Want to boost your horse’s athleticism, fitness, and performance? It may be time to focus more on exercise for your horse.
Certain exercises can help your horse hone their agility, endurance, strength, and overall wellness. While the list of exercises is long, this article is focused on a few in each of these categories.
Exercises — along with proper nutrition and daily equine supplements — may help boost the performance of your horse. Nutritional foods can be beneficial for work horses, competition horses, and other horses.
If you haven’t already, here’s a closer look at a few exercises you can add to your horse’s daily routine.
A More Supple, Agile Horse
You can help increase the agility of your horse by supplying and administering regular exercise routines. These exercises can include gait exercises.
Gait, in and of itself, is crucial. A horse’s gait can maximize the energy they expend as they move.
An incorrect gait, for instance, can waste a lot of energy and create joint and muscle issues. You might focus on limb stretching to correct unbalanced gait.
It’s all about contracting and releasing muscles. You can use ground (or slightly elevated) trot poles for this kind of routine.
Supplying exercises is simple. They’re beneficial when done regularly and can help maximize your horse’s well-being if done correctly.
Boosting Endurance
Supplying agility-based exercises can also play a role in boosting the endurance of a horse. One way to focus more on endurance training (whether for endurance horses or otherwise), is to add more long-duration training in your horse’s daily activities.
Farm work horses are often known for their level of endurance, and this trait might be attributed to the longer hours these horses spend on the move. Similar logic can be applied here.
To help the agility of your endurance horse, increase the intensity and duration — from low to mid-intensity and duration — for your horse’s trotting exercises.
After longer-duration exercise, recovery is essential. During recovery, continue supplying exercises — for example exercises with trotting poles — and feed-based recovery support horse supplements as part of their new agility wellness program.
Improving Strength
There are many ways you can hone the strength of your horse. And plyometrics plays a key role.
Plyometrics are exercises that can incorporate different kinds of leg work and jumping. In short, plyometrics requires the muscles to activate at high levels of force and in short bursts.
These exercises are often also used in endurance training. What is an example of plyometrics-based endurance training?
One common exercise is uphill stepping — but that’s not the only type of exercise that’s used. The type of exercise you use just depends on what you — and your horse — are comfortable with.
A Focus on Wellness
Exercise is essential for the overall well-being of your horse. If you want to optimize performance for any reason, combining different exercises is key.
Work with a horse trainer to identify exercises to determine which exercises to add to your horse’s routine. At the end of the day, which exercises you (and your horse) focus on depends on what goals you have for your horse.
If you're in the competition space, you might decide to develop a routine that focuses on agility and endurance. With a combination of daily exercise, a nourishing diet, horse supplements, and plenty of attention, you’ll have a recipe for a happy, healthy horse, a horse that’s ready for whatever you have in mind.
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