has got a cough, cold or something more sinister for the unfortunate. For some people one illness a season is not enough and they can continually bounce from one illness to another. As Horse Owners this is basically very inconvenient! Who’s going to muck out the horse whilst your laid up in bed?

To be fair most of us are pretty robust but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give our selves a little extra TLC – think of it as your insurance policy!

We already have the advantage that we get outside in the fresh air every day which is great for our immune system. But what else can we do?

Our diet has a huge factor in our immune system, as it is fairly obvious that eating a healthy diet filled with lots of vitamin filled fruit and vegetables will make us healthier than if we ate lots of processed, high fat, high sugar foods. So that’s your first step try to eat as many different coloured fruit and vegetables as you can. It’s also great to try and eat seasonally to stop you getting into a rut, so currently carrots(you can share with your horse!), parsnips, squashes, sprouts and cabbages are on the menu alongside the classic festive satsuma and pomegranates.

Ensuring your Gut Bacteria is up to scratch will give your immune system a huge boost. . Your digestive tract contains around 60 percent of your immune systems cells. This makes it extra important to maintain a healthy gut. This can be done with either a tablet probiotic or with a live culture such as Kefir. I bought a course of Kefir from www.chucklinggoat.co.uk and whizzed it up in a smoothie with coconut milk and some fruit every day-convenient breakfast option!

Good news for the Carb lovers is Oats are on the menu as they are rich in selenium and beta glucans which are nutrients that support your immune system. Oats also help to control healthy bacteria in the intestine which again supports your immune system. And I don’t think there is a better way to start a cold, wintery day than with a bowl of hot porridge and some berries-yum! And I will let you in to a secret……..Ready Brek is totally fine-ssshhh! You could also buy the pre made pots and just add water to warm you up at the yard.

We also need to ensure we are eating plenty of protein alongside those carbs. Protein is used to make cells in our body so making sure we eat enough ensures we are able to build extra cells to fend off the bugs-there is a more scientific way of explaining that but you get the idea. So eat plenty of eggs, lean meat and fish or beans and pulses if your veggie to keep your body’s builders working.

Then there are herbs and spices such as Garlic and Turmeric that have anti-bacterial properties so add them to your dishes to add flavour and extra health benefits. Your probably borrowing that from the tack room too aren’t you…….

A Bone Broth either drank on its own or as a stock for soup and casseroles is a great way to pack in loads more vitamins but also a boost to your gut bacteria. It’s basically nature’s medicine! You can buy it prepared but if you want it in the purest form it’s better to make it yourself.

http://www.hemsleyandhemsley.com/recipe/bone-broth/

Last but not least get plenty of sleep. Ensuring you get a good 6-8 hours a night will give your body its best chance to fend off any illness.

So raid the feed room and stay healthy Folks!

Stick a Ball In Your Bum Before you get on!
So in the third and final email in our Sciatica focus we are going to go through an exercise to do to release your Sciatic Nerve and also an exercise you can try before you get on and ride.
So firstly, Sciatic Nerve Flossing-I know it’s as sexy as it sounds!
Sciatic Nerve flossing helps to stretch and release any areas that the Sciatic Nerve may have become stuck . I’ll be honest start gently with these and only do 8-10 per leg per day for the first week and work up to 20 as if your Sciatic Nerve is really stuck it can get quite upset!

• Sit in a chair with the feet flat on the floor.
• Straighten the one leg and tuck your chin into the chest.
• Lower the leg and look up towards the ceiling.

Now finally we are going to do a little exercise you can do at home as part of your routine, but I also like to do it just before I ride to help relax my Piriformis (the muscle next to your sciatic nerve). Riding with a tight Piriformis can make it difficult to have a light seat.

So you are going to take a ball (either a spiky physio ball, hard lacrosse ball or a tennis ball) and sitting on a hard chair or the floor place it under your bum cheek. Then you are just going to roll around on it to help release the muscle –sometimes you feel a pop so don’t be alarmed if you do! Then take it out and before you go to the other side see how different the sides of your bum feel-weird huh? The do the other side so you are even.

Let me know if you try this and if any of these exercises have helped!

So last week we started with some anti-spasm exercises to try and eliminate any muscle spasm in the glute area.

Have you been doing your homework? If not please start them for at least a week before adding in the stretches. As I mentioned last week stretching a muscle in spasm will potentially make it worse so to be on the safe side we must treat any potential spasm before we move onto stretching.

If you have keep it up and add on these stretches. Both of these will stretch directly the muscles surrounding the sciatic nerve. It is important to try and relax as much as possible – I know that can be difficult if it hurts so take some long, slow and deep breaths as you stretch it out.

Pigeon.

Starting on all fours, take your right leg diagonally underneath you, send your left leg back as far as it will go. Keep your hips square. You can also lean forward to increase the stretch. Hold for 60 secs

Figure 4 Stretch.

