Horse riding: second best exercise for weight loss.

Physical activity plays a key role in reducing weight and preventing the effects of stress. Make sure you get enough cardiovascular exercise, regularly at least 30 minutes, three times per week.

Walking must be the best exercise for weight loss. A another excellent weight loss and stress reducing exercise is horse riding. It occupies and nourishes both body and soul. It improves fitness, balance, co-ordination and confidence.

Horse riding, especially trotting and cantering increase both the respiratory and heart rate, so it is an effective form of cardiovascular exercise. It is estimated that when riding (trotting and cantering), you use the same amount of calories as when jogging (6mph) and cycling (9mph) (315-480 calories per hour).

How many calories does one burn riding a horse?

Increase the speed and distance you ride and you’ll increase the intensity of your work out. Hacking out burns up approximately 40 calories per 10 minutes or 240 calories per hour. An hour of trotting uses up to 450-600 Kcal. Cantering burns up to 1000kcal in 60 minutes. Mucking out burns up 80 calories per 10 mins or 480 calories per hour. Schooling a horse burns up 70 calories per 10 mins or 360 calories per hour.

Riding develops balance, coordination and body awareness. Riding improves proprioception, the knowledge of where your body is and what it is doing, dramatically. Balancing yourself on a moving horse is as effective as working out on an unstable surface such as a gym ball. It strengthens deep core muscles and improves posture.

Mucking out stables, carrying saddles, equipment or bales of hay is weight bearing exercise. It maintains bone mass and prevents osteoporosis.

Getting older?

And horseback riding is a sport that you can continue to enjoy as you get older. It is only as most people approach middle age that they finally have enough time and resources to ride or own a horse.

You can take up riding as an adult. More and more people do. With proper instruction and safety precautions people in their fifties and older can learn to ride or drive and enjoy the company of horses for many years thereafter.

Riding for mental fitness

Riding is not just about fitness and technique. It is about developing a relationship with your horse. It’s about communication with a different species. The efforts we make in trying to understand our horses, help us understand each other.

Courage, wisdom born of insight and humility, empathy born of compassion and love, all can be bequeathed by a horse to his rider. ~Charles de Knuffy

Going for a fast trot is great cardiovascular exercise, and is has mental advantages too, like most forms of exercise. It clears your mind, reduce tension and increase energy.

What if there was a miracle pill that if you took it each day would give you a 20% less chance of getting breast cancer, a 30% less chance of getting heart disease, a 50% less chance of diabetes, and would help you live longer and healthier into old age. How much would you pay for it?

Horse riding is not just a pastime for the fit, but a sport that can make you fit and help you lose weight.

And a great stress buster.

For loads more information about the second best exercise for weight loss, check out our sister-site: Equestrian Life Coaching

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