Amateur Preliminary Riders - Scheduling

[Libby2563]

@HeartsDesireEventing

I plan my schedule around the required fitness work, whatever lessons we have planned, and my work schedule

I’m only at Training but yes, this. 5-day rotations are great if you are a pro but when you are planning around lessons and weekly work rhythms, they don’t really make sense to me. Lessons are probably on a set day each week, and we all have our heavier and lighter work days. Not to mention the weather! I only have an outdoor and though I don’t mind riding in a little rain, I have my limits. Flexibility is key.

I never kept a riding journal until I started eventing, but now it helps to plan everything out (again, not that our conditioning demands are as high as y’all’s but maybe next year!). I use a Google doc spreadsheet because spreadsheeting is my favorite hobby next to horses and I can update it easily on my phone as I cool the horse off.

Finding time for rider fitness is HARD with a full time job, a farm, and two horses in work (one of which is only 4 so doesn’t help me build fitness but does require time because he needs groundwork too). Meanwhile every time I see my PT she wants me to do more stretches and strengthening things for all my weird asymmetries and dysfunctions. Cardio is definitely my weakness though and I really feel it on XC when the weather gets hot/humid. I would like to get a nice folding stationary bike because it’s low-impact, not weather dependent, pretty mindless at the end of a long day, and well-suited to HIIT workouts.

[SeeSpotEvent]

I’ll try to include some pics of how Lucinda does these two questions, I found some from the 2018 clinic I did. We did a recent one in January and she set up the same exercises, I just don’t have the photos as handy. She does XC-themed jump work on the first day of the clinic, hence my Day 1 shorthand. The skinny poles are 4’, I just made some. I bought the blocs of smartpak. They are super handy, wear like iron and have so many different uses.

For fitness, besides riding, I run. It’s the best bang for the time, I think even a few days of the week for any amount of time you have, does wonders.

It’s impossible to do it all. I think perfect is the enemy of good and some weeks I do all of this. Other weeks work is crazy and I just make sure all the horses are alive with as much as I can do crammed in.

I use Equilab to keep track, I wish I was amazing enough to spreadsheet but that is definitely not my journey.

[FrittSkritt]

Totally OT, but I love your horse! So flashy!

I would try to do a 7 day conditioning program with my guy for Training/Modified, but it was really hard given where I boarded (metro DC area) and having to haul out for lessons and gallops twice a week. My barn where I kept him was 40 minutes away and lesson barn was another 45 minutes from there, so I had to budget in at least 5 hours round trip: drive to barn, hook up trailer, load, drive to lesson, tack up, lesson, cool off, drive back, put horse away, unhitch, then drive home. That’s provided I didn’t have anything else to do at the barn management-wise.

It’s getting harder and harder for the average ammy to get to the Prelim level because of our dwindling facilities and having to drive more and more to prep for these events. We need another thread for the “How do you afford it?”, but for time management.

[Equisis]

Scheduling for me is heavily dependent on the individual horse. I have some that need more time off, and some that do better in a more intensive schedule. Pay attention to how your horse feels after a few days of schooling, and how they feel after a day off, to get a good gauge of this.

I differ from many in this thread in that I do a lot of trotting, and less galloping. I generally don’t trot and gallop on the same day (barring a 15ish min trot warmup). At prelim, they are doing either 30 or 40min trots 2x per week (shorter for TB types, longer for horses with less blood). Because they are trotting so much, flat schools focus primarily on canter work, which also helps build fitness. They flat twice a week usually, with a jump day, and another day that may be a XC school, a second jump school, a gallop, or a hack if it’s the week after an event. I don’t gallop on weeks when I XC school (they gallop enough while schooling, or for the ones at modified/prelim it’s effectively a gallop with some schooling questions) and I don’t gallop on weeks after they go eventing (they galloped at the show). I find that between the long trots and the canter-heavy dressage rides, they maintain fitness well. Obviously leading up to an FEI long, the gallop work will need to be increased.

Everyone gets at least a day off a week. They almost always trot after a day off. In the past, when I have been in an area where we have had nearly unlimited ride out, I let them canter up a hill or two and hop over some natural fences while out on their trots. Right now I am mostly trotting around the same fields on the farm so I don’t have that option

[Libby2563]

Interesting to hear what everyone does! Does anyone know if there’s research on the benefits of long trots vs. shorter sets with walk breaks?

