Episode 13: Horseback riders need strength & flexibility

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Podcasting from a little cabin on a hill. This is the Stacy Westfall podcast. Stacy's goal is simple to teach you to understand why horses do what they do, as well as the action steps for creating clear, confident communication with your horses.

Hi, I'm Stacy Westfall, and I'm here to teach you how to understand, enjoy and successfully train your own horses during this season of the podcast. I'm focusing on the rider's body in today's episode. I'm discussing the need to separate strength vs. muscle memory. Plus, at the end, I'm going to give you my timesaving tip for finding time to workout. Have you ever noticed that naturally more athletic people find it easier to jump from sport to sport or activity to activity? I have and it's particularly close to me because I am not naturally an athletic person and my husband is. And for me, I can define that as when I was learning to water ski. I crashed a lot and pretty much was like, yeah, this isn't worth it. And downhill ski. Same thing. And motorcycles. Yeah. No couple big crashes. And I was out skateboarding. I never even tried Ed a few summers ago. We were up in Maine, which is where I'm from, and my cousin was doing some paddleboarding where you stand up on this board on the water and you paddle yourself around standing up. And she came paddling over to the dock where we were standing, and she said, You want to give it a try, anyone? And I was sitting there and my husband was sitting there. One of my sons was sitting there. And Jesse says, sure. And she says to me, my cousin does get out your video camera. Everybody always crashes the first time they do this.

Jesse steps from the dock onto the board, paddles around like a pro, comes back, steps off without getting wet. And she said, I've never seen that before. My son does the same thing, steps over, steps on, paddles around, comes back, steps off, never gets wet. They say, do you want to do it? And I said, no. I'm the one that would end up on the YouTube video of all these epic crashes that would happen with me. And that would me me just stepping from the dock over onto it, not naturally gifted like they are to just step into things. And what that has meant to me in my riding is that I have put in a lot of hours for this to look natural. It's not something that just came natural to me in the kind of way that other people who are more naturally athletic can just cross from sport to sport. I never had that. The interesting thing that I've noticed, because I wasn't gifted and didn't put in the effort key there, didn't put in the effort to become better at some of these things. I kind of tried water skiing and went, yeah, that hurts too much. Tried downhill skiing and went, yeah, that hurts too much. Obviously my passion for horses must have been the thing that kept me going because there's been times that a heck yeah. I fell off so many times when I was a child that if I'd done the same. Giving up easy thing, I wouldn't be the rider I am today.

But the problem with not being an athlete more across the board for me has been that I don't have a lot of other areas where I practice being stronger, being more balanced, or even just hand eye coordination and the different things that would come from learning to downhill ski and learning to do other physical challenges. And I see the fact that the challenge becomes how do we become a stronger rider? Because at the end of the day, when I look at a rider that really stands out, I see a rider that is strong and flexible and has muscle memory. The strength and flexibility is separate from the muscle memory. And I'm going to talk more about muscle memory in next week's episode. But right now, I'd like you to focus on the idea of being stronger and more flexible. I thought it was really interesting last year when I went to Kentucky and watched a dressage clinic and Charlotte Desjardin was the woman who was teaching it. And I found it really fascinating that she told a little story about learning to sit the big giant trot that the horses were doing. And her coach actually told her, you will not be able to sit this trot. And what was interesting about it, and I'm condensing the story, what was interesting about it was she said it actually after hearing it over and over again. She got angry enough or motivated enough to go ahead and hire a personal coach because what she was lacking was the strength to be able to ride such a powerful maneuver.

And I thought that was so interesting in the fact that her coach was telling her, this is just not possible for you the way that you are right now, and that she took that motivation, she took that feedback and she went and did something about it. Then she physically works out. I've found some videos online where she's actually with her exercise coach. And you can actually hear her talk about the strength it took to ride such powerful maneuvers. And for me, I've definitely felt that over the years, because when I'm a stronger rider, then things are easier for my horse. I can feel that in several ways. I can feel that when I'm a stronger rider, if I'm riding a colt, I can be better balanced when they're not balanced. So instead of them being out of balance and then me compounding that by also not being in proper balance, I'm able to actually stay out of the way. Same thing when the horse is developing in bigger maneuvers. So, for example, when I'm teaching horse a sliding stop or a lead change, they're having to change their balance. And although something like a lead change might be natural in the pasture, that is not a natural move with a rider on the back queued at a specific spot. And then if you combine the idea that the rider is out of sync or out of balance or getting in the horse's way, then you're going to have an even harder time.

