When Out, Get In

Staying fit is part of riding, but you also can get back into shape, it is not a one way road!

However, our group leader says horse riding does not count as cardiovascular exercise, and that a brisk walk is more beneficial. I was planning on encouraging my SO to ride more regularly as a form of exercise. Do you think the exercise is focussed in the legs, or is it good cardio too? My SO likes to ride horses, and it looks to me like it's pretty cardio intensive. Horseback riding is pretty good exercise to stay fit on its own, but here are a few things your SO can do to increase the intensity of the workout : I suspect she will like all four of your suggestions. Bareback riding is also great exercise, fitness, and will greatly improve her riding.

But do you think it's enough of a cardio workout for me to insist she rides more regularly? an hour of proper horse riding is the same as an hour jog :D that means walk trot and canter Awesome.

You ride more dynamically and are pretty active while on the horse. Sadly it will be a while before I get a new saddle, since it cost more than the horse did. You do use your legs some for communicating with the horse but it's really a fairly sedentary way to ride. Hi /fitit My SO and I are embarking on a journey of losing weight and getting back in shape. I guess check your pulse after / during a ride and see if it is elevated above its normal resting level. That's kinda what I thought, and I can tell from watching her that it's work, but I'm just curious about the cardio value. I've got a Western saddle to help keep me on, but I predict some nasty bruises in the near future. Western riding will give you a small workout but it's basically just the lazy man's way of riding. My guess is that it probably provides a decent cardio workout, along with a muscular endurance benefit to your legs and core muscles.

Clearly I have never been on a horse :) iswearitsreallyme pretty much nailed it with his/her suggestions. I miss horse riding :( Start again - what's stopping you? I just got a Western :/ The logic was that since I know nothing about horse riding, I'll fall off less because of the bobbly thing on the front. It isn't the most recommended, and you'll have to adjust a few things, but it can be done. Needless to say, she wanted to kill me for the next week b/c she was so sore from riding that day. You have to post while trotting and to canter , gallop, or jump you have to be in a two-point position--basically a half squat. You can see these on everything from shirts to fitness related business cards and the like.

Fitness: Horses and Riders

Body weight If you have access to a squat box with a pad, she can try that. The squat is a basic movement pattern that pretty much anybody should be able to perform without added load.

Just do bodyweight or machine alternatives in this case, until the range of motion is restored by weight loss. However, for a person that large, I would focus more on losing weight, developing mobility, and generally developing correct movement patterns. If you cannot do a full squat, you need to work on the flexibility in order to do so.

Start Small

She can start with just the bar - you have to use a lot less weight with front rather than rear squats.

With back squats, newer lifters tend to let the weight push them forward too much onto the balls of their feet. If you don't have one in the gym, look for one of the moveable benches and see if it's a comfortable height. A friend and I went to the gym together the other day and We were squatting and what knot. Box squats are essentially just repeating chair-sit-downs and just having something safe there to catch her may help mentally in the fitness department.

That process should take 3 months before everything's nice and comfortable and you can start thinking about conventional squats with just the bar. You can adjust it to be fairly tall and slowly drop it down towards hitting parallel as she gets used to the motion.

I'm use to working out with very slim people, so it's difficult to know what a bigger person is restricted too!

Fitness Isn't Powerlifting

I might be wrong, but several heavyset powerlifters put their feet further apart than shoulder width to accommodate for their bellies. It is a good exercise for the quads, but isolates a lot more than a real squat. Basically an extension put at the end of a shortened list to imply more similar things exist in that list.

Anyway, because she is quite large, She can't get anywhere near 90 degree's for a squat. How do you do that "backwards" Barbell in front rack position Front refers to where you hold the bar. Yeah just do as much as you can and then try to keep gradually progressing Overtime she will be able to squat under parallel. a bit like this wide stance because they can engage far more muscles in addition to less joint strain. I dropped 80 lbs and started being serious about strength training. my squat ended up having a 60-80 lb head start to the rest of my lifts. The things you talk about sounds exactly like those who say deep squats are dangerous to the knees. That is true for squats in general and why you see every power lifter doing extra hamstring exercises. Bodyweight squats are definitely OK. Barbell squats are probably also OK as long as form is good during the range of motion that can be performed. Anecdotally, squats TORE up my knees until I did just that. This is impossible with a front squat - the weight is in front of you so the natural inclination is to push more with your heels, which is proper squat form. My question is, are squats safe to do, when the person can't do them? I strongly suggest she start working on her bodyweight squats.

ill link it later but the tldr is max knee sheer force occurs above parallel and swuats should be done to 90 degrees. When I started SS I physically wasn't able to go under parallel.

squats can be a dangerous exercise especially when compared to some alternatives out there.

