Well, Foster felt like utter poop last night, with the tightest back I have ever felt on him. Since I am promised rainbows and butterflies and a straight horse by the chiropractor, I’ll give it another couple rides and reserve judgement for now.
There were a few comments yesterday about also wanting to learn exercises for improving hind-end strength and using cavaletti. So, I did a little googling and found a couple resources I thought were helpful.
How to Space Cavaletti:
For those needing a reminder about cavaletti spacing, and how to raise cavaletti, this is a short and informative video.
Cavaletti Training Video:
This is the source of yesterday’s animated gif, and shows a buildup of cavaletti from 4 to 18 cavaletti in a row. Not any specifics on exercises, but interesting to watch nonetheless.
Cavaletti for Dressage and Jumping Article:
Walks through a few different patterns of cavaletti depending on the goal of the rider. Unfortunately, a long read and no diagrams.
Ingrid Klimke Cavaletti Clinic:
Video recording of a clinic, starts at the 8:30 mark. I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole video but looks like a great resource.
Ingrid Klimke Cavaletti Seminar:
Another Ingrid Klimke gem. Great website that walks through the beginner to advanced exercises, including distances (although in meters). Definitely recommend this one.
Stifle Strength:
An article on stifles and improving strength in these joints.
Gymnastics from Evention:
Who doesn’t love Evention? The Schramms are hilarious as well as giving good tips, and this video on gymnastics is no exception.
Bonus! Grid exercise:
As I was perusing the net for cavaletti I came across this grid for jumping… looks pretty cool to me! What do you guys think?
Good luck to everyone in your cavaletti endeavors!
Red on the Right 
Everytime I see cavaletti I’m like “I really should do more with Henry to help strengthen him” and then I totally forget to ever set them up. So thanks for the reminder, can I get a daily one? 😉
I need to remind myself! Will hopefully give myself a kick in the pants next week to get started with the cavaletti work 🙂
Jec Ballou (author of 101 Dressage Exercises, among other things) suggested setting up a cavaletti exercise in an out-of-the-way location where you don’t have to put them up/down every day so you are more likely to do them. This works well with her walk-cavaletti exercises (because footing doesn’t matter as much), but with a big enough arena could even work for trot cavaletti.
I only say this because I, too, struggle to do cavaletti regularly even though I know I should and think about it and then never do it anyway.
thanks for doing all the research on this lol! i pretty much suck at measuring distances, but i really want to give a few of these a try… that last one looks like a blast too!
I’ve gotten pretty good at judging distances- but also, as a graphic designer, I’ve learned to notice if something is a few pixels off, so I guess it just comes with the trade!
Helpful! Thanks
No problemo 🙂
Thank you so much for putting all these together! I love gymnastic exercises. I hope Foster’s back loosens up soon.
I love the Evention TV. They crack me up.
Really helpful can’t wait to try some of the exercises thanks!
I would probably do more cavaletti if I didn’t have to set them up and tear them down. Not having to assemble jumps is probably my favorite part about being a pure dressage rider.