[Larbear]

@Libby2563

Cardio is definitely my weakness though and I really feel it on XC when the weather gets hot/humid. I would like to get a nice folding stationary bike because it’s low-impact, not weather dependent, pretty mindless at the end of a long day, and well-suited to HIIT workouts.

I was gifted a stair climber machine years ago (friend was moving and couldn’t take it with her) and I found when I was going prelim with my guy, 20 min daily on it got me fairly fit. Lol it’s not just a towel rack anymore

I’m always in a time crunch and blessed with a bad sense of direction and on top, a crappy memory so I’d have to walk around my courses at least 3 times. By the time I get out to walk the courses it’s getting late so I’d have to pretty much run around my last time. I was pleasantly surprised how well the stair climber prepped me for that! I also did planks to help my core (hate hate hate doing sit ups with the passion of a thousand burning suns) and when I did my trot sets, I did them all in 2 point.

Edited to add that skipping/jump rope is also good for cardio and doesn’t take much time. Way back my sister and I legged up for our first marathon by starting out skipping during the winter. By the time the roads were decent for running (yay Ontario winters!) we were much further along than we thought we’d be.

[subk]

On rider fitness I have to admit I don’t remember what I was doing off the horse other than chasing little kids around. I do know that galloping 3x5s and more pretty much took care of whatever cardio I needed–for a Long Format. But as a one horse owning/competing amateur what I have since discovered are squats and deadlifts. In hind site it was a gap in my program. Nothing I have done in 4 decades–not biking, spinning, pilates, yoga, etc, etc.–gives me more than the weight room and getting under the bar.

[Jealoushe]

Yes there is a lot of research on that, if you Google I’m sure you will find books and articles. The LSD method was very popular for years (long slow distance). The short intervals are more part of interval training which are good for stamina and strength. Jimmy Wofford is known for his long walking fitness regime.

[Blugal]

Recently I attended a lecture with an Olympian who also breeds (WBs including her Olympic horse) on maintaining soundness and longevity.

She emphasized walking, hack before or after your flat/jump school. Walk up and down hills and mountains as much as possible. She said with that program she was only doing gallops every 7+ days as opposed to most other upper level riders doing every 4-5 days. Less galloping = more soundness in her opinion.

Also recently heard a podcast with Pippa Funnell and Andrew Nicholson discussing fitness requirements for 5*. They agreed that they did the same amount of fitness work as they used to in long format days. They talked about mental fatigue of the horses; the distance of XC is shorter with more jump efforts now. The horses need to be fit so they aren’t physically tired in the last part of the course where they may need clever footwork.

I’d think that would apply to any FEI level. So I’d also keep going back to Wofford’s guides, incorporate these ideas, and modify as needed. I haven’t gotten a horse fit for Prelim in 6 years but a fellow boarder rides Prelim thru Advanced. She does short steep hills approx. every 4 days, alternating days of trot and canter sets up the hill. She monitors breathing, heart rate and recovery time to gauge fitness and whether to increase the number of times she goes up the hill.

ETA any way you could have someone hack your horse a day or two a week? Even a 45 minute hack in the morning followed by you schooling after work would take care of some fitness work.

[Turntable]

The biggest difference with the professional yards I rode for as a young person was the miles and miles and miles of walking we did. Much of it on roads or gravel/ hard dirt tracks. I always heard : 6 days to see improvement in aerobic fitness and 6 weeks to see improvement in muscles but 6 months to bone and tendon fitness. We used to wear the hunters and eventers shoes down to wafer thin walking and trotting on the roads for miles and miles to get them fit. We could rarely reset shoes as they were too worn. No one does that anymore.

Of course it is easier when you have working students and also no other job but I do think that fitness and soundness starts with walking for long periods. Many of those horses and ponies were sound and actively ridden into their late 20s and early 30s. And they ran and jumped a lot.

[Nadia1990]

I am a amateur competing prelim on a naturally very fit TB this is our standard week
1x jump session
2x FW
1xLunge or gallop depending what were heading towards, I don’t gallop him much unless aiming for a long format
1x trotting hill work
1x long Hack
1xoff