Improve your riding skills and increase horse experience with tailored rider and horse training!
OK, you’ve probably noticed, I’m not a personal trainer, I’m a horse trainer! So, what am I doing here?
It’s a great question, let me explain.
As horse riders, we need a special kind of fitness that involves core strength and balance – we’re closer to dancers than we are to weight-lifters. Also, it’s essential for our safety and our horse’s welfare that we maintain an appropriate weight. Being overweight as a rider can seriously injure your horse and can lead to potentially dangerous behavioural problems with our equine partners.
Recent research suggests that riders should weigh no more than twenty percent of their horses’ weight, with less than 15% being ideal, and this includes the weight of the saddle they are sitting on (some of which can weigh up to 60 pounds). An average 15-hand horse that would be suitable for an intermediate adult rider will weigh less than 1,000 pounds. Rider experience and balance must also play a part in how the horse experiences being ridden, bringing the rider fitness essentials into the equation.
Rider and Horse Training Delivered Online
I personally found Trainerize through a trainer at my local gym and thought the app was fabulous. I knew immediately that I needed to incorporate it, with my horse training material, for my clients.
It seems to be tailor-made for my horse-human fitness and training course – Kandoo Fitness: Eat, Ride, Love. The bulk of the course is found on another platform and is a holistic approach to horse training and rider fitness. It consists of rider modules including diet, exercise, meditation and journaling. Also training program includes horse components encompassing training, management and behaviour.
As riders, we aren’t keen on spending hours at the gym and if cardio is involved, realistically the horse should be doing it! What I needed, and Trainerize has provided, is a simple app that riders can use to track their exercise progress, something that ties in with the diet plan on my course and also enables them to log their horse training components – all right there on their phone!
