Therapeutic Riding

[Dis-N-Dat]

Good Morning to All:

I've been thinking about aerobic exersize for the non-ambulatoy (me). I'm looking into therapeutic riding (horseback)currently and am wondering if any of you have additional suggestions.

Would love to hear your thoughts.

[genie86333]

I used to volunteer for a program in AZ that did this. Wonderful program - the riders (and the staff) got so much good benefit from it. Not sure how much aerobic exercise it is though...more flexibility & muscle control, as well as improved mental-health (gaining confidence & self-esteem) but, then again, any exercise is better than none.

[Granny Shanny]

My thinking too, Genie . . . good therapy, but not so sure it's aerobic.

[Lovecraft007]

Hi there...

The riding sounds like a lot of fun, and would probably be great for training your core stability and balance, but I agree it's not going to be very aerobic.

I have worked in a few gyms that have had a couple of pieces of equipment which focus on upper-body generated aerobic work.

One is an "arm ergometer", which is essentially a set of pedals for your arms. Ours was height adjustible, and you could stand or sit in front of it, and change resistance and speed, or go forward and backward. (I've actually seen real bikes that you can ride via arm pedals too... which I thought looked pretty cool!!!)

We had another piece of equipment called a NuStep, which has the user seated, and you can use arm-levers, giant pedals, or a combination of both. It was developed for seniors and other people with balance or mobility issues, who couldn't stand for long periods, but wanted a full body cardio workout. We had one client who had very limited lower body strength, but could use it by doing most of the work with his arms, and just doing what he could manage with his legs. The other bonus was that by keeping his feet on the pedals, even though they weren't generating any power, his knees/hips/ankles still got a good dynamic range-of-motion workout.


Hope this might help!

[cwathne]

get a bicycle and go ride. Its fun

[Dis-N-Dat]

I used to love to ride bikes but unfortunately my ankles won't tolerate it. (The arthritis that is part of Charcot foot)

[davef]

How about some exercise in water? The water will take the strain off your ankles/feet. When I swim I will often do about 15 minutes of swimming using just my arms (I cross my ankles to stop me kicking).

As for horse riding, it's probably something you will enjoy but I'm not sure how much exercise you will get from it. As I understand it, to get exercise you will need to be doing things like trotting, and a rising trot (I *think*) will mean you need to raise your butt off the saddle which you may find hard to do with your ankle problems.

[fgummett]

I may be wrong but I understand that horse-riding is much more of a work-out than just sitting on the horse... if it's something you enjoy as well then more power to ya :)

[art]

Exercise is good.
Any form of execrcise.

Art

[Dis-N-Dat]

I also love to swim but with the open lesions I can't use a public pool and our river is just too cold.

Found out that all the therapeutic horses are spoken for all summer (we have one of Paul Newman's "Hole in the wall" camps nearby), but I'll be riding come fall. When I say riding, I mean jumping, galloping, cantering etc. It really can quite aerobic.

But, good news. I've been exercising my upper body with weights (cans of oives for now) and doing some chair exercises that seem to be working well.

[Moonglo]

Man, I wish I could afford to get into horseback riding. Sounds like fun! I loved it as a kid!

[Dis-N-Dat]

It'll be real inexpensive, my husband gave them a good deal on a tractor. :D