Time after time you walk away frustrated and discouraged. It's hard to muster the strength and endurance you need to ride well in a competition or lesson when you only get to ride once or twice a week. But before you start to go to the gym every day during your lunch break, you need to know what to do to make yourself a more enduring rider. You need to know how to train, or condition, the aerobic energy system.
The aerobic energy system fuels working muscles when you perform steady, low- to moderate-intensity activities such as trotting and cantering (as well as hiking, swimming, and dancing). The aerobic system starts to help fuel working muscles after you've been trotting around the arena for three or four minutes, and then it fuels them almost exclusively after about 10 to 12 minutes. When you don't have the strength and endurance to last even this long, you need to train your aerobic energy system to do better. You need to stress it harder, longer, and more often so that it will learn to adapt and become capable of producing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of energy.
If you're like most people, you hear the word aerobic and the first thing you think of is aerobics, or aerobic dance. For equestrians, this isn't a bad association. I say this because training the aerobic energy system is very sport-specific. It isn't just about training your heart to pump more blood and your lungs to take in more oxygen, it's about training the specific muscles that are contracting at the time to get better at pulling oxygen from the bloodstream and using it to produce usable energy.
When I say that training the aerobic energy system is very sport-specific, I mean that pedaling a bicycle 20 to 60 minutes a day, three to five days a week, teaches the muscles that are doing the pedaling to become very good at . . . pedaling. Pedaling a bicycle develops the strength and endurance the muscles in your legs need to move in a perfect circle, not post to the trot or apply the aids.
The best way to train the aerobic energy system for horseback riding is to either put in a lot of rigorous hours on horseback or perform an activity that works the same muscles you use when you ride. Consequently, aerobic dance is probably the next best thing to riding, with swimming, rowing, and cross-country skiing being second best. Jogging and bicycling, however, develop less fitness through the arms, back, and abdomen and are therefore less suitable activities for equestrians.
Equestrians who perform activities that last less than three minutes or demand sudden bursts of brute strength, such as barrel racing, jumping, or vaulting, rely less on the aerobic energy producing system, and more on other energy systems, to fuel working muscles.
The Rider's Workout video has been around for a while, but it is still a good, inexpensive exercise video. Cheryl Schumann, a licensed physical therapist, designed a 60-minute exercise program that develops the muscular strength and endurance, as well as flexibility, riders need. But don't forsake your jogging partner or aerobics class. The video won't help you develop the cardio-respiratory fitness needed for riding and good health.
© 1998 by Johanna L. Harris. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.
Johanna L. Harris has an M.A. degree in Physical Education, Exercise and Sports Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the editor/publisher of The Equestrian Athlete, a monthly newsletter providing equestrians with exercise and sport science information. You can also reach her at (800) 404-8514.
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