Winter Exercise Series: Keeping your horse in work over the winter

Keeping your horse in full exercise, or indeed any type of exercise/rehab can be super challenging over the winter months! So much is against us and our horses! 

But if you do either want to or need to keep your horse in exercise over the winter, it takes some commitment, motivation and planning, especially on the worst weather days! 

You might not be able to do everything you do the rest of the year when the weather is better BUT there is still a lot you can do with your horse, and so many beneficial types of exercise you can put into their routine, to maintain flexibility, core strength and good posture. And if you can continue over the winter, with some core and flexibility work at least, you are working on their foundational issues, and therefore working on making improvements, so that when Spring arrives, you have already done some massively important work on your horses body, so all you need to do is just increase their cardio work! 

Some Tips..: 

🐴 Something is better than nothing 
It’s difficult over the winter months in the UK, but even if you can just do small amounts of exercise with your horse, you are helping to maintain his muscular and core strength, and help all of his bodily systems (digestion etc), and getting a head start for spring!

🐴 Walking
Don’t under estimate the power of walking!! It’s low impact, great for conditioning, great for bringing your horse back into work, and you can work on your horses posture while you’re doing it! I use hand walking a lot and sometimes add a training aid, walk over poles or walk around the yard to break it up!

🐴 Core work
The addition of core activation and exercises and core strengthening work to your horses routine is transformational! Exercises can be done in the stable if you’re snowed in, and you can do them daily as they only take 5 minutes! These are one of the best sets of exercises that I can recommend you add to your horses routine, and you can literally do them in between rug changes or before you turnout etc..so adaptable! 

🐴 In hand work
Such useful work to be doing with your horse anyway, but it's a great way to work over the winter...you can do short sessions, pop out with your cavesson on, so it's all quick and easy, but really make huge improvements in your horses body and movement by doing in hand work for 15-20 minutes! 

So winter doesn't have to stop you and your horse!! There are so many benefits for them, to keep them moving during the cold, dark winter months, it might just be a change of mindset or some new ideas!! 

WINTER TRAINING AND MOTIVATION? If you would like some new ideas and ways to work with your horse, including all of the above, my online Strength & Straightness programme is available, you will get access to the full training programme, which is sympathetic to the horse yet super effective in terms of results! And you get access to my friendly members group, where I will support you every step of the way in implementing the training, so you can get the very best out of your horse, by transforming their core strength, posture and movement! INTERESTED? Click here for more details...: Strength & Straightness programme