How Can I Build Up Her Muscles Without Riding?

[Tiber]

As I'm saddleless at the moment I'm trying to build up Hon's atrophied muscles a little bit to see if it makes finding a saddle for her any easier.

I lunged her for the first time in about a year last night and she was quite good considering the break (we've just given up with Parelli stuff). She walked, trotted and did a little bit of canter. And jumped over a scary clump of dock leaves that got in the way...

She will stretch forward a bit in the walk and over-tracks nicely, but in trot she looks quite tense (possibly due to the change), and to be honest I forgot to check if she was tracking up or not, but I suspect she was as she has quite a long trot.

For the moment I'm going to ride her 2-3 days a week for about 20 minutes (on a sheepskin in walk and trot only!) and lunge her 3 times a week for about 20 minutes. Once the saddle problem is sorted I can start riding her more.

I want to help her as much as I can without riding her, and was wondering if using something like a Pessoa would help her stretch down a bit more? She has done driving before so should be ok with the bit going round her bum, although she'd probably poo on it...

Also, is there anyone round Bedford who has used one who would be willing to show me how to do it properly, as I don't want to make things worse!
 

[Candypony]

I use a pessoa on Candy following her physio's request - and got the physio to show me how to use it correctly on Candy!  Certainly seems to be helping her - along with lots of soft, round ridden work SLOWLY (not our strongest point! :blush: )   I think 20 minutes would be too much on it at first though - I did 5 mins mainly walk and a little trot building up to 7 or 8 mins (I wear a watch to time it properly) over the last couple of months.  We now do the occasional canter transition too but I don't expect her to be able to maintain the canter yet...

Not sure if that helps - unfortunately nowhere near Bedford (sussex!) but someone else might be unless you too have a physio that can show you?

Sal

[Tiber]

I wouldn't use the Pessoa for the full 20 minutes to start with anyway! Warm her up a bit and put it on for a few minutes in the middle, then take it off again - until she gets stronger.