SEPTEMBER 2010 THE RIDER /39 Fitness Tip of the Month for Riders: Rider Fitness: Better Back = Better Ride


seatbones as in dressage, or else held in a nice crest release over a fence.


We often talk about riding our horses ‘through’ or ‘over’ the back. Whatever your disci- pline, it’s about getting your horse to spring from the hindlegs, sending energy over his body through his back mus- cles.


There are many ways we can block this momentum from a poorly fitted saddle, to tight hands. The biggest factor influ- encing your horse’s use of his back is the pressure of your seat on his back. You need to carry yourself, so that he can carry himself effectively, whether that is over a fence, on the trail or in a dressage test.


In other words, to get your horse to engage his back proper- ly, you need to be engaging yours correctly for the duration of your ride. If you want your horse’s back muscles to develop along their length, do the same with yours so that you can use your back to carry your own weight where you need it to be, whether centered over your


The reasons serious riders cross-train through un-mounted exercise have to do with some sport-conditioning principles that make sense when you think about how you train your horse. The first is the fact that if you only train a muscle in a short- ened range (the range actually used riding is very short), you will only create strength within that range. A comparable anal- ogy is the way you train your horse to jump higher at home, than he would in competition. Allowing a muscle to only develop in shortened range- such as the range you use riding, creates knots. Knots create ten- sion and tightness in the liga- ments. Besides having pain, you are at much higher risk for both acute injury (sudden spook, ‘off’ landing) and repetitive strain injury. You also have compromised your ability to absorb your horse’s motion. Lack of ability to properly absorb your horse’s motion in any part of your body creates overload in other parts, creating other problems that you may not realize are related. When you can’t follow his motion fully, you block his movement. Simply stretching the mus- cles does not solve the problem because part of the muscle is knotted, and part of it is over- strained already. The muscle


will rebound within a few min- utes of riding: the knots will tighten, and the overstrained ends will be further pulled by the stretch.


On the other hand, strengthening the area properly through a combination of stretch and strength moves that work the length of the muscle will help you avoid knots and tight- ness, and give you the stamina to maintain good posture through your ride, as well as respond to sudden demand. If you have back pain from riding, that is a strong sign that your back strength workout is long overdue.


When it comes to your back, it’s important to ask your back muscles to work along their entire length so that find- ing your postural ‘sweet spot’ and staying there throughout your ride is easy. Just a few minutes a day working on your own back strength will make a noticeable difference in your posture and the way your horse responds. If you often have a sore back, it would be a good idea to check with your physio- therapist or doctor before doing any exercises. Typically, it would also be better for some- one with a weak back or back pain to start out very conserva- tively, and do just a few exercis- es per day as you gradually build up endurance.


If you are in fairly good shape, you will get the fastest


week to build strength is twice. Two of my favourite back exercises for riders are the dead- lift and the reverse fly (stand- ing). You can combine them into one movement for more efficient training. These exer- cise strengthen all of your lower, middle and upper back muscles used for riding posture.


your back.


Step 3: LIFT BACKSIDE: Pick up your backside leaving a slight bend in your knees. (your hands will be raised off the floor- your back should still be really flat)


Step 4: LIFT BACK: Engage your abdominals to support your lower back (pull up your bell button), dig your heels in and raise your back up, keeping in flat


Deadlift Start


Reverse Fly


You should have enough weight in your hands to make 20 repeti- tions in one set a challenge. DEADLIFT/REVERSE-FLY COMBINATION


Deadlift


gains by working the muscle area at least three times a week, fairly intensely with a 48 hour break in between for the muscle fibres to repair and rebuild. The minimum number of times per


Step 1: STAND with legs wider than your shoulders, knees bent, weights at your sides


Step 2: LOWER your back keeping it flat, folding at the hips until the weights just touch the ground. You should bend your knees rather than bend


Step 5: PAUSE & PREPARE WEIGHTS: Pause when you are at 45 degrees to the floor. Your arms should have been dangling deadweight the whole time, holding onto the weights. Step 6: LIFT WEIGHTS: Bend your elbows slightly, and flap your arms slowly out to shoul- der height, with the back of your hand toward the ceiling. Step 7: STAND UP: Bring your arms back together (slowly), and continue raising your back until you are standing upright with a feeling of your tailbone tucked under you, and knees slightly bent.


By Heather Sansom, Owner, Equifitt.com Equestrian Fitness EquiFITT.com offers personal- ized coaching through clinics and convenient online coaching available anywhere. You can get a FREE subscription to monthly rider fittips, or down- load the NEW ebooks: Com- plete Core Workout for Riders and Handy Stretching Guide for Riders at www.equifitt.com.


