The A Frame

This month, we're looking at lateral bending! This essentially means asking your horse to bend through their body from their nose to their tail. Ensuring your horse is supple and flexible through their body is not only great for advancing their ridden skills, but also advantageous for injury prevention.

Asking for this dynamic lateral bend acts as a gentle stretch for our horses, and encourages them to weight bear evenly on both reins. Combining this with walking over a pole encourages activation of the abdominal muscles and increased flexion through the limbs, improving proprioception, balance and coordination.

This month's exercise is designed as a ground work exercise - use this time to learn about your horses balance and flexibility from the ground.

Exercise: The A Frame

1) Set up two poles next to each other with ends touching - place a small block in the middle to raise the end of each pole closest to the centre

2) In walk, approach one pole on a slight diagonal angle, ask them to step over the pole, around the block and back over the next pole

3) Repeat this in the other direction to form an extended figure of 8

4) Completely 3-5 figure of 8s and then change direction, repeating on the other rein

If this is your first time trying the exercise, I would advise starting with the poles flat on the ground, and/or adding an extra pole to give your horse more space to snake across the poles. As your horse adjusts to the exercise and begins to develop their lateral bend, you can raise the poles to the A Frame design.

Top tip: big loops make this exercise easier, shallow loops increase the challenge for more advanced horses.

For more info on Becky and her services and more useful tips, follow her on Instagram @rosevetphysio

If you want to book in and take up the introductory offer of £10 off your first session, her contact details are -

website: www.rosevetpysio.co.uk 

mobile:07854545624