Importance of Resting

It is very important to highlight the qualities of the rest, because many people believe that continuous exercise and riding, is the best way to stay in shape and enhance polo performance, because of this error is good to highlight things like this:

• Rest allows the body to reduce tension in muscles and joints, which are very important to avoid the appearance of the annoying and painful muscle injuries.

• Rest helps the muscle to assimilate more quickly and easily any exercise.

• Rest serves largely as energy saver, which can contribute to better performance in the following competition.

Our body recharges energy while we sleep. It regenerates and prepares to face the next day’s activity via critical circumstances that happen overnight.

Among them I emphasize:

• Strengthening the immune system

• Breathing is slower, which causes it to oxygenate every cell and prepares them for the effort the next day

• The mental processes are organized, especially those relating to remember and associate

• Intervertebral fluid necessary to the flexibility of the spine, is regenerated

To achieve this rest, we must perform a series of recommendations:

• Schedule a time for getting in and out of bed

• Sleep around 8 hours a day

• After 6 pm try to avoid  stimulants like coffee, tea, chocolate, etc.

• Napping for 30 minutes is enough, naps longer than this period may cause us to wake up disoriented, and difficulty to fall asleep at night

• Stop physical and mental activities before bed and take a relaxing shower

• Avoid lying down listening to the radio or watching television

• It’s important that the last meal of the day be simple and make it a couple of hours before bedtime

Rest well so you can perform in a better way throughout your training sessions and games.

Hydration

In this video I’ll talk about hydration and how to make homemade sports drink.

Hope you like it!

Core Training

Working out the core muscles is something that most of the players that I know are doing these days. The interesting thing is that most of them don’t know the correct way to train this area in order to get results for our sport.

But, first of all, what muscles are involved in “the core”?  The quickest answer is – the abs and lower back- . There are multiple training routines and theories, but most of them are not related with polo. As all of you know this sport requires strength, agility, mobility and flexibility to name a few of the physical qualities needed. If someone includes all of this into a core specific workout, the results at the end of the day will be greater.

In the following videos I will show you different core exercises that will help you gain and increase those qualities that I mentioned earlier.

In this first exercise, you have to concentrate on keeping your feet flat on the side of the mat, and a solid position of the legs. Try to touch the floor on one side and the other with your hands. To add more difficulty, you can place objects on the sides on the ground at greater distances to reach further, but without losing the technical basis of the exercise.

In this exercise, pay attention to the position of the trunk. You don’t have to be very straight or very lying, but in an intermediate position between the two. As the exercise is developed increasingly close to the ground, it becomes more difficult. Always try to keep your feet in contact with the floor and knees bent. The motion is to rotate the upper body on both sides keeping the correct posture, bouncing a ball on the ground when we are about to reach to the limit of rotation, in a coordinated overall movement. At first attempt to perform the movement correctly and as you do it you can add difficulty by increasing the weight with a heavier medicine ball and more reps.

This last exercise is the most difficult. To start you will need to place an object between your knees making pressure with the adductors and keep your legs bent at 90 degrees. Lying on your back, open your arms and move the lower body side to side almost touching the ground at a controlled speed, don’t do it fast. Try to keep the shoulders touching the mat all the time. The strength and motion control is provided by the muscles of the core. For more difficulty, you can add some weight between the legs, which will make the adductors being as well exercised.

(Ask your physician to help you, and also always train under the supervision of a professional)

TIP: Take Good Care Of Your Adductors

As everybody knows the adductors are a very important group of muscles for polo. There’s a common path between the players that goes to the gym by themselves, is that they train the legs considering that a squat or a lunge will work all the muscles of the lower part of the body. This is not false, but remember that those complex exercises will help you in many ways but not entirely for adductors strength development.

There is one machine that every gym has, in which you sit down and you put your legs wide open. The exercise consists in an adduction movement, this means that you have got to close your legs. Add some weight as a resistance and follow the workout guide that your trainer gives to you to get it done properly.

Other thing that you should always do is stretching! Take your time to stretch. It is very simple to learn how to stretch a muscle, just think of the contraction movement of the muscle and do the opposite motion to stretch it out.

