Trotting for fitness

chunky monkey

chunky monkey

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May 2, 2007
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Ok this is probably a silly question/s But if a horse is trotting would they travel the same distance lunging a 20m circle as they would under saddle riding out? For arguments sake let's call it a steady trot. I know they would go further if the horse extended.
Presumably they would be fitter under the saddle as they are carrying a riders additional weight but more flexible in bending on the lunge. So if you were lunging to get the same fitness level as under saddle you would have to trot for longer on the lunge, yes? So would it be better to ride or lunge. Does trotting up hill make them fitter than flat work trotting?
 
When I lunge or school jess covers less distance in a similar time than trotting out, probably because she is trotting more forwards when out. I tested it by putting my GPS watch on her :)
You don't want to do too much lunging anyway because of the extra strain it puts on joints but its a good part of a fittening plan, 20 mins once a week is ideal.
Trotting up hill can help to increase cardio fitness, but again it should be part of a well rounded fitness plan.
You need to balance wear and tear on the horse vs fitness, so rest days are as important as the work day and varied work helps spread the load on the body.
 
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I would have guessed the same as Jessey's GPS showed, that they cover more ground out hacking.

As a general rule of thumb I was taught many years ago that you didn't lunge even a very fit horse for more than 30 minutes because of the strain on joints etc.

There's absolutely no reason why you cn't work on flexibility under saddle, if anything you can work on it more than when lunging. You can play with bend & some lateral work out hacking. In a school or marked off corner of a field you can do changes of rein, circles etc & those ridden correctly will do more for flexibility than lunging will.
 
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Mine covers a mile on the lunge in twenty minutes as I put my watch on her. We cover this ridden as well.
However bear in mind where you are. My hills mean we spend half of the mile in walk. I have an abundance of these hills and no where flat apart from my school! So using that theory if I had somewhere flat we could probably trot a mile in ten minutes?
 
newforest said:
Mine covers a mile on the lunge in twenty minutes as I put my watch on her. We cover this ridden as well.
However bear in mind where you are. My hills mean we spend half of the mile in walk. I have an abundance of these hills and no where flat apart from my school! So using that theory if I had somewhere flat we could probably trot a mile in ten minutes?
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Jess's walking speed out is 3.5-4mph, her trot is normally about 6-8mph unless she extends then it can stretch to 11mph. She does less on the lunge.
 
OT but I have mixed feelings about both lunging and trotting, being the owner of a horse with arthritic changes. I have been advised no lunging and not much trotting on roads, in order to minimise the progression of the condition.

I used to do a fair bit of trotting on roads as fittening work, and regret it now as I wonder whether Raf would still be perfectly sound if I had been more cautious. My problem is that there is nowhere local to do any lengthy trotting off-road.

However, driving horses/ponies trot and trot and trot on roads, often with a big banging trot too - why don't these horses get arthritis, or maybe they do?

Re the fitness - I think the event horses on our yard are mainly trained in the school - ridden mostly, although they each have at least one lunging session on the pessoa a week. They rarely go hacking, although maybe once a week they go out training somewhere. But the basic day to day fitness is all done in the school and I am amazed how fit they are!
 
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What would worry me about the eventers Bodshi is that they aren't conditioned to the going that they encounter when competing, and also would be less used to dealing with uneven terrain.

I think arthritis has more causes than concussion, though you can never tell what's caused it in an individual. If you'd done less with Raf it may have made no difference whatsoever, it may have helped or he may have ended up overweight & laminitic. You just cannot tell so don't beat yourself up.
 
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While you may travel more distance riding rather than lunging, it is much harder work for their bodies to lunge as they have to maintain the circle rather than going in a straight line. So 20 minutes of trotting on the lunge would probably cover less actual distance than 20 minutes trotting in a straight line, but trotting on the lunge would be more tiring for them. Therefore 20 minutes of lunging would make them fitter compared to 20 minutes trotting in a straight line.

I'm not a fan of lunging at all. I hate to see horses going round in tiny circles with pessosas and all kind of training gadgets attached to them.
 
I guess anyone who schools their horse regularly is riding lunge circles. How many full circles, half circles or serpentines are ridden in a session is probably not really any different to just lunging.

