A nine month no-riding rehabilitation after knee surgery makes for one unhappy equestrian. After years of exercising with a living, breathing partner capable of much more majestic movement than myself, a stationary bike just doesn’t quite measure up.
The only bright side is that my physio has me doing all sorts of crazy balancing exercises to improve proprioception (er, that means “balance”). In a constant battle with minor scoliosis, keeping myself centered on a horse is impossible. I had some kind of vague notion that standing on a jedi board for hours at time would probably help.
As you can imagine – I cheated. I found a 25 year old horse who is also in rehab for a back injury. Since the only danger of re-injury for me is falling off, I figure I’m pretty safe doing some trot circles on him.
We’re Cripple Buddies! Besides feeling infinitely better mentally, not to mention elated, at being back n a horse after 3.5 months, my balance was astronomically better! I was no longer wrenching my body into place. My advice to unbalanced riders (let’s face it, that’s most of us!) is to buy a jedi board and stand on it ALL THE TIME… like while chopping veggies or reading HDM.