Try to keep your adductors strong and flexible, and if you have any question do not doubt of asking!

Rotational Movements

I’ve been getting many questions about training for polo. One of the most common questions is “It is possible to train the rotational movements that i make playing polo?” Yes, it is possible to train and increase the range of motion, and also another important thing is to bring strength and power to the muscles involved on those movements.

I’ll give you three rotation exercises that can be implemented very easily. They’re also great for training rotational movement patterns to beginners.

In the first one is important to keep the arms straight and rotate up diagonally. I don’t want much weight here. I want the pattern done correctly regardless of weight.

The second one is different but the foundation of the movement stays the same. The difference is we break the arms and pull the weight into the chest. Then we drive it up diagonally as we rotate.

The last movement is alternating rotations with some weight. These can actually be loaded the most and can help teach explosive hip rotation. The difference is in the starting position. The player holds the weight between his legs in a squat instead of rotated at the bottom. As we come up, all rotation stays the same. The arms stay straight in this exercise, and we utilize the hips and legs to forcefully drive the weight up. You shouldn’t get tired in the arms or shoulders here. If you do, you’re performing the movement incorrectly.

In all the exercises, you should do it to both sides.
(Ask your physician to help you, and also always train under the supervision of a professional)

Horse Riding Muscles

The muscles used in riding are unique to any other sport because of the position of the body while riding. The muscle groups needed to ride a horse should be developed religiously as a rider progresses in their training.

Exercising on a gym ball can simulate the riding position is many ways. The player is able to move the ball around using their pelvis and hamstrings. By following specific movement patterns, the rider can gain increased mobility in the pelvis and lower back, two areas that are important for polo playing. The ball encourages and imitates a similar posture to the position required for riding a horse. By adding some exercises, players can further strengthen these horse riding muscles.

Perhaps the most important muscle groups needed for horse riding are the thighs, adductors, quadriceps and hamstrings.  These muscles are not only used to deliver cues to the horse, but also to hold on. Continuing with the use of the ball, you can train strength, coordination and stamina with three simple exercises.

1-    Sitting on the gym ball, let’s squeeze it with the hamstrings and take the center of gravity far back, separating our feet off the floor and trying to keep that position of balance/strength as long as possible. Starting with a minimum of ten seconds.

2-    Lying on a mat on your back, let’s squeeze the gym ball with knees and feet (knees bent), then take it to one side and the other with slow movements, controlling that the ball is well tight. Try to top 5 repetitions for each side, as you manage to do easily, increase the intensity by adding repetitions.

3-    Sitting back in the gym ball, will perform trunk rotations to both sides, with arms stretched forward together. When you are rotating to one side, will move from a sitting position to a semi-squat without losing contact with the ball. And going from side to side will return to a sitting position again, but only as a transition, not to sit still. Start with 3 times for each side and once you manage to make it easy, start working in units of time: 30 sec, 45 sec, 1 min.

The muscles must be stretched well beforehand and afterwards because they tend to shorten and hurt when riding. Athletes from all sports are now training away from their field and polo players are following this trend in order to improve their skills and body function.

Importance of Stretching

Stretching is so often something Polo players neglect to do at the end of a game or training session because they are too tired to do anything else. Or when they do, they just rush through each position and don’t get the full benefit of each stretch.

We stretch to improve our flexibility. Flexibility is the range of motion that is available to a joint or joints. Flexibility is important for the following reasons:

- It improves muscle balance around a joint, thus improving posture

- It reduces the chance of injury when playing a sport or in everyday activities

- It increases the blood and nutrient supply to muscles and cartilage, thereby also reducing muscle soreness after training or competition.

After every training session, every game, and every practice each polo player should take at least 15 minutes to stretch the entire body. There are several simple stretches that you can do on your own. Laying on the grass you can start with the lower body such as hamstrings, adductors, glutes. Then continue with the lower back and abdominals. After that stand up and stretch your quadriceps, calves, chest, back, shoulders, wrist and fingers, neck, triceps, and your thumbs. (Stretching your thumb might sound unusual, but it is particularly important for polo players, especially on the right hand).