Basically, when you're stronger and more coordinated, you have more options on how to use your body. And you ride smoother and your horse will thank you for it. Over the years, I've tried experimenting with different things really early on when I was in my teens and 20s and even in my early thirties, I didn't see the need for focusing on becoming a stronger, more athletic writer because basically I had youth and natural flexibility on my side. As I've aged, as I had three kids, as life happened, I started to notice that things were changing and began experimenting with some different ways that I might be able to improve things. Because one time I've also reference that a massage therapist mentioned you're not in your 20s anymore. And it it kind of clued me into the idea that I needed to be a little more proactive. Some of the things that I've done over the years. OK. The first one that I really tried for experimented with improving balance was a unicycle. Yes. If you're laughing right now, this is the appropriate response. A unicycle, especially if you remember my earlier list of things I was not naturally good at. The unicycle was not a good idea. F.Y.I If you decide to go on Amazon and buy a unicycle. The bigger the wheel, the easier it is. Which I did not know until after I had my relatively small wheeled unicycle.

And if you want the rest of the story, I actually was trying to balance on it in the house while eating dinner at the table. My children were little. There were lots of good laughs and some scares. I ended up giving that up because I was gonna break something in the house and I'm not that committed to being hurt, so I didn't want to try using it outside. I did, however, start eating dinner, sitting on the blue equine activity ball. It looks a lot like an exercise ball that you can use with the horses. It's just a heavier, heavier rubber plastic that lasts longer with the horses being horses with it. But it's the perfect size for my height that I can actually sit on it and pick my feet up off the ground. And I found some really interesting things with doing that. And that is that my my physical habits of which way I tend to lean or shift my weight will show up on that ball the same way that they show up with the horse. Interesting side note. I tend to lean my upper body to the left and my hips and lower body slightly to the right. And I know why I do it because I grew up riding horses that tended to rear and didn't know how to fix that, and I was getting ready to bail off the horses. So one of my hardwired responses was being able to take my upper body to the left and counterbalance that with my hips slightly to the right and getting Redus fling my leg off and basically bale off from problem horses.

But I know this because I can feel it in my body when I sit on the ball and I think why am I always shifting this direction? And I can feel a similarity to what I remember growing up doing on horses. Yoga is something that I can't say enough good things about. Years ago, I ended up with a yoga DVD and I will link to it in the show notes. And it's got five, 20 minute yoga sessions are roughly 20 minutes each and it runs through different like forward bends, back backbend hip openers. It runs through different things. And if there were one thing that I were going to do every day or every other day, my first up would be yoga in the last year. I have finally found exercise to be something that I'm working in more and more consistently. And for me, that means although I picked up yoga many years ago, I have started working in more specific strength training and some running. And I definitely think this is something that you have to evaluate yourself and personally or with a physician. I know that for myself, I started doing the couch to 5K when I used to live at my former home, which we sold in 2014. But I was really easy on myself and the coat couch to 5K is an app you can get on your phone and it basically coaches you on a three day a week walk run type program and I use that quite a bit, but I never forced myself to go all the way straight through when I felt myself getting sore.

I would back off and I would stick around that area. I would work it into my life. In this last year, I've been much more intentional because it dawned on me that since I've never really been intentional about strength training and really building up my body, although I am 44, I could potentially get stronger for the next 10 years, even though this 10 year period is a period when people don't tend to be getting stronger. I'm almost looking at it like an advantage that I've avoided exercise up to this point because I could theoretically get stronger every year from here on out if I focus just because of my lack before. So for me, I've been experimenting with a routine where I rotate yoga and strength training and running, and it's amazing what you can do in 30 minutes a day. The tip that I'm going to give you on how to fit it in. I'm going to hold on just a little bit longer to the end, but I do have a time saving tip that also is for me motivating. If you're not quite sold yet or if you're on the fence, a few things to think about is that when you're riding your horse, even if you're going for a simple trail ride.

If you're not fit, you're going to be affected differently and you're going to have a different effect on your horse. A really interesting thing that happens to me, although finally in this last year, I would say I'm starting to level it out more, is that I grew up trail riding with really bad habits. Two things. One, the good habits that I had from her riding when I was younger was I mostly did it bareback. So by riding bareback and trail riding, I was forced to be an active rider. But if and when I rode trails when I was younger with a saddle, I was what I'm going to label a lazy rider. So I just sat there like a lump on a log in. What was always really interesting was I didn't do a ton of it because even when I was a kid, I would say that it bothered my knees. Now, the interesting thing is I went to college, to an equine college, and then I became a professional trainer and over, let's just say a 10 year period. I did. My majority of my riding in arenas was occasional trail riding when I would trail ride. It always interested me that 30 minutes in my knees would start hurting. And I made the connection that my bad habits of being a inactive rider when I was trail riding where coming back into my body and when they came back into my body and I just kind of sat like a lump and I wasn't an active rider, then my knees would hurt.