Bend both knees, cross your right ankle over your left knee and lift your left leg up, taking hold behind the knee. Try to keep your shoulders relaxed. Repeat other side. Hold for 60 secs

Try and do these stretches every day if you are suffering, after doing the anti spasm exercises.

The more I speak to Equestrians regarding their fitness the more I meet who suffer with Sciatica.

Now I’ll be honest Sciatica is pretty common in general. As the Sciatic nerve runs parallel to the Piriformis which is one of our hip muscles. Due the increasingly sedentary nature of our lives, sitting down all day causes tightness in the front of our hips as they are shortened all day and weakness in the back as they are lengthened and therefore not activated all day.

If you do yard work all day, the constant bending over or poor posture when standing/teaching etc. can also create the same issues.

Then when we ride we actively try to stretch out and use our hip flexors, so depending on our particular problem we are either asking a weak muscle or muscle in spasm to work or trying to stretch out a long and weak muscle. Either way recipe for disaster i.e.pain in the bum literally!

Any tightness, weakness or impingement of our hip flexors particularly our piriformis will inhibit our Sciatic Nerve as it is intertwined between them.

Now without giving a thorough assessment I can’t tell you which side of the coin you are on whether that be weak, tight or in spasm and to be honest even the most advanced of physios will not be able to give you a 100% answer. So, what I would suggest is working from the safest possible point and that is to try to release any muscle spasm first. That is because treating with a muscle release will either a) release the spasm ready for stretching or b) if it is not in spasm it will do no harm. However trying to stretch a muscle in chronic spasm will actually make the problem worse! So safest option first.

So to take out any potential chronic muscle spasm in the piriformis I recommend to my clients an anti spasm exercise called 4 Sign.

This can be done either seated or lying down.

Cross your leg over the opposite knee ensuring that your ankle bone is on the outside of that knee. Press up into your hand with your leg at 20% of Maximum Effort for 20 seconds, rest and repeat Do this 4 times each side 4 x per day

This should be done for at least a fortnight before moving onto stretching. So I’m not going to tell you about that yet as I don’t want you jumping ahead!

As Equestrians we all know that we need good core stability, and if you ever ask for a good way to improve it you will more than likely get told to plank.

The Plank is a great exercise for core stability however is it really riding specific?

Don’t get me wrong I am aware that to be completely riding specific you would need to do it on your horse…………………..anyone?

However there are ways to make things more specific for your sport by considering the movements, actions and muscles at work whilst you are performing.

In riding we use our core stability to absorb the movement of our horse (i.e. to stop us wobbling around) but we are also doing a lot of other things with our legs and hands at the same time.

So, we use our core but we are not on a stable surface and our arms and legs don’t stay still either!

Which is where I think the Plank starts to look a bit basic. If you are new to core training or new to riding then a stationary plank is a great place to start but for those of us a little later in the game it’s time to up the ante with our Planks!

So what are we trying to achieve?

Firstly we want a stable core whilst moving arms and legs.

So how about lifting opposite arms and legs whilst maintaining a stable plank? You could also try moving the lifted arm and leg away from you too.

Then we want a stable core whilst the ground underneath is not stable.

If you have a gym ball try doing a plank with your forearms on the ball, and if you want an extra challenge circle your arms as if stirring a pot.

I think Equestrians have come late in the game to fitness.

For years it has been considered enough to just ride the horse and that be it, and if you needed to improve things you rode some more.

Is that really all there is to it?

The professionals and those competing at the top level have over recent years recognised how improving their own general fitness improves their riding too.

The likes of Laura Tomlinson do Pilates, Jay Halim is now a seasoned lifter and runner and many eventers supplement their riding with time in the gym or out running. In fact strength and conditioning has even reached jockeys training regimes.

If you are a happy hacker you may be thinking that surely you don’t need to be that fit, however how your body moves has a huge impact on your horse-you are sat on top of him!

If we are stronger we are able to carry our bodies more effectively and therefore have a lighter seat. We are also able to use our bodies more effectively in particular our core to give clear aids, and hold ourselves in balance rather than relying on our arms or legs which can give mixed messages to our horse, or cause them to brace and become tense themselves to try and counteract us.

If we are more flexible we are able to move with our horses movement, again this gives us a lighter seat, and enables better aids. Doing mobility work can help to prevent asymmetry which long term could have caused asymmetry in our horse. It also prevents areas of tightness or tension that could affect our position and aids and therefore cause confusion to our horse. Your legs may have said go but your hips said whoa!

In terms of cardio fitness we all know that feeling of being out of breath during your lesson. Improving your general fitness will ensure you still finish your lesson strong and therefore get more from it. There is nothing more frustrating than trying to get something perfect only to have to save it for another day because you are too tired to ride it effectively.

So, yes I do think we should improve our own fitness in order to ride not only because it will make us better riders in general but because we owe it to our horses to be the best rider we can be for them.

If you need any help I offer 1 2 1 training in person or online, as well as programme design, classes and workshops. Just hit reply if you want further info.