Often riders get to the end of the day, leave the yard, sit down on the sofa and suddenly realise they feel sore and achy all over. Whether its a long day doing the yard, mucking out, turning out or riding 12 horses a day with the amount of work it is not surprising you might be a little sore.
But how can you help alleviate these aches & pains? Keeping your blood flowing is imperative to help ease off any DOM's (delayed onset muscle soreness) you may experience. Muscles are best to stay warm and mobile, easy movement such as walking and some light stretching will do the trick. A warm bath with some Epsom salts is a great physical & mental recovery, which can help to provide pain relief and can reduce inflammation for some people. The warm water allows your muscles to relax and reduce stiffness in the joints.
Foam rolling & self massage is a great way to reduce muscular soreness and can help to speed up recovery as well as potentially prevent injuries. Rolling allows broken scar tissue in the muscle to be broken up, increasing blood flow into the muscles & providing your muscles with more nutrients and oxygen. It can also help to reduce over production of lactic acid.
Dynamic stretching is another great way to loosen up stiff joints and get your body moving. A 10 minute stretch routine with some cat camels for your thoracic spine, hip openers such as lunges and spidermans, shoulder rotations, inchworms, glute bridges and thoracic rotations for example. These exercises will allow your thoracic spine, hips & shoulders to open up and loosen off, hopefully relieving your aches!
Movement is the solution to many riders problems, just knowing the correct exercises and routines you should be doing is imperative to keep you from doing too much whilst also keeping you mobile and moving. If you are unsure of what exercises you should be doing please send a message!
Hopefully this will help some of you! Let me know how you get on
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