Yes! I don’t have one at home yet but I use one fairly often in the gym
As a low cost alternative Caroline Girvins has great FREE programs on YouTube.
They work and use weights available at Planet Fitness.
While working with a trainer is amazing and the best way, I get staying within a budget.
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You totally can. I subscribe to Pilates Anytime go $22 a month. There are many, many mat classes available. I download my favorites to my phone and have done them in the hotel gym, a cruise ship gym, even between the beds in a tiny hotel room.
ETA this only works if you already have some familiarity with Pilates. If not, take a few group mat classes at a studio first.
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Yes, and it’s true - that place is like $12 a month… with super clean showers.
While I would love to have the money and time for a trainer, that’s 100s more a month than I have right now. I’m spending my many hundreds on lessons.
I won’t do the at home videos. I’ve downloaded too many apps, been dinged for too many free trials to know that about myself. The exception was peloton but that could have been pandemic desperation.
Someday I think “just do some damn situps” and somedays it feels like I need a formally designed plan. For now, doing ANYTHING will be better then what I’ve got going on.
It’s humbling because I used to run, ride, work on heavy projects all day long and now I can’t even piece together a weight routine, lol.
But I am loving all of the ideas! Thank you!
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The thing that will work for you is what you can stick with consistently. I can’t always make myself go to gym for a warm-up, lift heavy weights, quick cool down. I can get myself to a drop-in yoga class pretty painlessly. I can get myself to go for a run or long walk.
If you have to go to gym, try to find exercises that will maximize using multiple muscle groups. You will probably do less weight but target a few muscles at once. It might look more like weighted Pilates or exercising on the bosu ball but if you only can go twice a week, you’re probably better off doing that than having leg day and then push day and pull day, etc.
a trainer may not be as expensive as you think. I pay $45 an hour and don’t have to have any type of gym membership- I can do once a week or as many as we can fit in the schedule. If I wanted to do virtual sessions it would be $30 instead of $45
I look at it a bit like you would never tell a beginner rider to just watch you tube and go for it, so why would I do that to myself.
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I enjoy the book, “Ultimate Exercise Routines for Riders,” by Laura Crump Anderson. Great for a baseline to build on.
With twice a week, I’d do a full body weight routine with fairly simple moves. You can google or watch videos for tips on safety/form for the moves I suggest, or search for machine exercises by muscle. This sequence goes from large to small muscles, and pairs opposing muscle groups. I aim for 12 reps of each exercise, and choose a weight where I feel challenged by rep 10, but don’t lose form.
- Glutes - basic squats
- Hamstrings - stiff-legged deadlift or glute bridges
- Calves - optional, I don’t work calves in the gym as my barn life suffices
- Chest - pushups or bench press
- Back - bent over row or pull-ups (assisted if needed)
- Shoulders - lateral raises
- Biceps - bicep curls
- Triceps - triceps kick backs or dips
- Abs - dead bugs, bicycle crunch, planks
Rest/hydrate and repeat the circuit 2-3 total times.
Good luck!
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I would actually say that working calves is very beneficial, as by default it works and strengthens your feet and ankles, which are woefully weak and/or limited in real functionality in most people 
Strong, mobile and flexible feet that can work better to help stabilize your whole body, will help all the squats and lunges and upper body work, which helps…everything
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Folks can work calves if they want. I don’t find it necessary to isolate mine. Competed in figure and my trainer agreed - hit them enough with other movements.
I used to have amazing calves. Running does that. No longer do I have amazing calves!
Try this or something else similar to this stepper.
Put it against something you can hold onto, a tall counter, a chair, a treadmill or bicycle, don’t need to use the hand bungies just to work on calves and quads.
Gyms have large ones that also work well, but you can’t access those, these work also:
As someone with excessively floppy ankles (though not to the extent of EDS, thankfully), I cannot reiterate this enough. Historically I had only experienced pain related to this while running, but it’s crept into my riding in the last couple of months and I’m back on my sports medicine-prescribed ankle stability PT exercises that I did in college to try to address it (again).
For those curious, those exercises are (equipment is helpful but not required) (I do all of these in running shoes):
- Side planks, 3 on each side for 10 seconds each
- You can start planking from your knees first if full leg is too difficult (this is where I’m at right now)
- Proper alignment of your spine and legs is really important for this, my physical therapist watched me do them for probably three weeks to make sure my form was correct before she left me alone. You don’t want your knees locked while doing these if you’re doing full leg extension.
- Abdominal bridges, 3 x 10 seconds
- For hard mode, do them with a resistance band around your thighs and push out against it as you come up into the bridge, then hold the distance between your legs until you lower back down. Increase the weight of the band to make it more difficult.
- The movement comes from your abs and glutes, not your back.
- Single-leg stands, 3 x 10 seconds on each foot
- For hard mode stand on a foam block or something that has some give to it to make it more difficult to stabilize your ankle.
- Extend the duration once it feels too easy.
- Single leg kicks, 10 in each direction on each leg (kick forward, kick back, kick across your body, kick sideways away from your body)
- Hard mode: attach a resistance band to something stable at one end (I use the steel post in our basement that holds up our first floor, lol) and to your ankle at the other, and kick against the resistance.
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My comment about that wasn’t about the calves, it was the by-product of the calf work, which is the feet, which are so often not healthy in people, who then complain about knee pain, calf cramps, trouble squatting and doing lunges and all the other things that would make their lower body stronger.
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If you go back to Peloton, they have new gym “classes” that the strength trainers designed, but are a silent list of exercises and reps with the demo video - most use common gym equipment, including cable machines and benches.
Andy’s new Density program uses a bench (if you want) and works well in a gym setting as well.
Another book I used to use (and should get back to) is The Rider’s Fitness Program by Dianna Robin Dennis. Lots of exercises, and a 18 routines of varying difficulty.
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Oh thanks. I always love a reason to buy a new book.
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I do something similar, though it’s a slow, controlled move, not really a kick. Hold dumbbells in riding position and try to keep the upper body still and in good posture. This way you’re adding strength but also developing independence of your seat and leg aids. It’s important to think about how each exercise is transferring into the saddle, not just building raw strength.
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OP, do you by chance have a Anytime Fitness near you? Mine might be not the norm but I love it there! I bit the bullet and got the 3 month package that included one private session a week. I most certainly can’t afford a personal trainer AND a horse trainer but I did it. My direction is on point now and I actually (somewhat)lol, look forward to working out. They also have floating trainers 5 days a week. I was determined to make it stick and I have. good luck! I love how strong I feel and my riding is soooo much more steady and correct.
I refuse to go to the gym. I think it is a throwback trauma to years of Phys Ed at school.
I do pilates, and walk on a treadmill. Walking tones me up like you wouldn’t believe, it’s great. I put something on Netflix on my phone to distract myself, and I can walk for ages.
I’m currently on the exercycle a lot at present (kneehab). I don’t like it.
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This is my second week at a CrossFit gym. I am 51, short, chubby, and generally awkward. I am simultaneously loving and hating it. I have an old shoulder injury, so there are some things I’ll never be able to do and that’s fine. The coaches are very nice and work around my limitations. There are a couple of beast people (like what you think of with CrossFit) and then the majority are short, slightly chubby middle aged people. I’m sure that’s not the case at all the CrossFit gyms, but it may be worth checking out the ones in your area.
I don’t ride anymore (horse budget goes to my daughter’s riding goals now) so my goal is to be a strong old woman someday.
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