Ride Your Way To Fitness

It’s the horse that does all the working out when you go horseback riding one may well say. What’s the great big work out in sitting on running animal, one may well contend.

But in fact horse riding is an excellent workout; notice how horse and rider come away lathered in sweat after a good gallop!

Riding is actually an aerobic exercise for the rider, which helps to enhance respiratory and cardiovascular fitness. Different muscles are exercised during horse riding:

  • When the horse is walking, the leg muscles are contracting and relaxing to move in tandem with the horse.
  • During a trot, the rider has to make the effort to rise and fall in time with the horse’s gait.
  • When cantering, you are not using your legs to rise and fall in the saddle but you are using a number of muscle groups to grip the horse and stay on the horse.
  • You can burn between 3 and nine calories per minute of horse riding.
  • Whether it is a trot or a gallop that the horse is at, the rider constantly has to engage his muscles to balance on top of the horse; this improves core fitness and posture.