I’ve never rode a horse, but it seems like the horse is doing the work while the human just sits there. I googled if calories are burn during horseback riding and I found that riding a horse for 45 min burns 200 calories. How is this possible if the humans not really doing anything except sit on the horse?
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Horses bounce and sway. You have to stay in position, and that includes using your core to stay upright, your knees to grip and steer to some degree, your legs to “post” which means carrying some of your weight and smoothing out the bumpiness, and your arms to control the reins and so on.
If the horse is trained to English saddle, you have to “keep your leg on” it the whole time, or it won’t go anywhere at all.
Keeping your leg on = squeezing the horse between your knees. So it’s like squeezing an extra-large exercise ball for 45 minutes straight. It’s work.
I’m sure the amount of calories burned varies a lot depending on what kind of horse you’re riding and what kind of riding you’re doing. If you’re just going out on a lazy trail ride on a slow horse that just follows the horse in front of you at a walk then you’re going to burn a lot less calories than if you’re riding an excitable, energetic horse that you constantly have to keep in check while going over fences. Also, if you’ve ever seen jockeys with their shirts off you’ll see how ripped they are. They have to be in order to keep race horses from burning their speed too soon and save some kick till the end of the race. That’s a lot of strain on the arms, core and legs to keep a ~1,500 lb animal with it’s own mind in check. That’s at the more extreme end, but no matter what kind of riding you’re doing you’re going to have to burn some energy to actually stay upright because you’re constantly doing balance checks.
You use a lot of core muscles to keep you balanced on the horse, as well as inner thighs to grip the saddle. And it also depends on what style of riding you’re doing – for example if you ride English you use your quads to bob up and down in time with the horse and it makes the ride less jarring.
Being alive – even lying totally still and not doing anything but breathing – burns calories. This is called the “resting metabolic rate”, or the calories the body burns just by doing things like breathing, digesting, basically just existing.
Meanwhile, it takes a fair amount of muscle control to move, or to control your body’s movement, while seated on a moving object like a horse. You use your core muscles to stay upright in a normal posture, and you use your legs to stablize yourself and prevent yourself from falling off the horse. If the horse is walking, this intensifies. If the horse is trotting, cantering, or galloping, you’ll need to control your body even more to move with the horse and avoid falling off. You will also be guiding or controlling the horse’s movements, effectively steering it, with the reins and your legs.
So you can imagine, if even lying still burns calories, that keeping your body stable on top of a moving object that may move somewhat irregularly, over terrain that may or may not be smooth, will require you to use your muscles more, thereby burning more calories.
If you ever see in a book set in the middle ages, that some character was riding a “palfrey”, that’s a horse that was ideal for travel, because it had a very smooth walking gait, that wouldn’t tire you out as much as other horses
Riding a horse, particularly staying balanced and using your legs/seat to give your horse your cues, uses a LOT of muscles that the average person doesn’t realize. If you watch professional horseback riders, or any skilled rider really, watch their butt and thighs in the saddle. If their seat looks still and steady on the horse’s back while it’s doing anything more than a walk, that’s all just solid leg work.
Think about how hard it is to balance on a moving seat. That seat is a living, half ton animal.
Your supposition is completely incorrect about just sitting there. First, you must sit erect but relaxed. You must keep your eyes up, elbows at your side, and heels down. A rider with good posture (called equitation) if looked at from the side, will have their ear/shoulder/hip/heel in a straight, vertical line. You must not lean left or right. You must allow your hips to follow the motion of the horse. At the walk, only one foot is off the ground at a time, so you have less motion but an experienced rider can tell you exactly what foot is off the ground at any given time. At the trot, the diagonal pair of legs move at the same time and it can be quite bouncy. Riders may choose to post, which is rising out of the saddle for one beat. More experienced riders can sit the trot because they’ve mastered how to absorb and follow the motion with their seat and core. The canter/lope is a three-beat gait where an outside hind leg strikes off, followed by the inside hind leg and outside foreleg moving in unison, and finally the inside foreleg. This footfall leads to a moment of suspension in every beat and takes a lot of coordination and strength to move in unison with the horse. The gallop is faster than the canter except that it is four beats instead of three. You also influence the horse through balance and your core. A well-trained horse, especially a western horse, is minimally guided by the reins. You do not hold on with your hands at all. That’s just what it takes to do the basics. Throw in the extended trot of a dressage horse, jumping, cutting a cow, or a reining horse sliding to a stop and it’s easy to see why equestrians are athletes. There is also a large mental component. By that, I mean you must ride every stride and not just space out. You must cue, evaluate, and plan (where you’re going, how you’re going, and situational awareness) constantly. Eventually, it becomes second nature and not as cerebral, but it is still a factor. I start beginners a maximum of 20 minutes riding and they’re still sore because the muscles you use for riding are not muscles that most people use daily. You’re also not sitting on the fluff of your glutes, but rather the ischial tuberosity (seat bones) which get really sore. My average day at the barn (cleaning stalls, moving hay/grain, cleaning/filling water buckets, grooming, saddling, riding a couple) is at least 2000 calories burned per my Galaxy watch.
Properly riding a horse, especially at any speed, is more like constantly doing a deep squat on a shifting surface than sitting.
If you’re not an athlete, try sitting up perfectly straight without leaning on anything for an hour. You’ll notice that that alone takes a surprising amount of effort if you’re not used to it.
Compound that with just offsetting the movement of the horse- every step is a shift of the body that you have to compensate for just to stay on.
If the horse walks along a trail without much input from you, you’ll probably expend about as much energy as you would walking yourself, but any quicker means you’re constantly in motion the same way a boxer is.
Think of it a little like an elliptical vs a treadmill? Maybe not the best comparison.
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