The Other Training:
What Elite Riders Do When They're Not in the Saddle
The sport demands far more from the human body than most people acknowledge. A closer look at how Olympians, Grand Prix riders, and serious competitors build the strength that never shows on a scorecard — but always shows in the ring.
Search "equestrian strength training" on Google and you will find, if you are lucky, two or three decent results buried beneath a thicket of generic listicles and wellness-blogger content that has never met a horse. The sport has a peculiar blind spot when it comes to the athlete inside the breeches. We meticulously schedule farrier appointments, track our horses' conditioning, hire equine physiotherapists, and pore over nutrition plans calibrated to the kilogram. Then we wolf down a granola bar on the way to the barn and call mucking stalls our cardio. There is a significant gap between what we do for our horses and what we do for ourselves — and that gap has a real, measurable cost every time we step in the irons.
The conversation is changing, slowly. A new generation of performance-minded riders is beginning to treat themselves like the athletes they actually are. But it is the riders at the very top — the Olympians, the Grand Prix competitors, the professionals who have built 20- and 30-year careers at the highest levels of the sport — who have long understood what the rest of us are still catching up to. Off-horse training is not supplementary. It is foundational.
Riding Is Exercise. But It Is Not Enough.
Ask a non-rider if equestrians are athletes and you will, depending on the company, get a polite pause followed by something vague about the horse doing the work. Ask a rider who has spent two hours schooling a green warmblood in July heat if they are an athlete, and the answer will come quickly and with some feeling.
But here is the complicated truth: riding does not build the kind of balanced, targeted strength that riding demands. Research on equestrian biomechanics confirms that a single riding session activates well over a hundred muscles, requiring constant micro-adjustments from your core, hips, glutes, back, and thighs as you absorb, follow, and direct the motion of a 1,200-pound animal moving beneath you. It is a dynamic, full-body athletic event. And yet, that same research reveals that riding alone develops imbalances — habitual asymmetries that become embedded in posture and movement, favoring dominant sides, creating tightness where suppleness is needed and weakness where stability is essential.
The sport is unique in that it demands your body to be simultaneously still and responsive, strong and supple, controlled and allowing. You cannot develop those qualities exclusively on horseback. You have to train them off it.
— Ingrid Sundqvist, Founder, Ridely
What Olympians Actually Do When They Leave the Barn
For those who compete at the highest levels of hunter/jumper sport — the riders who school multiple horses a day, who manage the physical demands of weeks-long circuits from Wellington to Europe and back — the question is not whether to train off the horse. It is how, how often, and how to structure recovery around a competition schedule that would exhaust most professional athletes in other sports.
Kraut, now in her sixties and still competing at Grand Prix level, trains four to five days per week year-round. Her sessions at the gym are followed — on her off days — by Pilates for core work. She has said that as she has gotten older, maintaining core strength has become more important, not less: "so much of riding is balance." She is, as the US Equestrian Federation noted, living proof of the longevity the sport can offer when the rider takes care of the athlete inside the boot.
The Cazenovia, New York native trains daily, meeting with a personal trainer three nights a week. Her focus is on the lower back — an area of vulnerability for many riders — and core stability. "I do a lot of stretching every morning," she has said. "Then, I try to do a lot of core strength work." Madden won the World Cup at 54, the oldest athlete to do so, which is as clear a case study in athletic longevity as the sport has produced.
Farrington, who grew up training in martial arts, gymnastics, and boxing before riding, has built a fitness philosophy rooted in calisthenics — controlling and challenging the body's own weight. His approach is disciplined and public; his Instagram has featured intense HIIT sessions, advanced jump rope routines, and knuckle push-ups. He has said simply: "I take my job seriously. I think if we're going to call ourselves athletes, then we have to be athletes." The Chicago native who started riding in a carriage barn at eight years old treats fitness as non-negotiable.
Skelton, who won individual gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics at age 58 following a near-career-ending neck injury, was a regular training partner of Laura Kraut's at Wellington's Athletes Advantage gym. His story — returning to Olympic competition at the highest level after a catastrophic injury in his mid-forties — is a direct argument for the role that off-horse strength and conditioning plays in both recovery and endurance at the elite level.
John Whitaker, the legendary British show jumper, was still competing internationally at 70. Laura Kraut is 60 and riding at the Grand Prix level. These are not outliers. They are the intended outcome of taking the athlete's body as seriously as the equine athlete in the stall.
