Core strength

I feel very inspired by last week's discovery of the importance of core strength. I am keen to play with this concept while we're out on the trail.

From the minute I hop on, I assess the strength of my core, my back, my legs. By "core" I mean all the muscles in the stomach, from the pubic bone, right up to the ribs, as well as the lower back. What troubles me is that they feel floppy. And I can't seem to engage them.

We go into trot, we walk at Dead Cow, then trot again, canter through the pine trees. Trot, walk down the side road, trot, then canter to the other plantation. During the canter I finally seem able to engage that core strength. At the same time, Crownie feels more balanced. It appears that the warm up is just as much for the rider, as for the horse. I seem in some control of my stirrups as well.

We're on a new track, and we spend a few kilometres just walking and trotting. After we cross a creek, we canter. I stay in three-point position and focus on keeping my core strong, yet supple. We canter like this for about 8 minutes (approximately 4km).

As we head back home we get a nice mixture of walk, trot and canter, but I can feel that the flame in Crownie is gone. I have hit the boundaries of her fitness. This is essential in order to improve fitness. We often call it "hitting the wall". Once you've hit the wall, you need to keep going to actually improve your fitness.