British Columbia/Quebec Combined Team Wins Bronze at the 2010 North American Junior and Young Rider Eventing Championships


Ottawa, Ontario— The British Columbia / Quebec Combined Team won the bronze medal in the Junior One Star Championship division at the 2010 Ade- quan FEI North American Junior Young Riders Championships (NAJYC). Presented by Gotham North, the Championships were held July 28–August 1 at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, KY, the site of the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.


The team was com- prised of Nayla Charbon- neau of Surrey, BC, Sophie Laframboise of West- mount, QC, and Katherine Martineau of Brossard, QC. The team was coached by Lorraine Laframboise and the chef d’équipe was Olympian Ian Roberts, and all three team members completed the competition a final score of 199.3, which featured no drop score.


The Ontario Team, which had Haley Arm- strong-Laframboise of Orangeville, ON, Sophie Kalpin of King City, ON, Rachel McDonough of Etobicoke, ON, and Han- nah Rankin of Stittsville, ON, finished close behind in fourth place with a team total of 210.6, and had just 4.4 total cross country time penalties.


Winning the Junior One Star Championships was the US Area VI,VII and VIII Team with a score of 190.9, while the US


Area VI Team took silver with a score of 194.4. In the individual com- petition Sophie Lafram- boise was top Canadian for the second year in a row. Partnered with her own 13- year-old Appendix Quarter Horse gelding Way Cool, the pair earned a dressage score of 51.9, and moved up throughout the competi- tion, from a 11th place fol- lowing dressage, to eighth after cross country and finally into fourth place overall with one rail down in show jumping leaving them with a final score of 55.9.


With H.M. As Spirits Go, her own 12-year-old Canadian Sport Horse gelding, Martineau was the next best placed Canadian. The pair stood in fifth place after dressage on a score of 49.0, and dropped into ninth place after earn- ing 3.2 cross country time penalties. Despite two rails down in show jumping for eight faults, the pair moved up the standings to finish sixth individually on a score of 60.2.


Rankin and C5’s Con- flict of Interest, her 16- year-old Canadian Thor- oughbred gelding, finished in 12th place on a score of 66.4 which included a 60.4 dressage score, two time penalties on cross country and four faults in show jumping. In 14th place was Armstrong-Laframboise and Ichabod, Moira Laframboise’s nine-year- old Canadian Thorough-


eventing, jumping and rein- ing. The One Star Junior Championship division is open to riders fourteen to eighteen years of age while the Two Star Young Riders Championship division is open to riders sixteen to twenty-one years old. Many of the world’s top competitors, including many Olympic medalists, began their careers at the NAJYRC.


The British Columbia and Quebec Combined Junior One Star Championship Team won the bronze medal at the 2010 Ade- quan FEI North American Junior Young Riders Champi- onships. Photo Credit— Brant Gamma Photography www.brantgamma.com


bred gelding, who finished on a score of 68.8. McDonough riding her own Irish Rhythm, 11- year-old Canadian Thor- oughbred gelding, finished in 17th place with a score of 75.4. Rounding out the individual Canadians was Charbonneau and her own Princeton Pride whose final score of 83.2 was good for 22nd place.


USA VI and VII with 229.0.


In the Two Star Young Riders Champi- onship division Team Canada, comprised of Samantha Elsenaar of Brooklin, ON, Julia Nor- man of Kelowna, BC, Emily Daigneault of Gatineau, QC, and Joelle Baskerville of Calgary, AB, finished in fifth place. USA Area III won the Two Star Championship division with a score of 217.8, and silver went to


Baskerville her own Malibu, a nine-year-old Thoroughbred Hungarian Warmblood cross mare fin- ished in ninth place indi- vidually on a final score of 88.0. Just behind Baskerville in 10th place was Elsenaar and her own Armon, a 12-year-old Thoroughbred Belgian cross with a score of 88.6. American Kelly Pugh and Copy Cat Chloe took the gold medal in the Two Star Championship divi- sion on a score of 55.9. The NAJYRC gives up and coming riders the opportunity to represent their area, province or country as a team, and pre- pares them for future inter- national competition. The 2010 edition featured the disciplines of dressage,


For more information and complete results, please visit www.youngrid- ers.org.


About Canadian Event- ing


Canadian Eventing is the committee of Equine Canada responsible for the sport of eventing in Canada from the grassroots to the international level. The Canadian Eventing Com- mittee is comprised of 12 members, including two rider representatives elect- ed by the Elite Riders Association. Directed by the Strategic Plan for Eventing, all Eventing activities are administered by this committee via six


sub-committees with the support of an eventing manager based at the Equine Canada office in Ottawa. For more informa- tion about Canadian Event- ing, visit www.equinecan- da.ca and select disciplines then Eventing.


About Equine Canada For more information about Equine Canada, please visit www.equinecanada.ca.


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