"One of the best things about our sport is the longevity, with icons like 60-year-old Laura Kraut and 70-year-old John Whitaker still at the top of their game. The key to that durability is listening to your body and moving it every day."
The Muscles That Actually Move the Horse
Understanding why off-horse training matters requires understanding what the body is doing in the saddle — work that is largely invisible to spectators and even to many riders who have never been taught to feel and name it.
- Core & Deep Stabilizers The transverse abdominis, obliques, and spinal extensors fire continuously to stabilize the seat, absorb movement, and maintain an independent upper body. A weak core means a collapsing posture, a bouncing seat, and unintentional aids that confuse the horse.
- Glutes & Hip Flexors The hips are the rider's shock absorber and primary directional communicator. Tight hip flexors — nearly universal in people who sit at desks — create a tipped pelvis that disturbs balance and blocks the ability to follow the horse's movement. Strong, supple glutes allow the half-halt, the canter depart, the seat aid.
- Inner Thighs & Adductors The muscles that create a secure, soft contact with the saddle without gripping. Gripping with the thighs instead of using the inner leg correctly is one of the most common position errors in hunter/jumper riding — and it is a strength-and-mobility problem, not a technique problem.
- Hamstrings & Calves Weight in the heel requires both flexibility and eccentric strength in the hamstrings and calves. Without it, the leg creeps up, the heel rises, and the position becomes insecure over fences.
- Upper Back & Shoulders Open, soft, and level shoulders over a course require postural endurance in the rhomboids and rear deltoids. Rounding forward — a characteristic posture from modern life — is the enemy of an elastic, following hand and an effective upper body.
Haybales & Barbells founder Jamie Graham, who coaches riders specifically on off-horse fitness, has made the argument more directly than most: "If my brain is telling me I need to use more inside leg, it is easier to do that if I have trained the muscle connection in the gym and know where it is in my body." Strength training, in other words, is also body awareness training. You cannot use what you cannot feel.
The prescriptionWhat a Rider's Training Program Should Actually Include
The good news is that the off-horse program that benefits riders most is not the same as the program that benefits a powerlifter or a marathon runner. The demands of the saddle call for a specific combination of strength, mobility, balance, and endurance — and the best programs address all of them without creating the kind of bulk or stiffness that would interfere with riding.
Core work — daily, non-negotiable. Planks, Pilates-based movements, dead bugs, bird dogs, pallof presses. The goal is not a six-pack. The goal is an independent seat that does not destabilize the horse or compensate by gripping. Ten minutes of targeted core work every morning, before coffee if possible, is more valuable to your riding than an hour of unfocused gym time once a week.
Pilates — the professional's choice for good reason. Madden, Kraut, and dressage professionals from Kasey Perry-Glass to Guenter Seidel have all pointed to Pilates as central to their off-horse work. It addresses the body in the precise way riding demands: controlled movements, awareness of spinal alignment, engagement of deep stabilizers, and the cultivation of strength that is supple rather than stiff. If you ride three to four times a week and add two Pilates sessions, your position will change within 60 days.
Calisthenics and bodyweight training. Farrington's approach — using the body's own weight as resistance — is particularly suited to riders because it builds functional strength without adding mass, improves balance and proprioception, and requires no gym membership or equipment. Push-up variations, squat progressions, single-leg work, and isometric holds translate directly to the stability and control demanded in the saddle.
Yoga and mobility work. Flexibility without mobility is useless. Mobility without flexibility is impossible. The hip-opening poses of yoga — pigeon, lizard, low lunge — directly counteract the tightness that barn life and riding accumulate in the hip flexors, IT bands, and piriformis. Regular yoga practice has also been cited by multiple elite riders as a tool for the mental side of the sport: breath control, presence under pressure, and the ability to reset after a difficult ride.
Cardiovascular conditioning. A Grand Prix course is, from a cardiovascular standpoint, a short but intense athletic event. Aerobic capacity matters. Riders who fatigue mentally and physically toward the end of a course make errors. Running, cycling, swimming, and HIIT — in whatever combination suits the individual — build the cardiovascular base that supports clear decision-making when the jump-off clock is running.
