MARCH/APRIL 2010 THE RIDER /47

Fitness Tip of the Month for Riders:

Fitness For Riders Over 40

If your body is telling you it doesn’t run on the old rules anymore, this arti- cle is for you. There seems to be a line in the sands of time which we all cross. On the other side, it’s like somebody changed the rules: things you could do before without thinking about it are harder, or cause injury. Actually, it feels like there’s a new line just about every decade. Issues seem to pop out of no- where. Even if you are a high performing athlete and the rest of us could never tell anything was dif- ferent, you know it is. It’s what your hips feel when you swing your leg over the saddle; your back at the end of a ride; your shoulders after fling- ing a few bales; your lungs a much too short period of time into your ride. You don’t have the stamina or flexibility you used to. In this month’s piece, we’ll take a look at some of the factors involved and get you started on a simple exercise routine. Over the next few months, we’ll build on this routine to help prepare you for the longer days and riding/competi- tive season.

After you cross that line in the sand, it almost seems like you are accident or strain prone: things just happen. We tend to assume the part that hurts is the part that needs fixing. So we go get massage for a pain in our lower back, or take an anti-inflammatory pill for aches. If you find yourself chronically taking pain-killers, booking mas- sage or seeing a chiroprac- tor all the time, then you need to dig further.

A lifetime of familiar movements such as barn chores, farm work and rid- ing eventually become almost automatic: you do them without thinking. Your body goes ahead and finds a way to do what you ask of it, whether you do the movements in the most efficient way or not. By the way, don’t confuse effi- cient with easy. We often take the easy route (all the water in one pail), which is actually the less efficient (more damaging) route for your body (overload one side). If you are riding for example, your body will find the easiest way to stay on.

As you fatigue, your balance and core strength are compromised. So your body goes ahead and uses your thigh muscles to hold you on the horse, or increases the rigidity in your torso and shoulders to try and give you stability that your muscles are no

Eventually, strain issues or even injury can develop. Sometimes, they can present as a sudden injury (a shoulder tear, or putting your back out). We tend to jump on treating them as such, when in fact, the accident was the result of gradual wearing on the joint or tissue over time. It can be really helpful to think of it like having bad wheel alignment on your car. Sure you can drive it. But you’ll wear down tires and other parts badly. Not paying for wheel alignment can be more expensive than doing it.

When we do go for a solution to the aches and pains, we try for the fast track to get back in the game. When you think about it, if your horse com- promised his back, a liga- ment or a joint, you would not be looking for the fast route to get him up and going. As a horse owner, you know that even when he starts looking fine in the paddock, he is not truly sound and ready for work yet until the right amount of time has passed, and that asking him to work too quickly could cause him to break down.

longer providing. Your body is taking the easiest route to accom- plishing the task of keeping you on the horse. It is not taking the efficient route, because these compen- sating patterns are physically inefficient: they reduce your abili- ty to absorb your horse’s movement, and create tension and strain in areas you don’t want, and eventual dam- age.

again for hours, 7 days a week and expect him not to break down. You wouldn’t expect an older horse to have the same workout as a younger one. The unrea- sonable expectation that you can defy time and treat your own body in the same way you did in your 20’s just because it worked then, is what we call the weekend warrior syn- drome. What worked to get you where you are, may not work to get you further, whether we’re talking about life, business, sport- or your plans to care for and ride your horses as long as you can.

You also know that there’s a big difference between training your horse and fitting him up, and asking him too much to do work that is at his limit, for too long, and every day. Repetitive load- ing can equal repetitive strain. You would not ask your horse to do the same motions over and over

Professional riders or folks who ride daily may not be weekend warriors, but I often see what I think of as a John Wayne/Mick- ey Rooney/Sinatra syn- drome: something of a cross between the ‘I’ll do it my way’ attitude, and an over-romanticized image of the permanent bow-legged- ness of a weathered old horseman. I really can’t think of any serious ath- letes in other sports that would take that approach. It isn’t ok to be fine on the horse, but unable to walk on the ground because whatever imbalances you allow will eventually short- en your riding life, or at least put a dimmer switch on your full potential. Strain issues do not always happen in the same location where the actual problem is. Often, an issue in one area can refer and cause pain in another, or cause your body to use compensating movement patterns which essentially re-route the load one mus- cle should have taken (but was too weak, or basically asleep on the job from lack of engagement), and send the load to other muscles less ideally suited. A good example is the low back. Tight hips and tense shoulders can cause more motion to be absorbed by your lower back, creating strain. At first, you might be tempted to just treat low back pain. Since hips tend

2010 Schooling Show

Open to Riders of all ages

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Get a 'jump-start' on the season Spring Schooling Show!

