I am middle aged (or depending upon your definition, somewhere on the back stretch of middle aged), and took up riding in my late 40’s after pretty much a lifetime of being a couch potato.
A few years later nowadays unless I have a 2+ week layoff, I normally don’t have anything but beneficial effects from riding in terms of flexibility, and rarely any pain unless I decide I need to post without stirrups to work on my adductors, which makes for sore thighs.
No other pain unless I fail to stretch for ten minutes or more before climbing on, that is, layoff or no layoff.
The pre-ride stretching and a few minutes of warmup in the ring make all the difference in the world. Besides it’s cool to feel the muscles in calves and thighs gradually stretch out.
Grafting a little sitting trot onto the end of the warmup is both helpful and a nice sensation, too, because I can feel the upper body tension (which I can’t stretch away) slowly melt out with every stride. And it makes for a much better ride, not just because the horse who endures the first portion of that comes to appreciate my being more melted into the saddle afterward.
I am lucky not to have any detectable arthritis and x-rays of my back show my lower back and pelvic area to be sound, healthy and symmetrical. Not so my upper back and shoulders. And there is mysterious a compression between C5 and C6 in my neck from decades ago that I could do without.
When I first started taking lessons – just walking and then trying to learn to post a trot, which was pretty brutal to watch and far worse than that to endure – I was not only so sore and stiff the mornings after that I could barely get up and down stairs the first weeks, but I crunched my back up so badly that it took a long siege of chiropractic, Alexander technique and massage therapy to get past that. I recommend those.
Nowadays prophylactically I’ll often take a couple of ibuprofens or some naproxyn an hour before I ride, especially after a layoff or if I’m going to take a lesson.
I posted a poll on pre-ride stretching a year or so ago and was surprised that few riders regularly stretch. Roughly half rarely or or never do. (‘Never’ was no inconsequential minority.). Surprised the both very young and not so very young riders showed about the same percentages the last time I checked back; I’d have thought there would be more stretching in the older population.
Also, someone mentioned back/barrel width. Since women have wider hips than men, that factor doesn’t work the same for me as for most of the COTH population. Stretching is very helpful for hip flexibility, too. Mine are always tight unless I stretch them.
Only wish I could actually ride as well as I’ve gotten this stretching routine down. :lol:
trot can also rip my hip joints to shreds in minutes!