Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Can Horse riding help you to burn calories/lose weight and help you to tone your muscels up?


Answer:
To any one that says it is not a good exercise for toning and aerobic, just have them try it in a intense manner. It can be very demanding. If you just walk about sitting like a sack of potatoes, then of course it is not much of an exercise, but if you apply discipline and really ride the horse properly and with intensity, if can be very demanding. More so on the rider than on the horse, specially if the rider is a beginner. If you need more intensity, try it bare back and at a good pace.
But, since there are split opinions on this issue, just try it and come back and tell us.
No of course not.It's the horse that's doing all the work carrying your weight!!You might as well just go and sit in a car or on a bus
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stop kidding yourself.every one would choose an easy way out like that if it worked.i do weight training and running.their are no short cuts to good stature.and i enjoy it.it keeps the dog fit too.
Absolutely! That is if you do a rigorous ride where you're trotting/cantoring/galloping. An hour or so of that, and you can certainly feel the muscular and aerobic benefit.
Ha Ha. Are you thinking of putting the horse on your back and pretend you are doing weight training? To burn of calories and lose weight you have to do the exercise yourself. The horse can't do it for you. What a lazy way out.
Yes horse riding does burn cal and it also tones yr muscles as when you are riding a horse when trotting you use yr leg muscles when turning you are using you lat muscles when coming to a stop you use yr should muscles
Yes. just not fast.Of course it does, if your trotting, your toning all your leg muscles, it encourages a straight back instead of a banana back, you burn calories, (it's excercies remember), and to some degree it can tone your muscles.Obviouslt the horse will loose more wieght, but it's still a form of excercies, and it's fun.
unfortunately while riding horses is a great sport and hobby for some it is not a very physically demanding activity. and what I mean by that is that the muscles are not being exercises over the entire range of motion. with out that they are truly not being exercised so there would be no greater increase in the caloric expenditure.my family owned several horses when I was growing up in rural Pennsylvania.
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It will definately help you burn calories and I should imagine it is a great to tone up.have fun and good luck.
YES!! :) I have riden horses for 12 years and I still get a workout every time I ride! If I even go a few days without riding, I lose muscle and endurance and it's harder. From the moment you mount the horse, you are constantly using your leg muscles to guide the horse's body and keep yourself and the horse balanced on your track. You also use your glutes (butt), shoulders, arms, abs, it's pretty much a total body workout, especially when jumping a course!People that don't say it's physically demanding have obviously never riden a 1200 pound animal over 3 foot jumps in an arena. Idiots!

6 comments:

  1. gjb, I totally agree. I ride endurance which means the least distance I do is 15 km and the maximum is 120 km (divided into loops and refreshment breaks for both rider and horse). We usually use the Garmin watch to detect the calories burnt, pulse, distance & speed. I can easily burn 450 calories in a 15 km ride. But this also depends on your metabolism rate and how much calories you usually shed in a workout. Yes the horse does 80% of the work, but that 20% alone is better than any aerobic session I've been to... after a long ride, your neck, shoulders, arms (biceps especially), upper back, lower back, glutes, thighs become sore just as you would feel after a hardcore workout.. this is because you're doing a variety of movements, such as: up and down (for thighs n legs), pulling the horse (for arms n biceps), sliding back and forth on the saddle like a pendulum (bum & waist toning). Finally, I must add that riding gives you a great posture, I walk tall now and I'm fit as ever. Gym enthusiasts, please try riding a horse for 5 km, and tell us how it feels afterwards.

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  2. As an experianed competitive hunter jumper, I would like to ask everyone of the people who replied negatively to this post to please take six months worth of hunter/jumper lessons at a well run barn. Or, if you have your own horse you don't mind riding bareback, step outside and do the usual 20 minute stirrupless walk to sitting trot to posting warmup. Then, once a week, do an entire hour of this routine, adding seven stride intervals of cantering. THEN tell someone riding isn't a workout.
    Just the simple abdominal muscles needed to keep you moving comfortably with the horses' walk, to act as shock absorbers, if you will, are being exercised. Staying in a saddle takes balance, and balance takes muscle.
    I'm thin and in shape, in no small part to the ridiculous workout I get riding horses, let alone cleaning their stalls, and doing other miscellaneous tasks.

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  4. If you are riding the horse and not just sitting...it is very intense. It strengthens your legs and arms. Definitely shapes that booty. When I don't ride I notice a difference in my leg strength and yes even a few pounds come back. The horse it not doing all the work.

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  5. Just posting trot or whatever wont get you anywhere, true. But all the same, just running 6 mph for 3 minutes won't get you anywhere either. Dropping stirrups, bareback, intense flat lessons, is all very hard work. I mean, no stirrups and no reins is a common and demanding exersise. I mean, try sitting on a moving animal, lifting you're entire upper body weight with you're knees, and trying to steer with no hands, just body weight. But still keeping you're butt off that saddle!

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