Last week I wrote about the dangers of infrequent exercise. That was a follow-up to my post about being a weekend warrior. Some people had offered comments along the lines of “just get up earlier.” (Been there, done that, when I was younger and had less responsibility. Now I need to be able to think in the evenings!) Others suggested that I just not ride for the month; I’ve been teaching a summer session at a community college. This means five mornings a week. Usually being a professor means you have a schedule that is flexible enough to accommodate more riding. Not in 4-week sessions! But since it’s only four weeks, I could have simply given Jazz a break. But… it’s better to ride rarely than not at all.
But you can’t build condition that way!
Once horses are fit, they can be maintained with a few rides a week. In fact, after a challenging day (an endurance event or a training ride that increased distance or speed), horses need time off to recover. For most of fall and winter, Fantazia needed so little work that I frequently wished I had another horse. However, building up to that state requires more than two rides a week, especially if they happen two days in a row.
I like to do an easy day, a moderate day, a building day (add distance or cut distance and add speed), and a rest day. I do two of the same building day series in a row. Unfortunately we have seven-day weeks. If we had 8-day weeks, I could go through one building step per week. As it is, I either cut a moderate day or go on an 8-day schedule, depending on the rest of life. I’ve been doing this since I trained racehorses in the ’90s. I would recommend everyone buy and read Tom Ivers’ classic The Fit Racehorse II, if it weren’t out of print and horrendously expensive!
Anyway, it’s true you cannot build condition as effectively if you can only ride two days a week, but it’s still better to ride rarely than not at all.
You can make meaningful progress even if you only ride once or twice a week
But this doesn’t mean you can’t build at all. Hard and soft tissue gets stronger by being broken down and then rebuilding. This will happen even if you ride rarely. You won’t be able to make much muscle and cardiovascular improvement with limited exercise, but you can build bone. Even more importantly, you can build brain. Yes, it takes longer for a fresh horse to settle down and focus on a new lesson. But what it does learn will stick. Horses have excellent memories, and, just like humans, they benefit from sleeping on a lesson. Maybe you won’t be able to teach as much with infrequent riding, but this doesn’t mean the horse cannot learn with few sessions a week.
(Read about the essentail role sleep plays in learning, particularly memory consolidation.)
Importantly for endurance riders and horses, a lot of learning happens on the trail. Even if you ride out once a week, your horse can learn about technical terrain. Traversing a stream or walking into a pond is a lesson that doesn’t disappear just because you don’t repeat it for days or weeks. Wet saddle blankets are wet saddle blankets, and they add up just as nicely (if more slowly) over time. Jazz is most definitely learning on his weekend warrior schedule.
Calories burned are calories burned
One of the downsides of ifrequent exercise is that it makes it more difficult to manage a metabolic horse or any that is inclined to fat. However, riding once or twice a week is far preferable to never riding. Just like riding for half an hour only is better than not riding at all.
This is true for humans too. Sometimes it can be hard to make yourself exercise when you know you don’t have a lot of time. As a runner, it was very difficult for me to get into my head that running abour the block was better than not running at all. I thought that if I didn’t have time for 3-5 miles at least, it wasn’t worth changing my clothes. But that’s simply not true. Maybe you won’t improve your speed or increase distance with a few short runs a week, but you will maintain, and you will burn more calories on the days you exercise, no matter how briefly.
It’s still riding, and it’s still fun
I’d rather ride according to my horse’s training and conditioning needs, but real life happens. Sometimes even riding on weekends can be a challenge. But it’s better to ride rarely than not at all. It’s still riding. It’s a mental break for me, and attention for my horse. It’s still fun.
And if it’s not fun, you need to make some changes…
When you’re only riding rarely, it’s more important to make every ride a good experience for yourself and your horse. This may mean relaxing some of your usual rules about accomplishing “meaningful” progress. Just have fun. Make sure your horse and you look forward to the next weekend.
Below: Jazz has learned a lot about the trail during this last month when I’ve only been able to ride on weekends. And I’ve been able to clear my head and enjoy the rides. It’sd always better to ride rarely than not at all.