The Equestrian Physio

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The Equestrian Physio

It's time you showed up for them too...

🗓️TEP Training opens doors in Sept.👇

🏋️‍♀️ Rider-specific strength, rehab & performance systems that actually work.
🎓 MScPT | 300+ coached | 200K+ riders strong.
🧡 Your horse shows up every day for you.

02/26/2026

How could anyone ever compete? ❤️

02/24/2026

Legs having a field day. Upper body, humbling.

Feels exactly like, “Who’s ready to get their ass kicked by that first cross country school of the season? “🙋‍♀️

02/23/2026

Training is not for your entertainment. You don't need every workout to be unique or funny or social to serve its purpose.

If those are the things that get you in the gym and are handy little side quests, great! Power to you.

But stop LOOKING for your training to entertain you, and instead, look for what it allows you to DO, to ACCOMPLISH.

Sometimes, switching the expectation from "this must be fun" to "this is serving a purpose" is enough to let you put your head down & get it done.

02/23/2026

We’ve all got some s**t going on these days… take care of yourself out there. ❤️

02/22/2026

Sometimes… we only have so many minutes in the day. But we also need to remember that SOMETHING is ALWAYS better than nothing.

That said, I also think we tend to overcomplicate things on the fitness front. Sure, long warm ups and lots of mobility or movement prep is nice… but do we need it? Not if it’s going to be the barrier between getting your workout IN or not. A few light sets under the bar will do nicely, and likely prep you for the work just as well.

Same with recovery. Same with extra sets. Would 4 sets be better? A bit. Would 2-3 min of recovery between heavy sets help me get more out of the next one? Absolutely.

But if those things keep you from actually getting the workout done, then the cost to benefit ratio just isn’t there.

The return on resistance training is often an exponential curve. The difference between 0 sets and 1 is huge, and it’s a substantial jump from 1 set to 2—a moderate jump from 2 sets to 3. But 4, 5, 6 sets? Less return. Still useful, but if time is a barrier, we weigh the cost.

Same goes with number of days you work out per week. Or how complicated your warm up is… or even how much rest you give yourself between sets. In a perfect world, we could squeak out every little gain possible with all these little nuances.

But in reality? Stick to your heavy hitters, figure out a minimum effective dose, and do what you have TIME FOR, NOT what the internet tells you your SHOULD do (me included:).

02/21/2026

Most of us are familiar with the classic "Training Scale" for training horses. It’s a universally adopted framework that guides us in everything from developing young horses over years to structuring our warm-ups and schooling drills during individual rides.

We also understand that the Training Scale isn’t a series of isolated steps. It’s a guide that allows us to overlap and move up and down the scale depending on where we are in the training process.

Rehab works in exactly the same way! As physios, we use a progressive framework of overlapping stages to inform our rehab decisions and exercise progressions.

Just like the Training Scale, this framework builds on a solid foundation before increasing complexity and demands on the tissues.

This is why it’s so important to work with a competent rehab professional when recovering from an injury. A physio will consider your diagnosis, current impairments, stage of healing, affected tissues, and the demands of your sport or daily life. They’ll use this information within the framework to guide you through the appropriate stages and exercises.

Stages can, and often do, overlap, but the overall progression of the rehab process generally moves from very basic (like mobility and muscle activation) to more advanced (like agility, skills, and power) as the tissues heal and adapt.

DIY rehab and random exercises found on Instagram to "fix X problem" might help, but they miss a critical component of rehab: thoughtful, staged progression informed by objective testing.

02/20/2026

Some days it feels like “hip flexor tightness” is an absolute epidemic among equestrians. But it’s not exactly what most of us think it is…

Feeling muscle tightness, especially in your hip flexors or hamstrings, is more about perception and protection than actual physical stiffness. It can be caused by prolonged positions, lack of movement, or stress, and often doesn’t reflect true muscle tension or shortness. The sensation of tightness can be a protective mechanism your nervous system uses to help prevent you from going into ranges where you may injury yourself. So, if you lack intrinsic strength in a certain muscle group, especially strength in outer hip ranges (where we spend most of our time when in the saddle), your body may generate these feelings of tightness as a form of protection.

So we need to rethink how we manage tightness. Endless stretching isn’t actually going to help much, as it’s not a “length” problem. Instead, we need to address the root cause – and that means helping our nervous system to trust our muscles can handle the load we’re asking of them. That looks a lot more like strengthening, especially in the outer ranges.

