Tracking Exercise: Horseback Riding - Horse Riding - Equestrian

[adobe101]

I know it's perhaps not the most common exercise, but common enough and it's incredibly difficult to gauge what kind of calory burn and value this kind of exercise has, because - well the horse does most of the work! There is a huge difference in riding styles and how this effects my own exercise level: trail riding can be just walking - where the rider has little exercise, but if you trot it's quite the exercise for the rider too. Then there is the distance aspect, which is invalid when you do dressage or arena riding... Finally jumping has quite a different impact again. 

Since I work for a digital agency, I know that you must have business logic to build out expensive new features both for the sensors, the logic/algorithm and how you present it on the web. I know it's a huge effort. But with an equestrian tracker, you will have a captive audience and a weathy niche market who will be loyal customers. You'll need to do little marketing as this is definitely an industry/audience who are all interconnected and exchange ideas, infos and new products readily. 

And if you want to go all out, you could combine it with a FitBit for the horse - because most horse owners also want to monitor the stress on their horse as well as their horses' fitness. 

Moderator edit: Subject for clarity and labels.

[EileenP]

If you record as cycling, it will calculate your calories based on cycling. Not accurate.

Eileen

[Wateredwin]

I would like to have a setting for horse riding, that seeks to help me understand  the results of my horses schooling for the day. It would also help to have a large screen clock display showing stopwatch whilst working the horse,  like used when eventing ( see web) . When exercising a horse you are the horses physiotherapist and therefore you need to understand how the work for the session unfolded relaxation and heavy work.... mike 

[Celdere]

Still no word on this, but I'd love it too. At the very least, a workout option that doesn't track steps (or a way to turn off step count). I logged 3k steps today by riding for 30 minutes and taking absolutely 0 steps myself. 

[Celdere]

I see a ton of posts from equestrians on here, and everyone wants to know how to track their rides properly. I know that if you use the general workout setting you can go back and manually change the label to "horseback riding" later through the app, but there's more than just the label problem. Yes, I'm talking about the steps.

It doesn't seem to pick this up entirely accurately, but while riding, the fitbit trackers still count steps. Unfortunately, these aren't steps you're taking, they're steps your horse has taken, so calorie burn and other things calculated, in part, from the number of steps you take (in addition to HR and things) will be very skewed. If you don't track it as a workout, your fitbit thinks you're running - that should show you how far off the tracker is on what it's thinking. 

I'd love a way to make a custom exercise shortcut, or have an exercise shortcut that counts only HR and time without counting steps or distance so as not to skew step or distance goals for the day with steps and distance your own two feet haven't covered. Or, a custom exercise function where you can set it (like interval training) to track only some of the available metrics (out of HR, distance, GPS, time, steps, floors, etc.) which would cover people in other niche activities who are running into issues tracking their exercises because none of the shortcuts fit right.

[LaurelSayer]

Hi, I have just purchased a Fitbit Charge 2 and it's great BUT...... I'm also a regular horserider and the Fitbit keeps advising me that I'm superfit having exceeded my walking and stair climbing goals, when all I've done is ride a horse 6 miles up and down the Surrey Hills!  I wish. Could really do with an exercise option for horseriding which would give a more accurate reflection of the exercise I am actually doing.  Well, you have one for cycling, weights, treadmill, workout, crosstraining etc, so how about one for us horseriders.  There are quite a few of us about!  We do work our legs and cardio a little when riding but not in the same way as a runner or power walker would.  I expect skiers would be interested in an exercise option too as I expect they have similar issues but use more cardio.

[Sheharizaade]

I am currently using the bike option. However, given the changes of pace mentioned in the original comment, this is not entirely satisfactory. Some of my friends use the 'track my ride app (UK) and seem to like it. I must also pick up on the comment about monitoring horse fitness too. Especially in the endurance community. Monitoring the fitness of your horse is critical in competition of any kind. These are highly trained athletes themselves and although we are riding the strain going through our own bodies is immense. We use core muscles more than anything. Like mastery of any skill, it looks like nothing is being done when actually you are working very hard. Even doing dressage!

