No, horse riding does not specifically target your belly fat and help you reduce it. However, riding a horse is a form of cardiovascular exercise, which means it can help you increase your heart rate and burn fat from all over your body.
While your friends will work their butt off in the gym, as a horse rider you'll undoubtedly already have beautifully toned legs and glutes; great for those fitted jeans and no need to dread 'leg day'. Toning and muscle building while having fun. Result!
Horseback riding works important core muscles: abs, back, pelvis, and thighs. These stabilize the torso while fortifying coordination, stability, balance, and flexibility. This activity is isometric, which means the muscles contract against something that does not move.
For a person weighing 150 lbs, riding at a walk burns approximately 136 calories in a 30 minute session. If you increased the horse's speed to a trot, that same person would expend 72 additional calories over that same 30 minute period of time (208 calories). Galloping a horse burns 261 calories per half hour.
"Riding is a total body workout. Your legs, arms and core work together to control and communicate with the horses. Really, riding is a partnership sport; the rider and the horse support and guide each other.
It can be tiring
A lot of physical and emotional strength is required to ride a horse and it will wear you out, especially if you are dedicating a lot of your time to the sport. If you lead a busy lifestyle, then you will need to take this into consideration before taking up horse riding properly.
However, riding a horse is a form of cardiovascular exercise, which means it can help you increase your heart rate and burn fat from all over your body. It also helps to tone the muscles in your legs, core, and arms, which can help you lose inches from your waist.
Sports such as horse riding, aerobics, brisk walking and cycling are particularly good ways of tackling cellulite. This is because they increase respiration and the heart rate, which has a highly beneficial effect on blood flow.
For a horse and rider who require a moderate level of fitness, The horse should be ridden four days a week. At least two of the days should include a more intense workout while the other days could result in a slightly easier and less strenuous ride.
Horseback Riding Improves Muscle Tone
Horseback riding is the way to go if you're looking for a fun way to get in shape. It's a low-impact exercise that can improve your muscle tone and posture. If you want to take up horseback riding as a hobby, it might be best not to start by going too fast or too far.
The 'ideal' shape is relatively very long in the leg and very short in the body (to keep the centre of gravity (CoG) low), broad in the hips (for a wide base of support on the horse's back), flat chested (because the excess weight in the chest is superfluous to a rider and raises their CoG).
Riding works your glutes, quads and hamstrings, with your glutes tightening and loosening as you move up and down with the horse. In fact, you're squeezing your leg muscles just to stay in the saddle.
A study commissioned on behalf of the British Horse Society found that horseback riding is indeed a good cardiovascular workout. Even just a half hour of riding is considered “moderate exercise,” said BHS PR executive Megan Hawkins, “while trotting exerts more energy than playing badminton.” Core strength.
As you're riding, you'll burn as many calories as you would by going to the gym or playing certain team sports (think football or netball). Even at walking speed, you can burn over 200 calories per hour on a horse, while if you get up to galloping you can burn up to 650 per hour.
“We all know riding horses is good exercise,” Sigler said. “Riding a horse for 45 minutes at a walk, trot and canter can burn up to 200 calories. It you do something a bit more strenuous such as cutting or reining, that can come out to nearly seven calories per minute for the entire length of the riding period.”
Riding a horse releases endorphins and other feel-good chemicals that make you feel good. If you're having fun (and we bet you will!), these euphoric chemicals will be released by the brain, reduce your stress, and make you feel better.
There is no set age for retiring your horse. Some horses have physical conditions or diseases that require an early retirement. Other horses can be ridden late into their life without issues. As a general rule, most horses should stop being ridden between 20 to 25 years old.
Either early morning or late evening, when it's cool and quiet. Before work (6.30am) best time of day. I prefer to ride in the morning but sometimes I ride in the evening with a friend when she has finished work. It gets more difficult to do in the winter, though I work part time so I can usually ride when I like.
After six weeks of consistently training the horse four or more days per week at low to moderate speeds and intensity with this progressive buildup, most of your sessions should be around 40 to 50 minutes in length.
The results of this cross-sectional study indicate that recreational horseback riding performed by women does not result in increased symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction compared with control groups.
Horseback riding requires the use of muscles that do not typically get worked while performing everyday tasks. This is a big reason muscle soreness happens in new riders, since these muscles need to be built up through use.
A saddle sore in humans is a skin ailment on the buttocks due to, or exacerbated by, horse riding or cycling on a bicycle saddle. It often develops in three stages: skin abrasion, folliculitis (which looks like a small, reddish acne), and finally abscess.
For an average woman of 150 lbs, cantering a horse can burn up to 93 calories in 10 minutes. If you ride at the trot, you can burn up to 74 calories in 10 minutes. If you ride at the walk, you can burn 57 calories in 10 minutes. Remember that even if you're riding that stubborn mare, you can still burn more calories.
“We all know riding horses is good exercise,” Sigler said. “Riding a horse for 45 minutes at a walk, trot and canter can burn up to 200 calories. It you do something a bit more strenuous such as cutting or reining, that can come out to nearly seven calories per minute for the entire length of the riding period.”