For the leg being lifted: under its own power or mobilizing it with that side's hand? "forces" your form much better than back squats. I do full squats, he wasn't giving that advice to me in particular.

Low bar does not go ATG does that mean you should not do them? They develop the muscles around your knees improperly, and make them unbalanced - which leads to problems. Unless you actually show valid science or there is some consensus on it this is broscience. Are we talking bodyweight squats or barbell squats? I'd say to just have her practice bodyweight squats to increase her hip mobility. My physio has told me that it's perfectly fine for people to do 1/2 squats without excessive weight if that is the best they can do. Eh, I admit I lol'd.

Get her to stand straight on one leg and get them to lift their other leg as high as they can without bending their lower back. I don't personally do them, high bars are better. If she can practice just trying to sit in the squat position on a daily basis, her mobility and tolerance for the position should get much better. Just a suggestion - have her try front squats. You can also try things like goblet squats that might be easier. ran into this myself when I first started squatting, even though I'm not overweight. Now I can drop into ass to grass squat like nothing.

I would not recommend the leg press. but saying its perfectly fine to half squat is saying its perfectly fine to punch yourself in the nuts, as long as you do it lightly. Even if the members overlap, I never expected Starcraft to leak into Fitness. above parallel your knees contribute far more to the stop, thus knee stress. Rippetoe advocates the leg press What helped me was a wider stance. This is of course assuming there's no prohibitive mobility issues going on. .

Working Is Good Fitness

I think it's pretty good excercise. Cowboys walked like that because of how raw the insides of their thighs got rubbed by the seams of their pants. Thigh pressure against a woman’s vulva, especially her clitoris, has been known to unexpectedly hurl her into orgasmic bliss. They don't just sit there, there's a whole lot of up/down and body posture involved. Were I religious, I would thank god daily for her interest in horses. Granted, the burn is probably isolated in the thighs and buns, but it looks like a good workout, and she's usually red-faced, panting and sweaty when she's done.

Don't Forget Cardio

Cardio is important for heart and circulatory health though, so I try not to neglect it entirely.

It will be difficult and painful and she might fall off but she will see results. I don't horseride regularly, but I have a few times and it seems like something you adapt to and from there it becomes easy.

Since she is a girl I'll assume she is riding English style which does give you a good bit of a workout if you ride correctly. BUT THAT WAS GOING TO BE MY JOKE Fuck it, I'm doing it anyway. There seems to be a case for saying it's just a serious thigh workout. orgasms for women in particular can catch them by surprise during activities involving pressure and/or vibrations against the vulva, like horseback riding or bike riding. She developed those muscles strictly from her years riding horses.

You can actually ride English style in a western saddle regardless. It works you out a lot more than one would imagine, especially if you are doing trails with quite a bit of hills involved. I spent an entire summer riding every day and doing all of the above plus a least 2x a week riding bareback and saw huge improvements in my riding. She had always wanted to go horseback riding but had never gone before fitness is important. She's teaching me to ride so that we can go on outrides together. English, on the other hand, makes you more active while riding.

We've joined a local franchised weight loss group, and we're making progress. For me, cardio excercise is secondary, especially if the goal is fat loss.

Other Aspects of Fitness

I was just wanting to know where would the best place be to but all that weight.

Thanks ill look into that and try to figure outmwhat will the best way be to arange my weights I need a exstra 25kg to be able to compete in 100 milers. Evenly distributed and located as close to you/your horse's center of balance as possible You can either wear it yourself of place it on your horse.

Either in saddle bags or saddle itself. I am a junior rider riding at 20km/h or 12.4m/h. It is too much to only put on the numnha and it is also too much to get a vest for it without cutting of all the air ventilation to my body.

Will it be ok of I say put 15 on me and 10 on the horse Me: 10 2.5 x2 Horse: 10 How one of the riders in my team ride As long as it's balanced weight and not rubbing/interfering with your horse in any way.

Strength Training, Riding, and Fitness

Usually when you start out the big compound lifts are enough for hitting the major muscle groups, which is what beginner strength programs are for.

I have looked into starting strength and stronglifts, fitness in general, none which include the minor muscle groups and only have that one major lift for each major muscle. All the strength programs I've found only do 1 exercise for each major body part. You're clearly just starting out, so you probably shouldn't be customizing anything in your training right now. Just don't go so overboard it impacts those big lifts outlined in your program. At first I recommend only doing this for small groups , and not adding extra pec flies or anything like that. If you like, you can add it immediately; just throw in something like 2x10 curls, pushdowns, calf raises, face pulls, etc. And would one exercise, the bench press for example, would be enough to strengthen the chest? Put it at the end of each workout, start light, and add a small increment of weight each workout or each week and get into the routine of exercise.

