Muscle building exercises

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AshleighEmma

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Hi All,

I've just posted in the feeding section regarding my skinny little TB. On fear of repeating basically she's dropped a bunch of weight due to illness and because of the lack of work from this; her top line is non existent which makes her look quite sorry for herself!!

Just wanted any advice for exercises on and off her i can do to aid muscle development. Starting very basic as she's in no way a top dressage horse but just bits we can work on to get her looking and feeling stronger.

No nasty comments please.

Thanks xx
 
I have just answered your other thread with a few suggestions, to help build her up take things very slowly, lots of walking, in hand, on long reins and when ready under saddle, if she will relax and stretch down it will help her build up, walking over poles, raised poles should get her using her core, don't be tempted to push on too quickly.
If she is genuinely weak from illness rather than just poor she needs time to recover and gain the weight slowly, at least 2 months in walk would be ideal to enable her to pick up properly, longer if she is not looking seriously better after that time, mid winter is possibly going to be difficult but by the time she has had a month on spring grass she should be looking really well.
 
These are some simple exercises i like to use:
Turn on the forehand (in hand) start with 3 steps each way eventually building to 10.
long reining including some pole work. I use walk poles and gradually raise them.
Backward steps.
leg yeild in hand- start with 3 steps.
Hope that gives you a few ideas to start with :)
 
Great thank you! She's been well from her illness for a couple of months so she's not completely back at square one, fitness is building slowly but i just want to make sure she builds her core back up.

Pole work sounds great, Im going to introduce some lunging and perhaps (controversial) use a bungee lightly.
Anything to make her pick up, its soul destroying seeing her so poor!!

thanks x
 
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