Any Serious Equestrians out there?

I try to run/walk several times a week, but in addition to that, I ride my horse about 3 times a week.  Can you belive that "general" horseback riding only burns between 200-300 cals an hour?!?! 

Trotting burns a lot more, but who comes up with those number?  When I ride my horse (jumper and dressage) I work up a decent sweat.  I feel like I am burning a lot more calories than the general category says.  A working walk with collection and bend and changes of direction takes a lot of muscle and work.  How about cantering?  I'm out of breath after a good bout around the arena a few times! :-)

Any thoughts?

I have wondered this too.  I'm a hunter/jumper, and what I log depends on specifically what I've done.  I figure on a hack day, if I spend 40 minutes total walk/trot/canter, then that averages out to 40 minutes of 'trotting' for CC purposes.  On jumping days, I inflate that number a bit, because of the increased effort.  Also, any no-stirrup work is like double-time. ;)  YMMV, though, and whoever comes up with the activity cal values needs to do some thinking and add a 'canter' option.

Use this site...it's a list of LOTS of different activities in alpha order. 

Under Horses it has grooming, walking, trotting & galloping.  And you can log in everything in at once, rather than individually.  Then just add your own activity in CC. 

http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc

I agree on the canter option.  Dependent on the effort you put in, you burn more or less calories!  I guess you have to figure it dependent on effort put forth!

What kind of horse do you have smuckleness?

I have an OTTB.

I live in NC

I agree on the canter option.  Dependent on the effort you put in, you burn more or less calories!  I guess you have to figure it dependent on effort put forth!

What kind of horse do you have smuckleness?

I have an OTTB.

I live in NC

200-300 calories an hour? That's crap! I used to train horses professionally (hunter/jumper/equitation) and now just ride for fun. Riding is a serious workout, both cardio and strength. I used to love when friends of mine would say something like "riding horses is easy....you just sit there while the horse does all the work!" Ha ha...then I would invite them for a free lesson and torture them for an hour, and laugh when they were having trouble walking afterwards :)

I used to ride anywhere from 8-12 horses a day, and, while I was still carrying some excess fat due to REALLY poor eating habits, I was in great shape! Now I consider riding my one horse a really good workout! 

Whoever came up with those numbers probably went for a trail ride at Club Med and decided that was all there is to riding....  :)

I know what I'll do...I have two horses in my yard and they require a fair bit of work (trotting, etc) mainly because one of them has gotten quite FAT (he's a pig -- an adorable pig, but a pig nevertheless). 

I'll wear my Polar F11 next time I ride and post the results.  How about one hour, walking, rising trot and maybe (big maybe, he's so out of shape) a few minutes of cantering.

Haha, mine is an OTTB too.  He's six this year, and I bought him in November.  We're having trouble with his left lead (go figure, right? that's racing direction!), but he's sweet and I'm learning.  ;)  We're not that far apart; I live in GA.

I read somewhere that beginner riders burn a LOT more than experienced riders because experienced ones have a lot more balance. and also those specific muscles that riding uses are more developed. however I don't think they took into account the fact that experienced riders do much more complicated or challenging things when riding, lol..

so if you are just trotting and cantering, it will be less calories overall than a beginner.

but if you are jumping or doing certain high effort advanced things... you will burn more than an easy ride. if that makes sense.

Yeah, Skinny Kitty, that's a good idea.  Let us know what your results were!

 

I can understand the difference between a beginning rider and more experienced, however, when you are experienced, you use your muscles differently than when you were beginning and basically just trying to stay on.  Additionally, with experience comes endurance, and most likely you are riding a bit harder anyhow, right?

I cant believe the crap that people spew about riding! Its probably one of the best total body workouts there is! You are def burning more than 200 cals an hour, I wouldnt even worry about it. Anybody who has ever ridden knows the amount of work it is, and how many cals you must be burning. I run consistently, and I honestly think that when I ride I burn more cals. When riding you work pretty much every muscle in your body, and I dont know about you, but every time I ride I get out of breath without even noticing.

btw, I used to have an appendix hunter and an ottb eventer :)

God I miss it :(

 

Hi,

Good to see a post about riding! I have a 5 y.o. TB Eventer/Hunter. I agree that riding can be an effective burner, but it really depends what you're doing and what the horse is like, etc. I think that hacking out, unless you're trotting and cantering a lot, isn't probably very effective. However, once I've finished a cross country round, or schooled a young horse for an hour, I'm absolutely exhausted.

I think it's partly true about beginners, I'm an instructor and the beginners always whine to me about their sore muscles, which I never get - plus they sweat a lot more and have to concentrate like mad to stay balanced! Having said that I think that really good riders will burn more than intermediates because they know which muscles to use and how to use them.

CC should work out a way to calculate the burn, although I can see that it would be quite difficult to work out, given that horses are not like machines!!!

 

My horse is definitely a full body workout.  In the winters he is more like a rowing machine as he is dragging me around the ring and in the summer he is more like a thigh master as he gets lazy.  He's a jumper at heart but I do the hunters and adult medals with him and he is definitely a workout.  Nobody else in the barn can handle (except for my trainer of course)  He tends to think the more you pull the faster he should go.  When he was younger and right off the track if you tried to turn him into the fence to aid your stopping attempts, he would just jump the fence and keep on going.  I have developed some great upper body strength from riding him.  I use several heavy duty pellhams and some times a double twisted wire and he is still like a freight train on four legs!  My trainer always comments how the only way she can tell that he is dragging me is that my muscles in my arms start bulging otherwise she would have no idea that he was even being strong.

I actually had a lesson yesterday and my trainer thougth it would be fun to take my stirrups off my saddle and have an 1 hour flat lesson.  Now that is a workout

So I know this was originally posted a long time ago, but I have used my polar HRM while riding and have some answers to the calorie questions.

I started my HRM as I started tacking up, through my hunter/jumper lesson, and turned it off after I was done grooming/bathing and had put my horse away.

I spent about 15 minutes tacking up, 45 minutes riding and 25 minutes tacking down/bathing etc... My total burn for 1 hr 25 minutes was 958! 

The most I have burned is 1200 cals in two hours

i suspect that "general horseback riding" means trail riding, dude- style.