JULY 2010 THE RIDER /39


Fitness Tip of the Month for Riders: Anyone Can Improve Balance


Posture and bal- ance are closely related.


accidents, avoid strain injury, balance your horse better- and also ride better.


you are compet- ing this summer or just getting some more trail time in, having a good centre of gravity will help you reduce potential for


You can fit the saddle and treat the horse with therapies, but if approximately 120-200lbs on his back is chronically off-centre or shifting constantly it will have a pretty serious impact on your horse. Just imagine riding 20km on trail, or going over 30 fences during your ride, with ten or more pounds pressure on one seatbone or stirrup than the other. Now multiply this uneven wear- ing by the number of times you ride over the summer, and think about what is happening over your horse’s back, legs and feet.


Whether


moving constantly. For those of you who might lament that you’ve never had the greatest bal- ance, the good news is that you can actually improve your balance through training. If you have tight muscles and ligaments, stretching is probably the easiest corrective step to start off with. Stretching is easy to do any- where, anytime, wearing just about anything all throughout your day. Not only is there no real excuse for not doing it, but your body performs so much better with regular stretching that it must be one of the most well known secrets. Benefits of stretching regularly include:


1. More energy because bad posture if more fatiguing to your body


2. Better muscle response (more accurate aids) 3. Less risk of strain injury: both sudden, and long term repetitive strain. Tight muscles are often the part that suffers when you have an acci- dent or incident which creates sudden demand on your muscles and joints.


4. Better alignment and therefore better balance. 5. ‘Softer’ ligaments and joints- more absorptive of the horse’s motion.


Generally, postural tendencies observable on the ground are likely to be also present in the saddle. The lack of alignment you exhibit in daily activities will have an impact on your sense of ‘straight’ and balance in the saddle- as well as your physical (biomechanic) ability to produce correct posture.


You don’t have the luxury of maintaining a static position in the saddle once you have achieved balance and posture, because you are


than stretching. Picture a time when you remem- bered to stretch before riding and you felt great at the start of your ride. Then as time passed, you found yourself reverting to old habits: familiar areas of tension and familiar compensating pat- terns.


You are losing your balance again and not sitting as deeply, or rocking with the horse’s motion the way you would like to.


Your body is reverting to what it recognizes There’s more to balance and a deep seat


as normal. Your day to day physical habits (such as the way you sit, stand or walk) inform your body’s sense of ‘straight’. You may have experi- enced feeling straight in the saddle, when your coach or a friend is telling you differently. You may need to retrain your body’s idea of straight, and create some new muscle memory for correct- ing what starts to happen as your ride progress and you begin losing your balance.


grow. If part of you falls to one side of an imagi- nary plumb line (such as your seat falling back), your body will compensate by trying to align your weight evenly down the new centre of grav- ity (feet may shoot forward). It will adjust anoth- er part of you to create balance.


Unfortunately, the new plumb line might be over your horse’s wither and not where you need it to be. Or, it may be right over the saddle, but your body may be zig-zagging. If your neck tends to stick forward, your feet probably creep forward/knees creep up. You won’t have that straight alignment of ear, shoulder, hip, heel that gives you a more secure seat and better riding. Compensating patterns don’t just appear in


The body adjusts itself like a tree tends to


if the rider’s centre of gravity has shifted for- ward.


You can help establish better alignment and balance by working with balance aids, or using an exercise ball. Sitting on the exercise ball instead of an office chair, or couch will force you to straighten up. Other stationary activities you can do to help your balance could include stand- ing on one leg and doing various movements with your other leg or arms.


Since balancing on a horse also requires constant adjustment to motion, you also need to mix in more active exercises. Very inexpensive solutions include standing with your legs horse- width apart on two tennis balls or a pool noodle. You can simulate rising trot and even canter while in a slightly squatting position. You can check your straightness by holding a very full glass of water, level, or placing a soft object on your head while you do the exercise. These ideas will have the added benefit of improving your body and brain’s ability to separate what your body is doing from the seat down, from what it needs to do from the seat up.


amateur riders. I have seen them in professional and highly competitive riders as well. Compen- sating patterns have a negative effect on the horse’s performance.


