Sports Therapy for Riders

You want your horse to be loose and supply, balanced and straight!

But are you???

As a rider Alison has developed a unique sports therapy programme for riders involving sports massage and stretching of riding specific muscle groups, assessment of any injuries, weaknesses, aches and pains, posture assessment, treatment plan, balance assessment and core stability advice to help riders care for their own body, treating injury where necessary but ideally preventing injury from developing and ultimately improving riding performance.

- Does you back ache after riding?

- Aware you tend to collapse one one side of your hip?

- Feel you sit heavily on one seat bone or look more to one side?

- Lots of heavy stable work wearing you out?

You are aware of your horses problems in performance - but do you know if you are causing them?

A horse responds greatly to riders body weight and positioning, and if you are suffering from aches and pains from excess riding and stable work it can effect your riding performance.

Riding is after all a sport, but lets face it we don’t as riders tend to look after our own bodies half as well as we look after our horses well being! We certainly don’t get off and stretch out like, say, a runner might after training. We’re far too busy sorting the horses out afterwards - and often in cols and damp conditions. Lots of riding is great, but repetitively using the same muscles and not always allowing them enough time to recover can lead to muscle fatigue and spasm, stiffness and compensatory movements start to develop. Sometimes you may not even be aware these imbalances are developing - Chronic twisting of the pelvis and stiffening of the back by over tight muscles around the back and hips means you may not be sat evenly as your horse would like you to!

Sports massage and sports therapy can help solve these problems. Using advanced remedial massage, stretch and exercise techniques to eliminate fatigue in heavily worked muscles, getting them into much better condition for your next ride, treat new as well as chronic (long standing) aches and pains, identifying and correcting postural imbalances to help you sit as evenly as your horse needs you to, promoting core stability and balance and keeping the key muscles involved in riding in their best working order to improve your performances and prevent injuries developing.

For further information please contact Alison