Pain Free Horse Riding

How your body reacts to injury

Explanations of physical and emotional reactions, falls, common symptoms such as pain, tension and inflammation, and how to help yourself.

Some conditions affecting riders

Simple techniques to treat your back and neck pain, tendonitis, fibromyalgia, arthritis, joint pain and stiffness, plantar fasciitis, scar tissue, repetitive strain injury, hypermobility, incontinence.

Solve your riding problems

Learn how to improve your posture and solve mobility issues by treating the cause of commons problems without forcing your body.

On the yard

Discover the easy changes that you can make to reduce and prevent your pain while you are lifting, moving water containers, mucking out, poo picking, doing hay nets and grooming.

Simple steps

These tips for every day life will help you to stay fit and healthy: drink enough water, breathe properly, stretch, listen to your body, think about your posture.

Myofascial Release

Find out about how this amazing technique works and where you can get treatment for your symptoms.

Very well written book and easy to understand. The exercises can easily be done at the yard or at home. Me and my daughter have gone through the exercises together and we are really starting to notice the difference.

Claire Long

Giving you all the information you need to keep yourself pain free, this book is a must-have for horse riders of all disciplines.

Laura Renwick

Team GB Show Jumper

Video

Some Conditions Affecting Riders

The conditions listed here are just some of the more common problems experienced by riders, but of course there are many more. Some people are in constant pain in multiple areas while others might only ever have one problem.

Whatever you are feeling, please note that the advice given in this chapter is only a guide and can never replace medical assessment and treatment if that is what is required. So if you are unsure, or require individual advice, please do see your doctor or bodyworker. Remember that we each have our own medical history, which builds up to give the pattern of our symptoms over time. You could take ten people with identical symptoms and the cause and treatment would be different for each person. Because of this, the advice given here is very general, and it is essential to follow your own body and to trust what you feel.

Treating yourself: Research has shown that applying gentle, sustained pressure to an area for at least five minutes stimulates the body’s anti-inflammatory response and so can speed healing.1 Some of the advice given here is on how you can treat yourself using this method. Remember to go slowly and gently and to stop before you feel pain or if you experience any adverse effects.

Back Pain

According to the National Health Service in England (NHS England), back pain is the largest single cause of disability in the UK,2 while a study of lower back pain in America found that seventy to ninety percent of the population are affected at some stage in their lifetime.3

Back pain can be a result of several different pathologies, and some people will have more than one problem contributing to their pattern of pain. These can include damage to muscles, tendons, ligaments, vertebral discs, and vertebrae.

Nikki Robinson

Physiotherapist and Author

Nikki Robinson is an experienced horse owner, rider and physiotherapist. She qualified as a physiotherapist from the Queen Elizabeth School of Physiotherapy, Birmingham in 1993 and founded her award-winning Myofascial Release practice, Holisticare, in 2006.

Nikki has specialised in Myofascial Release treatment since 2006 and trained in this technique in the UK, and in the US with John Barnes, the physiotherapist who developed Myofascial Release over 40 years ago. She is now one of the top Myofascial Release physiotherapist in Europe.

Nikki shares her horse with her daughter Katie. Clover is a 16.3hh Irish Draught X and she and Katie are on the cover of this book.

The book came about because Nikki met and treated so many riders who were living with pain and yet were regularly spending a lot of money getting their horses’ backs treated.

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