Anyone who competes doing dressage is riding at least four in the test and will have ridden it beforehand.
In our case I am probably putting more strain on the knees everytime I hack out. It's not flat and she will walk very carefully.
I don't school much but we lunge using the majority of the area.
 
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newforest said:
I guess anyone who schools their horse regularly is riding lunge circles. How many full circles, half circles or serpentines are ridden in a session is probably not really any different to just lunging.
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I don't agree with this because when you lunge you are doing non stop circles, whereas when you are schooling you are doing the odd circle but with lots of other things thrown in. If you lunge for 20 solid minutes, the horse must do at least 100 circles, some of which would be 20m but I have seen people lunge on much tighter circles. If the horse is wearing side reins or a pessoa or similar, this is going to be very hard work for the horse as there is no rest in what they are being asked to do.
 
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Because you don't lunge you don't know how many circles your horse would do.
We actually only do ten.
Lunging shouldn't be just about sending a horse round in endless circles. It's part of schooling, fitness, training etc.
 
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I don't lunge my horse but I see horses being lunged daily on my yard, and they do go round and round in solid circles for 20 minutes. They may change pace, but they do stay on the circle - they are in a lunge pen so they don't have much choice! How long does it take you to lunge 10 circles (I presume 5 each way)? I can't imagine it would take more than a few minutes?
 
Mary Poppins said:
I don't agree with this because when you lunge you are doing non stop circles, whereas when you are schooling you are doing the odd circle but with lots of other things thrown in. If you lunge for 20 solid minutes, the horse must do at least 100 circles, some of which would be 20m but I have seen people lunge on much tighter circles. If the horse is wearing side reins or a pessoa or similar, this is going to be very hard work for the horse as there is no rest in what they are being asked to do.
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But isn't that the point? I don't mean putting a horse in a pessoa and expecting them to do 20 minutes straight off, but gradually building them up to the level where they can easily cope with 20 minutes working in that shape must strengthen the muscles and get them working from behind. Not that I've ever done it - even if Raf wasn't restricted from lunging I wouldn't have the heart to make him do such boring work (although I am probably anthropomorphising again).
 
Bodshi said:
But isn't that the point? I don't mean putting a horse in a pessoa and expecting them to do 20 minutes straight off, but gradually building them up to the level where they can easily cope with 20 minutes working in that shape must strengthen the muscles and get them working from behind. Not that I've ever done it - even if Raf wasn't restricted from lunging I wouldn't have the heart to make him do such boring work (although I am probably anthropomorphising again).
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We have built up to what we do. I don't use gadgets- wouldn't know how to fit our purpose, but as I said earlier I do use all my area.
The most we do is ten circles which is about ten minutes, then go large to do polework or jumps.
Answering mp it takes ten minutes to do ten circles because it's a steady consistent trot and she has only has little legs.
If we stop and think twenty minutes isn't actually that long. We as humans could easily jog for twenty minutes.
 
Out of interest we have 2 running tracks at work which they do fitness tests on, one indoors in a rounded square the other outside on the straight, its 1.5 miles and the same guys will consistently take longer to do their run inside and hurt more for it from the corners compared to outside, even the super fit guys comment on how much harder it is.
 
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Riding a circle and lunging a circle is still a circle. So schooling movements for 45mins/1hr and lunging for 30mins will have the same impact essentially constantly bending and using the bend to flex and fitten.

I do a lot of my fittening by hacking, I do alot of trotting on the roads, I walk and trot in and down hills, I do a lot of trot and canter transitions on grass up and down hills and I find this makes them use themselves and lift at the front.

Lunging a circle and riding schooling movements is still asking for a constant bend.
 
I know the lady who fittens hireling hunters round our way does it all out, first in walk and then in trot. They trot miles and miles and miles by the end. She says she doesn't need to do much canter.
 
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I amost fear to say we do not ever fitten our TB eventers! All came to us fit out of racing and still continue to go too fast and pull up with no increased respiration rate at the end of a B90/100 of 5 minutes galloping and jumping.
More cobby or native types we do hacks in walk mainly and then increasing trot and canter work. Lunging is reserved for schooling.
It really depends on what you are seeking fitness for and where you are starting from?
 
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