Most Saturday mornings you can find me at the gym. I’m not a workout queen, but certain family members I know are health and fitness oriented. I tag along because a) family time and b) it’s good for me. My riding time usually occurs Saturday afternoon.
In the wash rack after our Saturday lesson. Knight sports his new leather halter from Mary’s.
There’s a killer class called Body Pump which is an hour-long group weight lifting session. Like Zumba but with barbells. It attracts all ages and body types. I frequently see women quite a bit older than me who are lifting much heavier weights and I feel like a pansy.
I don’t know how the instructor can hoist about 30-40 pounds on a bar over her shoulders/upper back and do 5 minutes of squats AND talk to us the whole time telling us what timing will come up next. I’m clearly not at her level (on so many levels). After squats there’s chest work followed by triceps, biceps, and my least favorite: lunges. That’s just a few of the exercises.
Anyway, I normally don’t have a riding lesson on Saturdays, but this past Saturday was an exception since Knight had his teeth floated earlier in the week on my regular lesson night. The lesson was great, but I couldn’t figure out why I had to take so many walk breaks. It wasn’t that hot outside.
After trotting walking, transitions, etc., and riding a few laps in a half seat at the canter, I was ready for a nap. And then we started to jump.
Jumping: I was really only successful with a single fence on a line. The second we rounded a corner to approach another single fence (thus making two fences in a row–ooooh!), I could not manage to keep my leg on Knight and we got discombobulated and trotted and it wasn’t a total train wreck, but not what I was hoping for.
Future post on the box’s contents to follow.
I think part of the problem too is that I’m still breaking in my new saddle (more on that in a future post) and my leathers are currently vet wrapped (to protect the saddle flap) until we can confirm with the saddle rep that the saddle fits Knight. So it feels weird to ride with a stiff, wrapped leather and a stiff flap.
All that to say I stayed on, Knight behaved, nobody got hurt so it was a success.
While I groomed Knight afterwards I made conversation with the assistant trainer and said I had just done Body Pump and gone heavier on all my weights that morning.
“You lifted weights before a jumping lesson?”
So that’s why I couldn’t keep my leg on Knight so he’d stay forward and put together!
Maybe I’m not as bad of a rider as I feared after all! I had total muscle fatigue. At least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself.
No more Body Pump and riding lessons on the same day for me. I learned my lesson.
Your Turn: Do you ever exercise rigorously prior to riding? How does that affect your riding?
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I'm Susan and this is my horse Knight. We have been a blogging team since 2015 and we're glad you're here. Tally ho!
Ouch! I could see that being difficult. I’m mostly just a runner, so sometimes my legs get pretty lazy… 🙂
Oh lord weights are not my friend! Last week I helped a buddy move the day before a lesson, and it felt like I was snoozing through the courses. Not a big fan of the gym or exercise of the non-horse variety 😛
oh man… my sister is a body pump instructor and… yea i leave all that work to her, thankyouverymuch lol. good on you for still riding after! very curious to know how the saddle saga is progressing – hopefully you’ll have good news for us soon!
Thanks for asking about my saddle and so is your sister completely buff? Has she ever made you go to one of her classes? I think the news on the County is good. Was a bit of a fiasco with that other brand, but things got taken care of in a satisfactory way. You might notice some of my earlier blog posts are missing. That was at the insistence of the earlier company. I know.
what!?! they made you take down blog posts bc you had a negative experience?? um… that’s seriously shady. so sorry you had to go through all that and fingers crossed the county works out!
Did you have that feeling (that I always seem to get after lifting) that your muscles and bones are really just jello and there’s no actual way they can lift anything? I hate that feeling when I’m trying to do something, but it’s kinda nice if you have nothing else to do!
Sometimes I will run a mile before or after I ride. I want to work it up to two but I get sooooo booooorrreeeeedd. Need the cardio though. And any day I go into the office or school before riding I’ve biked, but that’s barely anything, 12 minutes each way at an easy pace. I’m hardly a road racer!
Haha, oops. Just think how strong you are getting!
I hope so!
I don’t need to take a body pump class to be tired. Out hunting today my legs gave out about 3/4 of the way through! That final gallop was, well, interesting. Luckily Zelda has more endurance than I do. The winter left me in such pathetically bad shape!
How interesting! I didn’t know there was spring hunting to be found. That’s the sad part/irony about these horses: by the time I can ride enough to tire mine out, I’m completely wiped out/ready to nap. I will never have the endurance of a well-bred athlete.
haha oh no! So how sore were you the day afterward? Although I bet it was the best kind of soreness, coming from both exercise AND riding!
So this probably isn’t always a good approach, because it means I don’t workout as much as I should, but I vehemently avoid working out before I ride. I couldn’t possibly imagine being effective!