As a matter of logic I should be spending more time on the ground and in the hospital. I am 53 years old. By any measure I am very much over weight. I spend more hours in the saddle than anyone that I know. I ride over rough terrain. I was never a great athlete.
I started riding when I was very young. I got my first pony when I was two and he was one. When I was three I rode him in the local Christmas parade and by that age I cantered him as hard as he could run. That was not all that much of a big deal back then. In the early 1960's sissified parenting had not gripped rural America and kids were expected to have a bit of a hard shell. We would need it if were drafted had to go fight the Viet Cong.
That experience with early riding helps keep me in the saddle. However, at age fifty one can not go back and get that expereince if one does not have it. But there is something that one can do that I think is more important.
Often in tense situations with the horse the final factor that kept me in the saddle was not balance or even riding skill. It was simply strength. The power in one's core muscles is the thing that can keep a rider glued to the saddle. Aerobics training is wonderful and has its place. But one needs to build power and strength.
Can your legs hold you on? Are your oblique and abdominal muscles strong enough to keep you upright? Are your arms strong enough to bring a terrified horse to a stop? If so, you are much less likely to shatter your aging bones with a hard fall.
The science of power and strength (they are not the same thing) is a fast growing field with new, significant studies contantly surfacing. Get with your doctor and develop a solid plan to increase both strength and power.
Years ago I wrote that time in the weight room reduces time spent in the hospital room.
With every day a rider ages the more true that becomes.
1 comment:
Fitness in this country is such a huge issue that it is not even funny.
Now, watch me put natural horse care and fitness in the same boat.
Start a horse young, feed them on a simplr diet that they are evolved to digest efficiently, hay, grass, water, and mineral. (Regular readers know the drill.) Get the horse regular exercise..go watch Katalina and Krysta in action, both of them are in pretty good shape.
Now take the above paragraph and change "horse" to "Young Person," and the feed accordingly.
Keep doing that all their lives. they will live longer and go farther.
Exercise need not be arduous, when you go to the farmers market to by the weeks organic food (Or as grandma called it "Food.") park five blocks away and carry the groceries back. apply this sort of thinking to everyday life..stop hunting for the closest parking place.
Point is, staying active through out life makes the necessity to stay strong later in life easier.
One need not be a gym rat. Besides, horse lot rat is more relaxing, more fun, and smells better. -Lloyd
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