warming up your horse

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Warming up Your Horse before Exercise and Competition
- avoiding injury and muscle strain -

by Stefanie Reinhold

Sufficient warm up before exercise , training and competition is essential, in order to avoid muscle injury in the horse and strains on muscles, ligaments and tendons. Cold muscles are not as flexible and elastic as warm muscles and prone to injury and muscle damage. Keep your horse healthy and avoid muscle strain and resulting performance issues by routinely practicing a sufficient warmup routine.

Warming up your horse before exercising:
Give your horse sufficient time to warm up.

Just like your own muscles after a full day sitting in your cubicle or driving your truck, for example, the horses
muscles are unflexible and his movement will be stiff after a day of lack of activity in his paddock or stall
This even more so in the winter, where movement is even more restricted and the horses cannot kick up their heels on pasture. Many horses spend most of their day in a stall year round, which limits the horses' movements even more.

Failure to perform a thorough enough warmup can result in muscle spasms, discomfort, stiff gaits and in extreme cases torn muscles or tendons. Here a few basic tips on how to avoid this type of injury.

For a simple basic warm up, follow these simple rules (for more advanced routines see resources below):

• Warm up your horse on a long rein in the walk
• Alternate the pace of the walk
• Start with large circles and serpentines (20 meters, through the width of the arena)
• After 10 minutes, make circles and serpentines smaller
• Warm up a total of 15 minutes for best results
• After your initial warm-up in the walk, you are ready for a few rounds of relaxed canter on a loose rein, then start exercising

What you are looking for: During the last 5 minutes your horse should bend in the circles, he should have a willing and
relaxed walk and stretch his head down
What to avoid: Don’t pick up the reigns at this time, but rather keep him on a long reign. Don’t let him ‚go to sleep‘.
You can ask for a lively walk and alternate the pace. Avoid boredom, keep it interesting, for yourself and the horse.
Special considerations: The older horse (20 years and older) can benefit from an even longer warmup.
Be kind to your senior and make the warmup 20 to 25 minutes. (yes, it can seem dull, but it PAYS...)

Warming up your horse before a competition

Before a competition your horse might be a bit nervous and insecure. He is in a new or strange environment with lots of strange people and horses around.Give him as much routine as possible in this setting. Develop a warm up routine at home, that you will apply at a show or competition location as well to give him as much familiarity as possible.

What you are looking for: The same indications of relaxation and flexibility as above.
What do avoid: Do not run your horse in circles on a lunge, just to ‚warm him up‘. Do what you usually do at home for a
warm up. Don’t repeat the dressage test or other competition exercises over and over in order to prepare.
Simply warm up and be done with it. Know your test, reassure your horse and relax!

Make the warmup a routine part of your exercise program. Talk to your trainer or purchase literature or video tapes if unsure how to perform the warmup and what signs to look for to determine that your horse is sufficiently warmed up.

Resources:

Here some interesting sample warm up routines from Debbie Mcdonald warmup routines
and Betsy Steinerwarmup routines

If you would like to share your experience of view on this topic, please email me. Thank you.

Warming up Your Horse before Exercise and Competition - avoiding injury and muscle strain -