JULY/AUGUST 2024 THE RIDER /39 Rider Fitness: You may remember that


By Heather Sansom. Welcome to the mid-year


edition! Winter in the Southern Hemisphere, mid-summer in the Northern globe: either way a sea- son of growing and getting out and about with your horse. This edition is aimed at the mature rider. Change of hormones later in life gives us a few new rules for managing ourselves as active equestrians. On a positive note, first there is all that life experi- ence (wisdom) which makes our brain one of our best tools. Then, there is the difference in muscle mass and muscle-fat ratio that challenges our stamina and self- carriage.


lately I’ve been working with a new project horse, an off-track Thoroughbred who raced for al- most six years. He does not need much suggestion from leg aids, so I’ve been working on balance and self-carriage, reflecting more on the way we use our bodies in the saddle as well as the way we use our minds for connecting with the horse. Sally Swift, the founder of Centered Riding wrote that we ride ‘with our bones’, not our muscles. How does that work?


While not all horses have


the natural ‘fast twitch’ muscle fibre and neuro-muscular light- speed that Thoroughbreds do, most can be ridden with more subtlety than we sometimes do. When we are riding with less bal- ance, or inadvertently controlling our weight in the saddle less, we can wind up ‘pushing’ the horse with leg or other aids to compen- sate.


We think they are not lis-


tening, but actually they very often are. It’s just that your seat or the turn of thigh or shift of po- sition you weren’t aware of is a louder aid to them. When you and


Making Middle Age Work for Your Ride


the horse are balanced, aids can be very light which means that the need for muscle mass has nothing to do with applying pres- sure to the horse. It has every- thing to do with your body awareness and control for self- carriage and coordinated aids. When I find I want to touch


with the dressage whip because my horse is not moving over well in half pass or leg yield, my rocket-fueled current horse won’t put up with conflicting signals or being ‘pushed’. I am forced to pause and think: where is my weight? Which way are my knees and belly-button pointing? Have I dropped a shoulder? On a racing Thoroughbred, confusing signals quickly turn on the tension. Ten- sion in riding shuts down the thinking brain (in horse and rider).


As I aim to ride as quietly


and accurately as possible, I find myself noticing more about what the horse is telling me about my own body and state of mind. In effect, you start riding your horse’s brain, and taking your horse’s movement as feedback to you. Ask: why am I pushing with that leg or tempted to pull with


the inside rein? What about shift- ing weight in my stirrups in- stead? What about pushing across the shoulders from the outside rein? What about slow- ing it all down to a walk to re- calibrate, then picking up the pace again? When we are tired, we tend to use well-known mus- cle memory pathways rather than those that might be more effec- tive. Using your mind to keep tension out of you and your horse makes everything easier. Another important part of


managing your weight and posi- tion is your cardio-vascular stamina. When you are not get- ting enough oxygen, you can’t control your body as accurately. It’s also really helpful to the ma- ture rider’s metabolism to do


things that promote cardio fit- ness. You don’t have to do any- thing high impact, and don’t have to work out for an hour to get the benefit. Virtually any ac- tivity from walking to gardening can be turned into a heart- healthy and metabolism-boost- ing exercise by picking up the pace in intervals over a period of 15-30 minutes. The best activi- ties for riders also promote bilat- eral symmetry and core strength. Power or urban pole walking are examples. If you are using chor- ing, try and do as much as you can equally with both sides of your body. So, when your body has


gone and changed the rules on you and you are tempted to think that fitness for riding means a


crash diet, training like a much younger person, or giving up… hang in there. Effective riders come in many shapes and ages.


Safe and Happy Training!


© Heather R. Sansom, PhD. www.equifitt.com


Personal Trainer, Riding Coach, Therapist Personalized Programs for Rid- ers of All Abilities Available online Check out the leading 9 week rider fitness plan book (complete with anatomy illustrations)- available in print or as a down- load! www.equifitt.com/fit2ride/


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