And I never made that connection when I was younger because I didn't know the difference between being an active rider and a more passive lump on the horse. But what I did know when I was younger was that if I rode bareback, then that didn't hurt. But bareback would automatically shift me into being more active rider. Now, jumping into what I see a lot of times as I very often see riders who don't realize they're being held back by their weakness. So sometimes when I'm watching a rider, there is an amazing amount of strength this needed in coordinating your hands, your arms, your legs. And when you're doing something like a lead change and you're needing to have that strength in your core and you're needing to have that coordination to move your legs one forward and one back, but keep it steady while the horse is in motion and keeping your hands steady like you're holding an egg and spoon type of emotion. That's a lot of strength and flexibility. When I had some young girls working for me, some young ladies years ago, they would be learning how to move horses, hips. And frequently they would get these cramps in the back of their thighs. And I'd say, yep, now you're getting to the right position. And it was just because they weren't used to moving their legs in that way.

And then this is an interesting thought. I also think that even if you ride a lot, so if you're a pro or you've been watching pros, what's really interesting, when I was a pro and I was riding eight or 10 horses a day, the thing that I also discovered that explains these these cramps and stuff that these riders were getting is a strong and flexible rider, often should train outside of riding because riding doesn't work the opposing muscles. So if you're working a set of muscles that you do when you ride, there are opposing muscles that if you're not doing some other kind of workout, you're strengthening one set of muscles that's giving a tug of war on to something else. This is something I ran into the year, especially that I was doing the bareback Bradleys with Roxy. I ended up going to the chiropractor really frequently and they were trying to help me out. But they're like, you're not really out of place. And that was the year when the massage therapist really helped me. When I finally found somebody and I was actually at the end of that year, it wasn't during it. I wish it had been. But what they found was the one finally said, OK, here's what's happening. Your thighs are incredibly strong and they're having a tug of war through your pelvis with your lower back and your lower back is losing the tug of war.

This is where your lower back pain is coming from. So what I'm saying here is that I was riding and I was strong in the sense of riding, but I was weak because I didn't have any way to work the opposing muscles. So my body being out of balance was causing me a lot of physical pain and more riding wasn't going to be the answer. Now that I know how to use yoga and strength training and different things, I'm getting more flexible at a time in my life when that's not as natural. But it's really exciting and it's totally within your reach. My timesaving tip, because at the end of the day, one of the biggest hesitation complaints. Resistent points that people have with adding exercise and I know it's one that I lean to for a long time was how do you find time to exercise when you're already doing all these things for me? I was a mom and I was cooking and I was the cleaning and I was riding horses and I was running a business and I'm doing all this stuff. How do you find time to exercise? And that's basically why I got into saying, well, yes, I ride this number of horses a day. Of course I exercise. The thing that I've stumbled onto in the last year. Is that if I am feeling like I don't have enough time to exercise. I have committed to exercising with my horse, but not riding. I'm going to post a video with the hashtag Equine CrossFit.

Now, if anybody has any better suggestions for a hashtag, go ahead and and send them over to me. But I'm going to post a video with the hashtag Equine CrossFit. And it's a video from last summer when I was out doing my couch to 5K running app, leading my horse. So I have discovered that I want to improve my riding and I want to be a stronger rider. And I know that this doesn't only come from riding. And if I have to use my horses to lure myself out, to motivate myself to do some working out, even if that is hiking or walking or this walk run couch to 5K, then I'm actually taking it out there. And it is really funny when you groundtruth your horse and start doing jumping jacks and runners lunges and different things in front of them. At first they're a little bit confused about what it is and then they think it's super cool that you're the one doing all the work and they're just stand there watching you. So do you see what I'm doing there? Like, we've got this perfect combination of you're with your horse and you're doing something that is making them like, wow, this is a whole different relationship and you're getting your exercise in side note. I live near equestrian riding trails. I lived near a state park. And a lot of the trails that I like to hike on have water crossings.

Good deal. If I saddle up my horse, put the trail bags on the front of the saddle and I head down the road when I get to the water crossings on the trail. I climb on, cross the water, get back off, start jogging again. It's been super fun. I would definitely encourage you if you are interested in becoming a stronger rider. One of the YouTube videos that I watch in the middle of the workout, he will say. Remember why you're doing this? And I always say out loud so I can ride better. And then on a day like today when it's minus six degrees and I've decided I'm not riding today because it's really cold out, it's easier for me to remember to turn on that YouTube video to do a yoga video. It's easier for me to set aside the time that I would've wanted to use for riding. And I can still stay committed to that riding better by working out here, because now that I've convinced myself that these are tied together. This is helping me stay motivated at times when I would have just turned on Netflix. Have I sold you on the idea? Are you going to join me in 2019 to become a stronger rider if you are hashtag equine CrossFit. And if you're not, that's okay. I've been there. I postponed it for a long time. And when the time is right for you, I trust that you will make the decision and you will commit.

As always, guys, if you have a question or if you want to leave feedback. You can visit the Web site, you can leave a comment, or there's a place that you can click and leave a voicemail. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks for listening.

If you enjoy listening to Stacie's podcast, please visit Stacy Westfall dot com for articles, videos and tips to help you and your horse succeed.

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