Isolated hip flexor exercises, like the ones demo’d here, and general strengthening are both necessary for overcoming feelings of tightness. Do yourself a favour, and skip the stretching for a couple weeks, and load it instead.

02/19/2026

On this day, 10 years ago, I broke my hand because I wasn’t fit enough to be doing what I was doing in the saddle.

Riding is dangerous. Full stop. Yes, it has gotten safer over the years. But it is still high up, still fast, and still involves a 1000lbs flight animal with a mind of its own.

Working with horses is so normal for most of us, we often forget that.

But I have seen too many injuries, too many broken bones, and too many concussions that could have been prevented, had the rider at the time been stronger, more mobile, and had more endurance.

Does this negate the fact that s**t happens and sometimes you just don’t have the experience you need? No.

But in a sport this high risk, why wouldn’t you do everything in your power to manage the risk? Not only does it make you a better partner for your horse, help your health & longevity overall, but it can save you when s**t hits the fan, too.❤️

And that is exactly what I’m trying to help build. Thorough the knowledge and stories I share on here, to my rehab services, to The Equestrian Physio Training app. It’s all my effort to help fill this gap in the industry so we don’t continue to see injuries that could have been prevented.

02/18/2026

We all have barriers and limitations to fitness.

We WANT to be strong. We WANT to show up as an athlete. We WANT to be a capable partner for our horse.

But WANTING is not enough. So many things come into play to challenge us in the process of getting strong.

Kids, time, work, willpower, equipment access, lack of enjoyment.

But strength and fitness is also a choice.

Yes, barriers exist. And yes, they are valid. But making the active CHOICE to train and BE strong; for most of us in the equestrian world, that’s possible.

Training and fitness is HARD, no matter who you are. And even those of us in the most privileged positions still experience barriers. But, if we get curious enough, almost every barrier has a solution.

So, instead of telling yourself you can’t train because of XYZ, what if, instead, we got curious, and asked “what if?”.

What if I start with once per week?

What if I bring some resistance bands to the barn?

What if I train first thing in the morning before the kids get up?

What if I try going to the gym consistently for a month and see if I grow to like it?

What if I’m just starting too hard, and that’s why I hate it?

Yes, there is an element of privilege when it comes to training - but for the vast majority of us, especially in the equestrian world, we often DO have the capacity, if we get curious about our barriers - we’re just failing to prioritize it.

If you don’t have time, start with less. If you don’t enjoy it, bring a friend or make it a game. If you don’t have equipment, start with a cheap set of resistance bands. If you struggle with willpower, book it into your schedule or make a habit of tagging workouts onto rides.

If we start getting curious, we can start finding solutions. And when we start finding solutions, we start building habits. And when we start building habits, we start seeing results, building more motivation and continuing the cycle.

02/17/2026

I get it… it’s uncomfortable to think about the fact that YOU may be more of a problem in your horse’s performance than they are.

And to be clear, I’m not saying that the rider is ALWAYS to blame. There are absolutely times where a performance issue has nothing to do with the rider.

But (and I say this with love), those scenarios are not the majority.

One of the most magical elements of equestrian sport is the partnership. No other sport looks like this. Horse and rider form a performing dyad, each influencing the other in real time.

Where we run into trouble is that horses are generous, honest, and incredibly tolerant. They often perform DESPITE whatever nonsense is going on on their back, not because of it.

They are also much larger than us (a revelation, I know, but stay with me), which means they can absorb a surprising amount of asymmetry, tension, or restriction coming from us without it being immediately obvious.

It becomes easy to default to:

“He’s so stiff to the right.”
“She gets heavy in my hand.”
“He just can’t get that left lead change.”

And this is never about blame. We truly do not know what we do not know. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to DO BETTER as we learn.

One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I hear from TEP Training members is this: as they get stronger, they realize just HOW MUCH they had been contributing to their horse’s performance challenges.

Around the three month mark, I send a check-in survey. Over and over again, riders report that performance or behaviour issues begin to clear up, even though they never directly trained those issues at all.

When your body becomes stronger and more capable, the conversation between you and your horse changes. The aids feel clearer. The resistance softens. The “problem” often dissolves because the partnership is functioning at a higher level.

And that realization is hard to accept if you haven’t experienced it firsthand.

But it doesn’t make it any less true.

02/16/2026

I’m fine… it’s fine… everything’s fine😂😅🔥

02/14/2026

Happy hearts day y’all❤️💕🩷❤️

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Guelph
Guelph, ON
N1C0A1

Website

http://www.theequestrianphysio.ca/, https://www.theequestrianphysio.ca/tep-training-app-landing-page

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