Midlife Horses Fitness Challenge: Build your own solution, one step at a time!

by Melinda Folse

In Chapter 4 of The Smart Woman’s Guide to Midlife Horses, I’ve provided a crossection of conditioning exercises, regimens and ideas I ran across that fit particularly well with midlife fitness goals and midlife horsemanship. (or horsewomanship, as it were).

And even I have to admit, all this seems a bit overwhelming.

With all we already have on our plates, it is very easy to blow right past these pages because there is no way in hell or anywhere else we’re going to find enough time to really do all this. Who am I kidding? I wrote the book and this chapter, considered all at once, makes me roll my eyes.

But here’s the thing. Even though it looks a bit overwhelming because I did gather and present all these ideas in one place, it doesn’t mean we have to do all of them at once. In fact, if you just pick one idea and do it you’re going to most likely be ahead of where you are now. And, while some of these ideas may not fit well with your own situation, it is quite possible to use them as springboards or templates for whatever does fit your life and routines. (For example, I don’t have to muck stalls because I have full care boarding; however, the conscious and simultaneous tightening and release of abs and glutes while sweeping and mopping my kitchen floor achieves the same effect — and brings the side benefit of much cleaner floors! (See “How to make barn chores count twice” [p74] for specific ideas, then adapt them to fit whatever chores you do on a regular basis.)

So feel free to pick and choose, in no particular order, the things that make sense to you, your life, and your starting fitness level. The results you feel with that one thing will most likely inspire you to do more. I know it did for me. The stronger I started to feel, the more I wanted to do! The trick is to keep it gradual so you sneak up on this goal.

To that end — and, in keeping with this Midlife Horses fitness challenge I issues earlier this month, I’ve made the commitment to incorporate one new thing each week until I reach the full scale, balanced conditioning program that addresses the five key areas of fitness outlined on pages 61-62: aerobic capacity, core strength, flexibility and balance, weight training and interval “short burst” conditioning.

What are you doing to improve your conditioning this week? Post your ideas and progress as a comment on our Facebook page and let’s keep encouraging one another to get stronger, one step at a time!