I have only ever used a water treadmill for rehab purposes in the past, both in my human work as a Physio and for my horses. Whenever I’ve wanted a horse treadmilling I have sent them to Readwood rehabilitation near Burnley, for 2-6 weeks. They do an absolutely amazing job but at 2.5hrs away from me it wasn’t really an option for using the water treadmill for strength training as part of my pre-season programme for Estrid.
Lucky for me Legacy Equine rehabilitation are only a 15minute drive from our yard and a lovely friend had also got me some vouchers, so I reached out to them to book 12 weeks of water treadmilling from January as part of our pre-season training.
I decided to add it in this year as Estrid is very mobile through her spine and she needs more strength & stability, it’s tricky in winter to get some decent training in due to the weather and daylight so this was a great way of getting consistent, good quality training no matter what the weather.
I have really enjoyed watching Estrid change the way she moves, her posture and fitness over the last few weeks, and I would really like to continue using it as part of her training. I will 100% book 12 weeks for pre-season next year but I’m not sure how to use it going forward, realistically I can’t afford weekly sessions all season, so I will have to do some research on what kind of frequency is needed for any improvement/results but definitely a welcome addition to our training toolbox.
Beth Endurance 