Three Pilates Exercises to Improve an Equestrian’s Balance April 21 2015 1 Comment

Why bother?

Because having great balance will make you a WAY better rider. Great balance goes a long way to helping you maintain that perfect riding form that we all strive for.

But what can you actually do to improve your balance?

When it comes to your musculature, your balance mostly comes from your core. But when I say core, I mean your whole core, not just your abs, but your obliques, erector spinae and other often neglected muscles in your sides and lower back.

And as countless infomercials have probably told you, thousands of crunches are a pretty ineffective way of strengthening your core.

Enter three great pilates exercises - The Hundred, The Roll Up and The Hip Twist.

How do I do it?

These dynamic exercises are best illustrated through video. Let's start with The Hundred. As with many workout videos, there's a lot of needless preamble, so feel free to skip to about a minute in if you just want to see the form for the exercise.

Complete five up and down beats of the movement ten times, for a total of a hundred (see what they did there with the name of the exercise?)

Next it's time for The Roll Up. Once again you can skip to about 30 seconds in.

Complete ten repetitions of the roll up before moving to the next exercise...

...which is The Hip Twist! Once again, feel free to skip ahead about 30 seconds.

Complete ten repetitions on each side.

These three exercises can be treated as a mini circuit. Do each exrercise one after another. Do three to five sets of the circuit, with 60 seconds of rest between each set.

When should I do it?

These exercises are great as a stand-alone workout, or following a session at the gym.