Keeping Weight In Mind

It's looking like vastly obese 300 lbs would be the breaking point for most the the dressage horse types. So she would be fine on a larger or stockier horse, and thats something larger riders have to think about. I've never been much for horse showing, but I'm from Montana and go to rodeos as often as I can. I'm seen larger horses for sure though but their riders are usually in a health weight range to begin with.

Even the low end of a draft horse's weight is some 1400lbs which is still around 200 lbs even at 15%. From what I've seen , the "look" that is most desirable for a dressage horse is a lot stockier than Arabs or TBs. But even with that taken into consideration, if she weighs north of 200 lbs, she's abusing that horse with her ignorance. I definitely didn't notice her fatness because I was shouting about her heels and shoulders in my head.

Bone structure should be taken into account before weight or height when assessing whether or not the horse can carry the rider. True, but these kinds of competitions don't use large horses, they usually focus on the Arabians and maybe thoroughbreds? In a "if you want to compete at a higher level successfully, you will probably need to lose weight" way. Breaking the canter screwed up her score, but the horse's "mistake" as she puts it, was because she herself was not balanced. fine on a larger or stockier horse You mean a beautiful plus-sized goddess horse shitlord! I had a fellow rider who had money coming from her parents to purchase the horse of her dreams.

I know English saddles are significantly less in terms of weight than western ones and when I weighed 240 the only horse I could ride was a half-linger. Draft horses aren't built for carrying weight and should be carrying lighter riders than that percentage. I asked a judge at a show once 'is it possible to ride a pony to Z dressage?' He should have just ignored them, and I don't really see why he felt the need to tell his wife.

So her blaming her horse was the first indicator that she's delusional about not only her riding abilities, but also what caused the mistake. The vet & sanctuary owners put so much work into getting her comfortable and getting her mobility back. She claims to have cleaned out a lot of stalls to keep herself on horses through her lifetime. The thing is that she gives excuses for her weight and says she works out twice a day and has a diet. Based on what she has written she has rejected fatlogic and is actively working towards her health, weight and fitness goals.

It can be very strenuous if done right and you're hitting the pee spots and not just covering them with shavings.

Also, clarify what fat is to you "fat riders ruining draft horses" Can you show source for your information on why draft horses must carry less weight %? Ever wonder why the cart is behind the draft horse and not on top of it? Well that's because all animals are better at pulling than carrying, it's not exclusive to horses. In this case, I'm more curious to know her height/weight because either her horse is huge or she is shorter than average. Arabs are stigmatized and known as as spirited horses, and are better recognized for endurance/racing events than for dressage due to their hot nature. I see so many fat riders ruining draft types and it makes me sad.
Ten bucks betting she asked for the horse to start the circle, and she wasn't ready for it, so she was shifted to the outside. I was letting all of those things get in the way because what I wanted was hard. Mine was an American Saddlebred and larger than the average height and weight for that breed. It sounds like her balance/weight might have been a factor, but I'm not sure. And you never see any overweight riders at the Olympic or Grand Prix levels because most trainers aren't overweight at all.
When she got to the sanctuary she could barely put one foot in front of the other. I swear the concept of just keeping things to yourself because sharing serves no good purpose has disappeared. Hell you never even see them at lower level equestrian sports that take a good amount of effort.
More parts need to fit together with every level of dressage, and similarly with jumping.

She's probably never driven a T-post, dug a fence, lifted or stacked a bale of hay in her life. It stresses them out, ups their heart rate and just is overall horrible for them. She was planing to do dressage at pre- St. George or higher with this horse. In horseback riding, any mistake made in the show ring is 98% the rider's fault. I used to work at a horse sanctuary and there was one horse who had been rescued from her owners that this story reminds me of.

Cobs and sturdy QH on the other hand can do the 200-250lb riders with no issues. I give her a pass for now because I think she is going to make it.

I just hate how people treat animals like they're not actually alive or can feel. This is complete bullshit! The horse, Maxine, was a beautiful dapple grey about 16h. And they aren't particularly shy about discussing the details with their friends at length and in great detail. You have to be really well balanced and have thighs of steel to hold on to the turns and sudden stops. If you won't admit your are hurting yourself the least you could do is stop hurting the horsey.

Andalusians, warmbloods , QH mixes, TBs, can all be on the smaller side, depending on the breeding. I found a community of women who are also working to value their health and wellness enough to make it a daily priority. .