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Physical Fitness and Horse Riding
03/27/2009
We love horse riding for a variety of reasons—the open air, the connection with the animal, and of course the exercise.
We love horse riding for a variety of reasons—the open air, the connection with the animal, and of course the exercise. Horse riding is a deceptively hard workout, as are the smaller jobs that come with taking care of a horse. In fact, if most people were aware of the physical benefits that come with horse riding and equine care, we’d be spending every spare moment at the ranch.
When it comes to horse riding, the first obvious benefit is weight loss. Assuming you weigh around 150 pounds, taking a horse out for a walk can burn 180 calories an hour. But take your horse riding up a notch, and a trot burns 460 calories an hour! If you can maintain a gallop, you’re looking at even more: 560 calories an hour. No, doubtless no horse should be expected to keep those gaits for an entire hour, but over the course of several hours of horse riding, those calories add up. The harder you work your horse, the harder you work.
Horse riding also has other physical benefits outside of fat burning. You know how anaerobic exercise like yoga improves your muscle definition by making you hold poses? It’s the same with horse riding. Horse riding helps you develop all of the muscles in your legs, stomach, back, and shoulders as you maintain your posture. That’s why it’s so hard to walk after a long horse riding session—your muscles have been in use for hours.
In addition to anaerobic muscle strengthening, horse riding also stimulates yoga by improving balance, coordination, and flexibility. To stay atop a horse requires amazing balance. The position of sitting a top a horse is also great for stretching once of the hardest muscles to reach: the inner thigh. No other exercise can do as much to tone and flex the inner thigh as well as horse riding. That’s one of the reasons why new riders are often so sore, even if their legs are in good shape.
Horse riding is especially beneficial if for those who have certain injuries. For example, because there is no pounding and repetitive joint stress, as there is with jogging, horse riding is ideal for those with knee problems. Horse riding is also a gentle enough workout that it can be performed by older individuals as well as younger.
Physical horse riding isn’t the only thing that’s good for your body: taking care of a horse is a good work out as well. Shoveling and horse grooming both burn 420 calories an hour—that’s 50 calories more per hour than fencing. Cleaning a barn out is a whopping 560 calories an hour, which is almost 80 more than a brisk hike. In addition, all of these chores are weight-bearing. Unlike horse riding, where your muscles are burning by holding the same position, you’re doing repetitive weigh lifting—hauling hay, shoveling stalls, brushing a coat. These activities can help build up lean muscle in ways that horse riding can’t.