By Heather Sansom, Owner, Equifitt.com Eques- trian Fitness


In some cases, I even see the horse’s body drawn into the dynamic quite clearly. For exam- ple, a rider that sits predominantly to the left on a horse that is stiff and leaning in to the right. However, it is more common for me to see a horse simply responding to the rider’s body sig- nal such as having trouble lifting off the forehand


EquiFITT.com offers personalized fitness coach- ing through clinics and convenient online coach- ing available anywhere. You don’t have to be near a gym to get in shape for your riding. Sign up for a free subscription to monthly rider fittips or download the rider fitness ebooks: Complete Core Workout for Riders and Handy Stretching Guide for Riders at www.equifitt.com .


Iron Horse Equestrian Centre Had Big Plans By Mallory Hendry.


If anybody is wonder- ing how the new Iron Horse Equestrian Centre is doing, they need only look at what didn’t happen there in early May.


“We didn’t have our grand opening like we were planning,” Susy Niles, who owns Iron Horse with her husband, says. “We had a lot of shows.”


Niles says she and her husband Ken still have to decide on a date for the grand opening but it will most likely be sometime in the fall, when the shows are over with. But just because there hasn’t been an official party welcoming them to the horse commu- nity doesn’t mean that community doesn’t know the Niles family is there. Susy thinks the people that have visited the stable so far have been pleasantly surprised, in no small part due to her husband. Ken, who takes care of the reno- vations and upkeep, names some of the improvements he’s made so far. They include big ticket items such as an upgraded water system, a newly levelled RV parking area, hunter rings extended by 100 feet and smaller details like freshly painted stalls, new footing in arenas, better landscaping and new fenc- ing.


“It’s non stop,” Ken says. “There’s a lot to do.” Besides improving on what’s already in place, the Niles family is looking to spruce up their new farm as well. They will be building a cross country course, which the property lacks, and beyond physical improvements they’re also taking a more friendly


says it`s extremely satisfy- ing watching his daughter and son – three and one – grow up. Now the whole family is involved 100 per cent in the venture, which is a good thing since run- ning the stable – and rais-


we have here it hasn’t been utilized by the equine world and we absolutely want to give back to the horse industry and allow a place like this to not go unused,” Ken explains. “So we’re opening it up to


approach to their boarders, show organizers and visi- tors.


“We’re very customer service oriented,” Susy says. “They just need to give the farm a chance.” Iron Horse is not the first farm this husband and wife team have run, although it is the first they’ve owned. Previously they rented another stable together but as Susy says, they never thought of own- ing something as fabulous as this one.


boarders and staff are great so the farm runs very smooth.”


Before working at Iron Horse full time, Ken was a biomedical technical supervisor. He decided to retire from that when Susy was pregnant with their second child, a son.


“I wanted to be home with my kids,” Ken explains. “And now the farm is big enough that there’s no way I could do both because I travelled the world with my career and


everything from mini shows to breeder cups to Olympic style events and we just hosted a cancer event here in April. We donated the facility for a clinic that raised around $10,000 so we want to do


ing their children - is a 24 hour a day job.


“It’s a lot of work but we like it,” she says. “It makes it well worth it if you have such a good group of people here. The


could be gone three weeks at a time and with kids now it’s just not an option.” Ken is happy to report he hasn’t missed anything. He


But one that`s worth every second of it, as far as Ken and Susy are con- cerned. Leaving the past – both good and bad - in the past, they’re putting their energy into looking for- ward. So far they’ve rented the facility out to indepen- dent shows, such as Cara Whitam`s and Rob Robert- son`s, and they`ve been super successful. From a few to around 100, the Niles’ horses have been doing the Trillium circuit with younger riders and some will be starting a cir- cuit over the next few years. They’re also looking to start schooling shows around October, which Susy says are easy to run and maintain. They’re hop- ing to get the word out about Iron Horse because they feel it has a lot to con- tribute.


“With a facility like


stuff like that, we want to give this facility back and let people come and enjoy it. It’s so close to every- thing and people just don’t realize that it’s here.”


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