Strength Training

Onto the next S: Strengthening.

Fun Fact: Riding your horse through the same exercises day in and day out does NOT improve their fitness levels.

While an out of shape horse will benefit from consistent exercise and will build a baseline of fitness for this workload, they will not continue to develop muscle in this type of program. Days of “I get on, I leg-yield, I canter for 10 minutes on the bit, etc”will not build new topline; you are only repeatedly exercising the same chain muscles vs strengthening the body.

A horse must have training days where his body is under a minimum of 75% physical exertion in order to continue to nourish, and strengthen his muscle fibers. That isn’t to say we have days where we school all gaits to complete exhaustion, but several days a week of concentrated strength training are crucial to developing the muscular systems of our equine athletes.

Earlier we discussed aerobic and anaerobic training; I did so with the intent of highlighting how strength training and anaerobic training are one in the same, so you have the tools to understand and plan accordingly for muscular fatigue and recovery time. Be mindful that cardiovascular health can be quickly improved through aerobic training, but skeletal and muscular systems developed through anaerobic training take much longer to improve.

To recap: We are relying on exhausting Type 2 or fast-twitch muscle fibers through anaerobic training. Fast-twitch muscle uses glycolysis to produce energy, but it skips harvesting energy from pyruvate, a process that takes oxygen. Instead, pyruvate gets converted into a waste product, lactic acid, and released into the bloodstream. Remember lactic acid is our friend, but we have to train the body to use it efficiently… this release of lactic acid can create a tingling or burning sensation in the muscles, and might require assistance to flush from the body.

One of the most successful ways to build strength- specifically pushing power- is through transitions. While trot/canter/trot and walk/canter/walk transitions are fabulous for engaging the hind leg, my favorite exercise would be lengthening transitions...similar to sprint lines that some of us remember from playing on sports teams or from our personal trainers with a wicked sense of humor.
Working or collected canter/medium canter/working or collected canter is an excellent way to create strength behind, encourage pushing power, build impulsion, and exercise sitting power through well-timed half-halts. Same goes for the trot!

Exercise:
Go and Whoa! or Sprint Lines

To begin: let’s start this one in canter, tracking around the perimeter of the arena.

To begin, find a balanced canter- depending on your horse’s strength and ability, either a small working canter or collected canter. This canter should be energized, but you should not have the feeling of trying to pull the horse back into this shorter canter.

As you ride through your short side and corner onto the long side- giddy up! The goal is to have one forward aid that sends the horse into the larger medium canter, not many many small kicks down the long side.

As you pass the middle of the long side (around E or B), begin to half halt and reorganize the horse for your smaller canter. Make sure you take this upcoming corner in your organized canter.

**hint: if needed, take a 15m circle if your horse isn’t well tuned to the half halt. I would rather the horse take a circle or two in order to reorganize, than run through your oncoming corner and through the short side**

Repeat.

A little anticipation isn’t a bad thing for this exercise- if your horse is excited about extending into medium canter, let that excitement help your transition!

You should begin to realize several things as you repeat this exercise:

Your horse will become eager and more responsive to your forward, driving aid.
Your half-halts should slowly become more effective. Where at first you might have to begin preparing for smaller canter halfway down the long side, now you can prepare a stride or two away from where you want that transition back to smaller canter to occur.
STRAIGHTNESS! How is your horse traveling as you lengthen and compress the gait? Does he become crooked in the half halt? Perfect practice builds strength- make sure your horse is straight throughout the entire exercise!
Uphill vs Downhill. In the transition to medium canter, I want the horse to feel like a plane taking off down a runway, is he plowing downhill instead? Ask for less, his balance is more important than a large expressive gait.

Mastered it? Challenge yourself!

- Medium canter out of the corner/ collect at B or E/ medium canter/ collect for corner.

- Now try riding the exercise 3m away from the wall…can you keep the straightness now?

Repeat this both ways, and feel free to try this one in trot as well!

While discussing suppling exercises I shared some exercises to supple our horses out of their natural crookedness and asymmetries.

Complete correction of natural crookedness cannot be achieved solely on suppling exercises. Unfortunately, he will also require some strengthening exercises to build uniform strength throughout the body.
Last time, we spiraled in and out of the circle and we took long lines of leg-yield with varying amounts of bend in order to stretch out the stiff side of the horse.

However, your horse still has weakness in his body- how do you correct that?

A picture I always paint for my students is this: let’s say I go to the gym, and I sit down for a leg press. With both of my legs on the plate, let’s say I can easily move 100lbs. Now, one would think that if I can easily move 100lbs, I could just as easily split that weight in half (50lbs) to be able to move it with only one leg on the plate.

Most people are dominant on the right side of their body, like myself, so my right leg is going to have no issue moving that 50lbs by itself. My left leg, however, is really struggling.

See, what I didn’t realize is while doing my leg press with both legs, my dominant leg was overcompensating for my weaker leg. Maybe my right leg was pushing 60lbs compared to my left leg’s 40. If I were to repeat that same exercise over and over, I’m not really strengthening that left leg!

