Chukka Wellness: Reduce Injuries

India Parker-Smith is the founder and owner of Chukka Wellness which provides the leading training and movement methodology designed for the equestrian athlete to enhance suppleness, stability and strength in the saddle. India is a Personal Trainer who offers online and offline fitness training designed to elevate the well-being of the equestrian athlete. Using her knowledge of seven years she has created a series of masterclasses, a virtual membership hub and online training programmes all designed to complement the equestrian’s health and wellness both in and out of the saddle. You will find more information on India’s services on her website www.chukkawellness.co.uk and Instagram page @chukka_wellness

Reduce Injuries

New year, new bulletproof body!

A constant issue of being a polo player is that your risk of getting injured is pretty high. Sometimes injuries are unavoidable; a horse tripping or falling, a horse standing on your foot or from a questionable ride off! So, let’s once again focus on what you can control; joint stability, suppleness, and overall strength to help bulletproof the body.

Maintaining physical stability takes more than a single structure working in isolation to provide joint support. Instead, lots of parts — muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and other soft tissues — all have to work together to produce a stable joint. Stable joints help you avoid injury, such as shoulder dislocations and ACL sprains.

The factors that help maintain stability are usually broken up into separate categories: the active mechanisms (the muscles) and the passive mechanisms (everything else, like the ligaments, bone shapes, cartilage, joint capsule, and so on). The components from each type of mechanism must communicate with each other to provide stability.

If the muscles (active restraints) don’t fire as they should or are weak, stability is compromised, and if the ligaments, tendons, and so on (passive restraints) have been compromised, injury may result as well.

Reducing Injury Strategies

1.Ensure that your workout programme includes compound exercises that simulate the movements of polo during a game. These could be squats with rotations or single leg balance whilst simulating the swinging motion. 2. Add in exercises that include single leg and arm work to improve your balancing skills and identify any weak areas. Single leg see saw, plank with arm reach.

Plank with arm reach

3. Muscle activation exercises encourage passive muscles to wake up and activate to support the joint during movements. Try adding in a few of these pre-ride or preworkout: Glute bridge, single leg balance, superman, back extension.

Single leg balance

4. Don’t forget to eat well too – lots of calcium rich foods such as leafy greens, almonds, seeds, fortified drinks and food, beans and lentils. These foods will help strengthen the joints and aid in recovery. Lean high-quality proteins such as nuts, white meat, fish and seeds are also crucial to muscle repair.

5. Warm up and stretch daily! About 90 percent of players we talk to rarely warm up before riding let alone for an important game. A dynamic mobility routine will help to keep the joints supple whilst strengthen and stabilising the surrounding muscles. Check out our Instagram page @chukka_wellness for an effective mobility routine.

Stretch daily!

Check out www.chukkawellness.co.uk to gain access to a range of virtual programmes designed to prepare riders for their busy season; reduce their risk of injury, improve recovery rate and increase control in the saddle. We also have a membership hub full of follow-along workouts, mobility routines and nutritional resources. Some references from Dr. Steve Glass, a Professor in the Department of Movement Science at Grand Valley State University. Dr. Brian Hatzel is an Associate Professor and Department Chair in Movement Science at Grand Valley State University. Dr. Rick Albrecht is a Professor and Sports Leadership Coordinator in the Department of Movement Science at Grand Valley State University.

PADDOCK POWER

POWERING PERFORMANCE

PADDOCK POWER ORIGINAL

Horses at grass or in training thrive on PADDOCK POWER ORIGINAL lick with added protein and a full spectrum of vitamins and minerals. This is no ordinary lick it’s a balancer in a bucket! Paddock Power will help your horse prepare for the winter months by supporting it’s immune system and giving it the internal tools to fi ght mud fever, rain scald and the annual ailments over the winter months.

We all like to watch our budget over the winter but sometimes you need to invest to reap the rewards. By supplementing the grass and hay/haylage over the winter with Paddock Power you can really boost your horse’s resilience to our unpredictable English winters. Right now, our horses are changing their coats from summer to winter, and this requires a lot of energy, vitamins, and minerals. These vitamins and minerals are not abundant in the traditional English pasture, and most of us have stopped hard feeding our horses. Paddock Power Original will supplement what we are no longer getting from hard feed. Most horses are running on reserves by the end of a full season, whatever the level, and need a pre-winter boost! Paddock Power provides what they need to help them have a fruitful winter and return in the spring recharged and eager to play.

For more information and a full breakdown of Vitamins, Minerals and ingredients visit www.paddockpower.co.uk Call 020 3409 0214 Email info@paddockpower.co.uk