You’ve tucked Buster to bed with a belly full of hay and as you are about to head home your friend asks you to join her at the gym for a workout. You look at her as if she has sprouted 3 heads…”Uh, no, nope, nada, not going to happen!” Your friend pleads with you to give a workout a try. “You know fitness is important to us riders” she states matter of factly. She goes on to rattle off some of the benefits of exercise: Mood booster, stress-reliever Decreases your risk of

Do you walk into your home gym or commercial gym and do the same workout day after day because you are not sure how to change up your routine? This is a common theme that I hear from many of my clients when they first start working with me. They are familiar with a variety of exercises but don’t know how to vary their routine in the gym. This can lead to boredom and a lack of desire to workout. I’m going to show you some simple ways you can add a little spark into your wo

When you are traveling either for work or vacation do you find it difficult to stick to your workouts? If you are like me, you probably have a typical routine of where you workout and what time of day you workout, and you enjoy sticking to that routine. Going away for a few days or a few weeks throws us out of our typical routine, and unless you learn to be flexible, before you know it your vacation is over and you completed zero workouts! Instead of throwing out any progres

THE EQUESTRIAN ATHLETE - PART 5 Lesson 5: Basic Fitness Program Design As you have progressed through this equestrian series, you have started to change your mindset that you are an athlete. It is now time to look at how to design a basic fitness program that will allow you to train for optimal performance. Like most sports we look at equestrian sports as having seasons. We can break down our yearly calendar into phases based on these seasons: off-season, pre-season, in-se

Lesson 3: Warm-up! In Part 1 of the Equestrian Athlete series I asked how often you physically prepare when you are schooling or competing; if you warm-up or go through any flexibility or mobility exercises before you get on your horse; and if you perform a cool-down to prevent excessive muscular soreness and stiffness after a long day of showing? The typical response is no to all of the above. Generally, we tack up our horses, mount, and get on with our ride. I am going