Planning your training

[atlantis]

Hi all.

After a year of getting to know Lottie, sorting her feet out and sorting out her gross asymmetry we're now at a point where we can get out and about this year. Hopefully I'm going to be sharing my friends little lorry (as well as her lead rein pony for DD) so will have transport. I'm changing jobs so will now be going to work every day (currently 3 very stressful days that I hate and was making me ill I'm sure) with a spare 2 hours 3 days a week (child free) to ride, one evening (but this will probably be spent dabbling in setting up my own business) and the weekends to ride.

I'm going to have to be super organised I think to fit in new longer hours job, new business, riding, family stuff, house stuff, pony (and hopefully pony club) and maybe my husband may get a look in at some point lol. Oh and the dog needs walking at some point bless him.

So I'm going to need to plan my riding if I want to make progress. I'd like to be having a go at a novice test by the end of the year and starting some jumping at home. I'll plan to do the clinics that I can at the yard and I have sporadic lessons (from a guy that I swap Equipilates sessions for, who I get on well with and explains things well).

Does anyone else plan what they are going to do each day of the week? I need to fit in at least 3 sessions on the road as my mare self trims her feet (doesn't have to be long, 30 mins each) I like to do one groundwork session a week too during which I also lunge. I could combine roadwork and some schooling, maybe to warm up/cool down.

Suggestions welcome. Sorry for all the waffle. I'm like this in real life too (ie talk far too much)!!! I have some non-alcoholic beer that I've stollen off my husband on offer for anyone who has read all this!!!

 

[nato]

I plan loosely, but to try to ride the horse I have on the day. I sync my work calendar with my personal one, and colour code the horse related events so I know where I need to be at all times.

I will go as far as to plan things like 'Polework - Adjusting strides', 'Flatwork - Stretching', or 'Jumping - Gridwork', but will usually pick and choose individual exercises based on the horse I have. If I know I am stuck for time I try to limit what I'm looking to achieve on any given day to ensure we finish on a good note.

 

[paddi22]

yeah i aim to do 2 flatwork days, one loooong hilly hack, one fast session or xc, one jumping and one polework. But i vary days depending on weather and his/my mood. For the flatwork days i'm like the other posters and i hack to warm up before going into school.

I usually go to a competition at the start of the year in each discipline, and then analyse how it felt and then sit down and work out what our weaknesses are and make a list of what i want to fix in flatwork, jumping and xc. Then i roughly plan exercises each week aiming towards that.

 

[dressage_diva]

I plan both of my boy's schedules for the entire week ahead - I will decide what days they are hacking, going on the gallops, schooling and having as day's off and I will stick to that unless they didn't feel well after a specific session. Generally each week is similar in terms of what they do each day, but I don't stick with it rigidly as it will also depend on my own commitments as well as if we are going competing etc.

With my youngster who is schooled (my older boy just hacks now as he's almost 21), then I certainly have in mind what I would like to focus on in each of the schooling sessions. I do this to keep me from aimlessly going around in circle without a purpose, but I will also adapt it if required. For example today I had planned to spend quite a bit of time working on his canter and doing counter canter exercises, but he felt a bit tired after yesterday's session so I kept the canter work much shorter and spend some time just riding walk/trot transitions and playing with some leg yield instead. For us our sessions either focus on developing the movements required for the next level of dressage (so currently aiming to go out at Elementary later this so we need to start working towards Medium) or on his general way of going. If you know that you want to go out and do a Novice dressage test later this year, then use that as your inspiration for training - write a list of all the movements you could encounter in a test and then think about where any gaps are in your training and how to go about filling those gaps and in what order to tackle them.