Same with the horses. When I used the previous example of the crooked horse, his weaker hind leg liked to fall towards the inside of his body, either on a circle or straight-line, in avoidance of carrying as much weight as the other, stronger hind leg. Similar to my weak leg, this leg isn’t carrying even weight in comparison to the dominant leg.

The best correction for this is shoulder-in work.

The shoulder in takes the shoulders toward the inside of your line, and the inside hind leg is forced to step up underneath the horse’s center of mass…therefore having concentrated efforts of baring more weight than the outside hind leg- just like my one-legged leg press!

Exercise:
Shoulder-In Transitions

Similar to the previous exercise, we are riding this along the perimeter of the arena.

I like to collect the trot through the short side, similar to the first exercise, and along the long side, I develop a swinging working trot in shoulder-in.

Let’s review the aids for this:

For a horse who is new to this movement, only strive for shoulder-fore (simply put, shoulder-in with less angle). Ride your corner and immediately a 10m circle. On the 10m circle, ensure your horse is standing up and around your inside leg and your outside rein turns the shoulders along this small line.

As you return to the track, I want your outside rein to signal to the horse that you are going to turn another circle, however your inside leg is going to drive his body straight down the long side, and isn’t going to allow him to follow through and fully turn that second 10m circle. This means, the shoulders are still positioned for another 10m volte (shoulder-in, or even less angle in the shoulder-fore), but the rest of his body is traveling straight down the long side.

Straighten for your corner. Collect the trot for the short side, repeat.

Things to be mindful of:

This inside hind leg is going to fatigue quickly, especially if you are keeping him active in the trot. Pay attention to how he is moving, his breathing pattern, or if he starts to stumble or drag his hind legs. You want to make sure you have enough horse to give good efforts in this exercise both directions. I will generally begin this exercise with only a few laps around the ring before a well deserved break.
Shoulder-in is shoulder in, not haunches out. The shoulders MUSTbe brought into the ring from the outside rein, we are not allowing the haunches to swing outward to create this angle.
Along the same lines as above, this is an exercise almost exclusively ridden from inside leg to outside rein. If you pull the neck to the inside of the arena in attempt to create this angle, that is neck-in*, not shoulder-in. By pulling too much bend into the neck, you are pushing the shoulders out by default. Try not to use the inside rein at all for this exercise, I promise, you don’t need it. Remember, we are always striving for the neck to be held straight out of the horse’s chest- not to be carried too far to the inside, you will want slight inside flexion for this exercise, but minimal neck-bend.
Once you have wrapped your mind around the proper angle of your horse, it is time to think of his hind legs. Imagine the path that these hind legs are on as you track straight down the wall, this path should never change, even if the angle does. You want the two hind legs to move forward (directionally) not stepping in or out when the shoulders are moved.

Mastered it?

- Ride the exercise 3m off the wall. Now more than ever be mindful that the haunches are not stepping out as the shoulders come in. The hind legs should never come off their original line for the entire exercise!

-Try several transitions in and out of shoulder-in on the long side. Again, the hind legs never come off of their original line of travel- so no haunches swinging out!

-Take it to a curved line! Shoulder in on a 20m circle, again, no stepping out with the hind legs

*neck-in isn't a thing, don't make it a thing

Cavaletti

So now we’ve discussed two really excellent exercises for building strength: sprint lines and shoulder-in transitions. There’s one more strength building exercise I always incorporate 1-2x a week that makes a huge difference and keeps the horses excited in the work: cavaletti.

Most horses are quick to pick up how to effectively move over ground poles, but some horses take longer to adapt.

No matter the efficiency of the horse over poles- I still take my time to slowly incorporate them. I will start with a single pole flat on the ground, and will allow the horse to walk over the pole with a loose rein each direction, several times, before I attempt to trot or canter.

Building from there, the next increment will be going from one pole, to three ground-level poles on a straight line. I have found that two poles on the ground can encourage our wanna-be jumpers to take flight over them, so three encourages the rhythm and eventually relaxation.

A lot can be accomplished with only three poles on a straight line, I’m never too ambitious to immediately add more and more, even though it's tempting!

My next progression would be to slowly incorporate more poles on a straight line, and to add poles on curved lines, such as: fans in corners, poles on small circles, and poles on loops. You can also raise the poles several inches off the ground as your horse advances through this new level of work.

The possibilities are truly endless with cavaletti work, just remain mindful of the additional fitness levels poles require and plan your ride accordingly.

Spacing:

I generally place my poles 4-4.5ft apart for trot, and 10-11ft apart for canter.
While really really big or really really small horses may need an adjustment to this spacing- I have found this distance is pretty universal.

I generally use 10-12ft poles, and I like mine to be made of wood. PVC poles are commonly used for jumping, however for cavaletti poles that are more likely to be stepped on, PVS is brittle and can shatter if stepped on.
Landscape timbers are a super option to traditional round jump poles!

