Hi this is Will Faerber from Art2Ride and I am here today with my lovely wife Karen and our horse Zoolander. We had a request come in asking about rider fitness, so we are going to discuss that and what we do in particular. We will discuss how we stay in shape and the requirements to ride at this level.

You will never be a better rider than you are fit. So if you are out of shape, just know that that will always stand in your way to some level or another. You need flexibility, strength and wind to be able to ride, so in other words you need a cross training type of exercise. The most important thing is eating well. I am a raw foodist who eats about eighty percent raw food. I eat a thing called raw meal by Garden Of Life, which you may want to look into. I usually have two meals of day of raw meal, which is a good meal replacement instead of meals that are full of fat. If you want to lose weight, you simply need to eat less calories than you burn.

In terms of exercise, Karen and I both do hot yoga. In terms of age, I will be sixty soon and Karen just turned fifty-four yesterday. I was almost dead about ten years ago, until I learned I had Celiacs Disease. I had a large gut that I couldn’t get rid of, but after changing my diet I was able to get rid of that. I do hot yoga 2-3 days a week, go to the gym every other day, aerobic exercise (running or walking) and then of course we ride. So pay attention to all those things and just know that you will never be a better rider than you are fit.

I recommend that everyone do yoga. You can start how I did through YouTube through a video called “Basic Principles of Alignment” by Yoga Today. It is an hour long class that I highly recommend you start with because it takes the most simple yoga exercises like the mountain pose and teaches you how to use your muscles and hold yourself correctly. Start with that because it has a really good explanation. There is another video on there by the same teacher called “Positive Perspective” that goes a little further. So yoga, some kind of strength building exercise and aerobic exercise, you need all three of those to keep yourself healthy.

On top of all that, Karen and I both see a chiropractor. We go once a week because when you are doing this kind of athletic sport it really helps. In the past, when I had pain it would set me back weeks but now that I see a chiropractor I can get out of that pain very quickly. Another nice thing is massage, a nice stretching type of massage. So massage, chiropractor, running, hot yoga, weight lifting and of course riding. That’s what it takes to be good at this. You wouldn’t take ballet if you were two hundred pounds overweight, and the same goes for riding horses.

So bearing all this in mind, good luck! This is Will Faerber and Karen Loshbaugh from Art2Ride and we will see you next time!

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