[plumcrazy]

One of my horses is differ ultimate to ride. The trails are his worst days. Higher energy expenditure, doesn't walk much, whenever on that one .

[Sheharizaade]

Yup. Got one of those. Purebred Arab stallion who I should know far better
at his age. 😁

[LaurelSayer]

Definitely need an algorithm for horseriding.  At the moment my Charge 2 tells me I'm running for miles, covering 88 flights of stairs, when in fact I'm on a horse over the hills. Even so, with trotting and cantering my heart rate is usually 120-150 bpm over the 2 hours.

[Sheharizaade]

We really do. I use the bike mode but it's not satisfactory.

[Signebis]

I would also like the possibility of selecting Horse Back Riding as a short cut on the Charge 2 - so I don't have to create the exercise afterwards or let the device auto-register the activity and then afterwards change the type of activity.

Thanks 🙂

[MHHache]

Yes, all the good stuff without the steps while horseback riding would be great. HR, and GPS for example are great indicators, but then when adding the steps it is not accurate of your actual activity.

[Sheharizaade]

They are not actual steps but the forces going through the upper body are
more that in walking. I have toned and lost inches far more than with
walking alone. Having said that my horse is not a slouch 😆

[DrKendra]

There should be an exercise shortcut for horseback riding.  As a non-step count activity there isn't even a reasonable work around for this activity.  In fact, the person in customer service today literally told me to take off my tracker when I ride!

And using the "bike" shortcut doesn't work either because after I rode up a hill using "bike" my app said I went up 25 flights of stairs.  Obviously that was not the case.

[roxygill5]

I have the Versa..very nice...love it...but most of my exercise is training and jumping horses. Would still love to have this feature to log this exercise. I do get my HR and a map using RUN it counts steps....but I might try it on BIKE and see if it's better. There are a LOT of equestrians out there who would love to have this feature 🙂

[Sheharizaade]

I find on bike mode it still counts steps because of the force of the
movement bit it doesn't count the distance of the rode towards your daily
walking distance.

[LaurelSayer]

Good idea, will try that


Sent from my Samsung device

[Sheharizaade]

Gauging horse fitness is massively key to competition performance. Many put heart rate monitors on their horses. For endurance it's about how quickly resting HR is recovered after exercise. 

Just because the horse is walking, don't mistake that for the rider not doing anything. Like the master of any skill, the rider looks like they are doing very little when in fact the work is going on in the deep core muscles enabling them to balance and absorb the forces of the horse's movement throwing them off. Don't underestimate how much energy this uses. Ask any beginner 😁

[Dees2011]

Really need an exercise shortcut for horseback riding.

[LaurelSayer]

Until Fitbit get their act together and produce a Horseriding option I'm using the cycling activity option, but the problem is I can't seem to Edit the activity name for cycling. Dont know why you can edit some activities and not others.


Sent from my Samsung device

[Sheharizaade]

Fit is really missing a trick with this one.

[FultonWife14]

I would really LOVE to have a feature that will track my distance traveled, calories burned, heart rate and amount of time exercised. I don't need to have all the extra steps counted and I would really like it if I could stop adding a driving entry to get rid of the steps counted when I'm riding.

Please Fitbit add a horseback riding feature!

[Sheharizaade]

I use the bike option and it does an acceptable job for my happy hacking.
Not sure it would cut it for competition.

[Sheharizaade]

I am not getting hung up on the extra steps counted as I think this is a
way of recording the forces going through your body as the horse moves.
Although these are not gross motor movements they are core muscle movements
as we balance and shock absorb from the horse.

After all if it were the equivalent of sitting in an armchair our heart
rate wouldn't rise. Bike mode us great for recording route, distance, HR,
calories burnt and active minutes. I even use it during schooling and
although the route looks like a ball of wool, it's surprising how much you
do during a schooling session.

[DrKendra]

Well, sheharizaade, and everyone else advocating bike mode, I can only assume that you only do flat work. Bike mode tracks change in elevation. So I don’t need my stats reflecting my climbing dozens of flights of stairs when I don’t climb all

yhose stairs.