Exercise:
Cavaletti

There are tons of exercises utilizing cavaletti that can work well to shape or supplement your almost all of your rides, but for the sake of today, here’s a couple of my go-to exercises that focus on strength training:

Circle of Doom:

Yeah, we’ve all heard about this one: the pesky 20m circle with a pole placed at each quarter. Trotting or cantering the circle is beneficial on it’s own, but here is one variation I like to change it up:

Begin by trotting the circle, the horse should be relaxed in the body, and the tempo should not change as you move over the poles. Steady rhythm and tempo is key for starting on the circle, and you are aiming to move over the center of each pole. The rider is looking up and toward the next pole, not shifting their weight down to stare at the pole they are crossing over.

Now, I am going to drive the horse into an up-tempo working trot, as I step over the pole I am going to half halt and take a 10m circle inside my 20m circle, moving into collected trot- and for those advanced horses, I’m transitioning into passage. I will keep the horse very upright around the 10m circle, and as I cross over my pole for a second time, I transition back into that up-tempo working trot. Similar to the sprint lines exercise, this should be a sharp and clear transition. Now we are crossing the next pole on the 20m circle, immediately on the other side, I am transitioning back to collected trot/passage and taking another 10m circle. Crossing the same pole again, I transition back to that big working trot and move along my 20m circle.

Here the horse has to have adjustability in the tempo; this helps break the habit of rushing/running at the poles, and encourages great engagement to the core and hind legs, to not only lift the limbs over on object, but also to make clear half halts.

Feeling frisky? On your 10m circle over the centerline (where there's room) ride the volte to the outside, or in the opposite direction of the 20m circle. Continue back on your original path as you finish this volte.

Remember: the 10m circle should not encourage your horse to lean like a motorcycle, if this is the case: make that 10m circle a little larger, and focus on your supporting inside leg aid and confirm you are not pulling the horse around this smaller line with your inside rein.

Canter Oval:

I want to stress something: as soon as your horse can trot a pole without having heart failure, canter one!
Lots of people believe that they aren’t advanced enough for canter poles or maybe canter poles are a little bit scary- don’t let this hold you back. Start with one until you and your horse are confident, then set 3-5 poles along each long side, giving yourself plenty of room to line up to the poles, try cantering over the center of each, rounding off the ends to make a large oval. Start by cantering in a half-seat without disrupting your horse’s natural distancing. Eyes up, and remain soft in the elbows.

Now sit in the tack, keeping the tempo the same, looking up, and ride the balanced canter you want over the poles.

Things to be aware of:

Don’t look down over the pole
Keep your horse straight over the poles, aiming for the center of each, and making sure the horse isn’t becoming crooked on his way over the poles. Perfect practice builds correct topline.
Don’t let him rush the poles. This is fun and exciting, I know! However, use your half-halts and seat aids to keep the tempo exactly the same all the way around your oval.

Line with Breaks:

While walking out your distances, set up several poles for trot or canter- then leave a gap, walk the space out, and set up several more poles.

Can you keep the rhythm of the gait the same even with a big space in the middle?
Can you make transitions within the break in poles? Try a shoulder-in transition during the break, with time to straighten before your next poles.

Mastered it?

Go find some risers for your poles! I generally lift one end, leaving the other on the ground (like half of a cross rail), and will alternate which ends I raise.
Be mindful- you want the pole to clear the riser if your horse trips or stumbles, so he doesn't become hung up in the poles. Everything should be easy to knock free in case of emergency.

Never underestimate three poles on a straight line

Framing Your Schedule:

Ok, how does all of this fit in?

I incorporate Strength Training at least two days per week as my core, and tend to follow them with an active rest day, to let the muscles recover. Incorporating Strength Training followed by Suppling rides the following day, would also be appropriate.
I do not encourage a hard Strength Training day to be the first day of the week, or to occur the day before something important (a riding lesson, show, etc) as your horse might still feel fatigued.

These challenging days are generally shorter than my other rides- as again, I am riding to at least 75% of my horse's physical ability. No, that does not mean I ride him until he cannot move anymore; I exercise until I know he cannot complete an exercise to the best of his ability much longer and is about to hit his limits within the next rep or so. I do not attempt to push past his limits, and I work evenly on both sides.
On these days I will generally focus on one gait, trot or canter, so I have fresh muscle groups later in the week.
I will also add Strength Training as a supplement one other day during the week- where I usually incorporate some poles to compliment my core S.

The day I generally focus on the least would be the Schooling day- and this depends heavily on horse and rider. If you have a green horse, a horse show quickly approaching, clinic-goals, or a lovely trainer who you want to spend multiple days with- go for it!

If you want to be heavy on riding lessons, I encourage you to discuss with your trainer supplementing your Schooling rides to keep your horse well rounded- I’m sure they have fabulous ideas, or they could be supplementing these educational days without you realizing!

That's it for today!
Next time we are covering the Warm Up and Cool Down: why they're so freaking important and how to use them to the best of your ability.

Then we might possibly have a special, bonus class...but shhh I'm not telling yet.