— Kent Farrington, Olympic Silver Medalist
You Do Not Have to Be a Professional to Train Like One
The professional rider's schedule — multiple horses, multiple countries, competition through the winter circuit — creates both the demand and, often, the built-in access to gym facilities and personal trainers. The adult amateur, the working professional who rides four days a week before or after a full day of work, faces a different calculus.
The argument for the adult amateur is, if anything, stronger. The professional rider's body is in the saddle for hours each day, receiving a continuous workload. The amateur rides less, which means the off-horse training gap is proportionally larger. A body that goes from a desk chair to a horse twice a week and back again — without any targeted work in between — is not building the neuromuscular connection that riding demands. It is managing, at best, to maintain a baseline.
Jamie Graham has pushed back against the all-or-nothing approach that keeps many riders from starting: "People often think, 'if I don't do an hour workout that it's not effective.' That's not the case. Ten-minute or twenty-minute workouts can work just as fine if not better." Fitness snacks — short, targeted sessions woven into the day — have research behind them. A ten-minute core routine before you go to the barn, a set of bodyweight squats and hip bridges in the tack room between rides, a morning mobility sequence before the day begins: these are not substitutes for a full training program. But they are far better than nothing, and for most adult amateurs, they are the actual path to consistent improvement.
"The challenge is to be strong without being stiff, have strength but also movement. It is about flexibility and suppleness. I would never do a strength training workout without doing a warmup and stretches beforehand." — Ingrid Sundqvist, Ridely
Build a Practice That Lives at the Barn
One of the practical advantages of the rider's approach to fitness is that the most effective tools are also the most portable. The professional circuit rider who travels constantly cannot bring a full gym. The adult amateur who rides at 6 a.m. before work does not have time to detour to a facility. The solution, increasingly adopted by riders at all levels, is a small collection of high-quality equipment that lives in the tack room or at home and supports a consistent practice without requiring a membership or a commute.
Resistance bands address hip strength and external rotation — two of the areas most implicated in rider position issues — and can be used during a warm-up that takes five minutes. A quality foam roller counteracts the hip flexor tightness and upper back tension that riding accumulates over time. A balance board or balance disc builds the proprioceptive awareness and ankle stability that translates directly to an independent leg. A set of light to medium dumbbells supports the upper body and postural work that riders rarely get from riding alone. A jump rope, Farrington's tool of choice, builds coordination, cardiovascular fitness, and calf strength in the time it takes to walk from the barn to the ring.
The rider who takes their training seriously also knows the value of having everything in one place. A quality tote that moves seamlessly from the tack room to the gym and back — holding wraps, a change of clothes, a foam roller, a water bottle, and whatever else the day requires — is as much a part of the athlete's kit as the equipment inside it. The NHE Barn Bag was designed exactly for this: the rider who lives between two worlds and needs a bag that keeps up.
The Barn Bag — for every ride, every gym session, every early morning in between.
Shop The Barn BagRiding Is One of the Few Sports Where You Can Compete at 60. Train Accordingly.
The extraordinary fact about equestrian sport — a fact that does not get nearly enough attention outside the sport — is the longevity it offers. Tennis players retire in their thirties. Track athletes peak in their twenties. Equestrians compete at the Olympic level in their fifties and sixties. Laura Kraut won an Olympic silver medal at 57. Nick Skelton took individual gold at 58. John Whitaker was on the international circuit at 70. Beezie Madden won the World Cup at 54.
This is not a coincidence. It is a function of the sport's unique demands, which favor experience, feel, and partnership over raw speed or explosive power. But it is also a function of intentional body maintenance. The riders who are still competing at elite levels in their sixth and seventh decades are not doing so despite their age. They are doing so because they have treated their bodies like the professional instruments they are — with structured training, intelligent recovery, and the understanding that the horse deserves an athlete on its back.
The conversation that starts with "I should probably do more core work" ends, for the riders who take it seriously, with a 30-year career in the sport they love. The gym session on Monday morning is not separate from the Grand Prix on Saturday. It is the reason Saturday is possible at all.
"I take my job seriously. If we're going to call ourselves athletes, then we have to be athletes."
— Kent Farrington, Olympic Silver Medalist & Former World No. 1
Notting Hill Equine is a premium English tack and sport horse lifestyle shop for hunters, jumpers, and warmblood riders.
Explore the full collection at nottinghillequine.com.
0 comments