2010 Challenge Series Hunter Show Dates

June 6 - Challenge Series Hunter Show #4 September 19 - Challenge Series Hunter Show #9

CrackerJack Children’s Hunter Show Series 18 & Under

July 14 - CrackerJack Junior Hunter Show Series #1 July 28 - CrackerJack Junior Hunter Show Series #2 August 11 - CrackerJack Junior Hunter Show Series #3 August 25 - CrackerJack Junior Hunter Show Series #4

Adult Hunter Show Series over 18 Years

June 13 - Adult Hunter Show Series #1 July 4 - Adult Hunter Show Series #2 August 8 - Adult Hunter Show Series #3 September 5 - Adult Hunter Show Series #4

For information, contact: Brightwater Equestrian Centre, 9575 5th Sideroad, Erin, ON N0B 1T0 (519) 833-2233, Fax: (519) 833-4408 email info@brightwaterfarm.com • www.brightwaterfarm.com

We pay Cash for all your used tack and

apparel!

Mail Order is our specialty

380 Kingston Road East, Ajax, Ontario L1Z 1W4 (905) 686-0948 TOLL FREE: 1-800-661-9622 email: picovstackshop@on.aibn.com • www.picovs.ca

to tighten with age anyway, I find that older riders need to spend more time in their fitness thinking about opening, loosening and restoring mobility in the hips. Strengthening back and abdominal muscles would further help. The step after that would be to stop the habit of tensing hips and shoulders, and learn more active core engagement while riding so your hips can stay loose enough to do the job their supposed to do, and your low back isn’t overloaded. In the next piece, we’ll look at some more practical exercise sugges- tions.

Until then, take 5 minutes a day and do these two things: 1. Stretch your legs/hips in all 4 directions, 2. Do an exercise to work your waist in all four direc- tions. Stretching should be comfortable not painful. The strengthening exercis- es should get to a point where you feel a burning in the relevant muscle area. Seek to increase the work- load one or two repetitions at a time, and seek to increase the stretch a mil- limeter at a time. If you push too hard into a stretch, your muscle fibres will contract or tear, but not relax and lengthen.

By Heather Sansom, Owner, Equifitt.com Equestrian Fitness

EquiFITT.com offers per- sonalized fitness coaching through clinics and conve- nient online coaching available anywhere. You can get a FREE subscrip- tion to monthly rider fittips or download the rider fit- ness ebooks: Complete Core Workout for Riders and Handy Stretching Guide for Riders at www.equifitt.com . You can also read lots of rider fit- ness articles for free at www.equisearch.com where Dressage Today publishes my pieces as ‘Fitness Tip of the Month for Riders’.

OnTRA News

Continued from page 46

themselves. Before a riding lesson encour- age the child to put on her own boots and helmets, and have the child help dress the horse (i.e. do up the latches and buckles on the bridle and girth). Use dressing boards available from a toyshop or medi- cal supply stores, or sew some your self. Include doing up buttons of various sizes, zippers, laces and hook and eyes. For more information about Sensory Processing Disorders please see “The Out- of-sync Child” written by Carol Stock Kranowitz, copyright 2005.

“Does your Centre Have a Special Rider, Volunteer, or Horse Profile you would like to share?” Do you want your Centre featured in The Mane Line? Provide OnTRA with a feature article in 400 words or less with a photo and feature your special therapy story in next month’s issue of The Mane Line. Contact editor@ontra.ca.

OnTRA would love to hear about what’s happening at your center! If you are interested in posting your member center events on our website, Please contact editor@ontra.ca

Need A Puller???

(Truck)

We’ve Got Lots So Give Us A Call! Ask for Jack, Larry or Joe

Home of the Canadian Baseball Hall Of Fame

ST. MARYS FORD

1-800-265-8587

St. Marys, Ontario

2010 Challenge Series Hunter Shows

May 2 -

Twinholm Stables, Campbellville, ON,

(905) 332-9679, Fax: (905) 332-6636 Twinholm@aol.com • www.twinholm.com

May 16 - Milestone Stables, Campbellville, ON June 6 -

June 20 - July 12 -

July 11 - July 25 -

Aug. 15 -

905-854-0762 Fax: (905) 854-1796, aoc@milestoneac.ca

Brightwater Equestrian Centre, Erin, ON

(519) 833-2233, Fax: (519) 833-4408

info@brightwaterfarm.com • www.brightwaterfarm.com

Twinholm Stables, Campbellville, ON,

Meadowlarke Stables, Mississauga, ON

(905) 821-0419, Fax: (905) 821-1796 info@meadowlarkestables.com www.meadowlarkestables.com

Meadowlarke Stables, Mississauga, ON

Halton School Of Equitation. Hornby, ON

(905) 826-2889, Fax: (905) 826-0913, haltonschooleq@gmail.com • www.hse.on.ca

Meadowlarke Stables, Mississauga, ON

August 29 - Milestone Stables, Campbellville, ON September 19 - Brightwater Equestrian Centre, Erin, ON

CHALLENGE SERIES GRAND FINALE HUNTER SHOW

October 3, 2010 - Twinholm Stables, Campbellville, ON,

(905) 332-9679 or Twinholm@aol.com, www.twinholm.com

WANTED

USED ENGLISH & WESTERN SADDLES

Call us today -

we have customers waiting Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72