The benefits of strength training in human endurance athletes is now widely reported. The research is clear that strength training has a positive impact on endurance exercise performance in terms of maximal power, exercise efficiency, improvement in lactate threshold and importantly in injury prevention. It is a common error for endurance riders to ignore the importance of strength and power for performance, particularly with the idea that bigger muscles are not relevant to t

After Saturday’s fabulous dressage day I did have high hopes for Chip’s behaviour at Tilford as we scored our highest percentage yet and he was so calm and relaxed in the warm up which is a big improvement from the stress head that he was in October in the warm ups. I collected the lorry from Equi-hire on Saturday night and packed up ready for our early start on Sunday morning. I wanted to make sure we arrived in plenty of time so that Chip could be walked around and warmed u