Before you drop your stirrups this month…

Hey Athletes!

If you have been here for a while, the phrase No Nonsense November might ring a bell. I have been putting this on for a few years now in response to the more common No Stirrups November.

I love stirrupless work. It forces me to slow down and listen to my body in order to balance because I don’t have the stirrups to help me compensate for imbalances and tightness. In fact, I am currently working on bareback and bridleless work with one of my horses in our off-season because I want to have that deeper connection with my body and creating quieter cues.

Yup, there is serious case to add stirrupless or bareback work into our programs to improve our riding which was where NSN (No Stirrup November) was born… because we ALL want to be better riders.

However, over the past few years as the NSN trend has been taking off, I am seeing more and more riders talking about getting fit by riding without stirrups. I see more riders talking about how strong their legs are and how they can grip better. Or how strong their core is becoming because sitting trot is like doing a thousand crunches and falling off isn’t an option.

Question for these riders: Is it your horses’ job to get you fit to ride? Or is it your job to show up already your best self for your horse?

Your horse is not a piece of gym equipment!

I have said it before and said it a million times again.

Riding will improve your fitness, definitely, but there are lots of ways that we can get to the same end goal, so why does your horse need to step up and bear that burden? We have so many other options!

This is why I started doing No Nonsense November (NNN).

Its a month long exercise program that does a couple of things.

1) Works some of the muscles that you would train while doing stirrupless work, so you can get those gains without bumping around on your partners back

2) Focuses on mobility and body awareness so instead of improving your grip strength, you can better flow with the horse. Everyone is happier when it flows

3) Works the opposing muscles to stirrupless work, so your body is more in balance and you are not accidentally riding with the parking brake on (which goes back to the gripping thing!).

Here is a little secret, you don’t have to pick one or the other. I actually recommend you do both NSN and NNN. Just remember, if you want to build strength - do it in the gym, if you want to build skill - take off those stirrups for SHORT periods of time until you begin to lose your form.

If you want to do NNN, you can join in the FitRider Membership. Once you do, you will get the daily workouts we are doing using minibands sent straight to your email.

Hope to see you there!

-Sarah