Feature Team of the Week: Equestrian

Team of the Week:

EQUESTRIAN 

1. What league do you compete in?
We compete in the BUCS Championship League, we've just had one of our riders qualify for the regional competitions. 

2. What is your training schedule?
We train every Wednesday and Friday as well as having Strength and Conditioning every Tuesday. 

3. Can you tell us about your competitions?
We are in a mini league with three other Universities, each University takes it in turn to host at the yard they train at, so we compete three times a year. There are four riders in a team and we compete in two disciplines; dressage and show jumping. You never know what horse you're going to ride on, its picked at random on the day to test the ability of the rider. 

4. What do you work on in S&C?
In our S&C sessions we cover a bit of everything however there is a large focus on building core, glute and leg strength which is essential for riding. 

5. How has S&C helped you develop as athletes?
S&C has really helped with assisting the improvement of our riders such as recovering from serious injuries from training sessions as well as general improvement on our core stability which has shown such a difference in our scoring in competitions. 

 

Lisa Cockburn, the Lead S&C Coach for Equestrian says:

Equestrian have been one of the most rewarding teams to coach this year. Only a few of the riders had done S&C before and most had never stepped foot in a gym before. We’ve had a consistent 10-15 riders attend weekly and not only have we seen progress in their movement competencies and their weights increasing but also in their confidence in the gym.

The team have one S&C session a week so my main priorities were to develop their fundamental movement competencies and become competent with the basic lifts in order to build a foundation of strength, to improve their knowledge and confidence with training so that they are able to train away from the S&C suite and continue to train when they leave university, and to have a better awareness of how movements should feel, i.e. shoulder retraction so that they can hold a better posture when riding and to create stability within the shoulder to reduce the risk of injury.

This is the latest programme the girls are working on. We’re aiming to further develop overall strength now that the girls are comfortable lifting a heavier load. I’ve played around with various ways of programming and this tri-set of a lower body lift, upper body lift and core stability/strength has worked best so far as they have more time to rest in between training each body part. We also use pauses and longer eccentric phases to increase time under tension and reinforce correct technique.

I wish the girls the best of luck with their 3 peak challenge and I’m sure your hard work in the gym will pay off.

 

 

On Saturday 25th March, Sheffield Hallam Equestrian team will be tackling the Yorkshire 3 Peaks! This is a 40km walk and will take up to 12 hours! They are training hard raising money for two charities which are Sheffield MIND and The Millhouse Farm Animal Sanctuary.

 

"As we are only a small club we decided at the start of the year we wanted to give back to the Sheffield community and make a big impact. We’ve been volunteering at Mill House Farm Animal Sanctuary since November and go at least once a week, usually two or three times in different groups to help care for the animals there who have all been miss treated or given up. We help them exercise the pony’s and dogs, muck out the pigs, sheep, horses and cows. Help take hay bail deliveries and basically do what we can to help. This lead us to the decision that we wanted to help them even more and challenge ourselves and do the Yorkshire 3 peaks to fund raise money for the Sanctuary and also Sheffield. MIND is another charity the club believe do brilliant work and fully support as mental health which is an incredibly important topic that is usually over looked"

Click here if you would like to support Hallam Equestrian Yorkshire 3 Peaks!
https://www.gofundme.com/hallam-equestrian-yorkshire-3-peak