Balance

Do you feel that when hitting a backhand or neck shot, you fall? Do you feel that when the play
change direction and the horse turn quickly, you fall? Do you feel that when you try to hook the
opponent mallet, you fall? Do you feel that you cannot reach difficult balls because you fall?
Balance and strength are essential qualities for polo. The vast majority of professional polo players, develop them when they were children as they grow up on the horse. Many others who were not lucky enough to have polo family or those who start polo at an advanced age, find it more difficult to achieve the perfect balance and the optimum strength for this sport. I turn toward the latter on this occasion.
Adding more balance training (without the horse) and spend more hours riding will help you a lot.
Improving your balance takes time and practice and it doesn’t just happen overnight. However, with consistent practice, you should be able to improve your balance over time. Here I add some simple balance tests that you can perform by your own at any place, in order to set the baseline and start training from it:

Balance Tests
- Stay still for a minimum of ten seconds on your tiptoes with feet together
- Remain on one leg without moving for ten seconds at least
- With eyes closed and feet together stand still sixty seconds
- Stand on tiptoes with your feet together and eyes closed for a minimum of fifteen seconds
- Remain on one leg with eyes closed for ten seconds at least
- Set two points in the ground, and walk normally from one to another with your eyes closed. The goal is to reach the second point perfectly, but if you finish far from it or close but at one side, it means that you are unbalanced.

The relationship between intensity and duration of resistance training

Beyond the various definitions, we can agree that the resistance is nothing more than the ability to sustain an effort over time. Thus, when a man gets to perform an activity for a longer time than another in similar conditions, we say that we are facing a stronger individual.

However, in the sports training environment is important to highlight two concepts that can define a much more complex reality: the intensity and duration.

From these two concepts, the term “resistance” starts to take a new dimension. If we refer to the intensity, it is clear that the speed does not equal 100-meter runner to that of a mountaineer who walks with 15 kilos on your back. The runner will need stamina to withstand a high intensity of work for about 10 seconds, while in the second case, the resistance will be necessary to support a lower intensity for a few hours.

This analysis shows a clear relationship: the intensity is inversely proportional to the duration. As the duration increases, the intensity decreases, and vice versa. In both cases, the type of resistance is different.
When we are working against a low or medium intensity, and therefore long-term, we say that this is an effort “aerobic.” On the contrary, compared to high-intensity and short duration we are facing an anaerobic-type effort. But where did these words come out? The answer is simple.

Our body can produce energy via two routes, one aerobic and one anaerobic. The first is based on an energy production system that uses oxygen as a vital part of their action, while the second approach dispenses with this item. Thus, the anaerobic system provides energy faster because its mechanism of production is shorter. It happens in reverse with the aerobic system, which is slower because it has more steps.

Now the picture is clearer. If I need readily available energy, my body will produce it via anaerobic. When availability is not so important, you do so via aerobic. The need for energy is reflected in work intensity.

 

Fat

It’s good to know what we eat, whether it is good or bad, whether it is useful for the food intake of the polo player, and also what are the nutritional components. In this occasion I will provide information about fat.

Fat contains more than twice the amount of energy as carbohydrate. A single gram contains nine calories making it a valuable source of fuel for longer duration activities. While fat cannot supply energy quickly enough for very intense activity like Polo, it can be used by the body to power lower intensity exercise such as jogging and walking.

Fat also provides insulation and protection to vital organs such as the heart, lungs and liver and transports vitamins throughout the body.

Not all dietary fat is the same. Like carbohydrate, fat can be broken down into several different groups.

Saturated Fats

Saturated fats are found in foods such as red meat, egg yolks, cheese, butter, milk and commercially prepared cakes, pies and cookies. The typical western diet consists of almost 40% total fat. Of this, 15% is made up of saturated fats, which is considered a major cause of coronary heart disease, diabetes and other degenerative illnesses. No more than 10% of the diet should come from saturated fats.

Unsaturated Fats

Unsaturated fats come in the form of monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats. Monounsaturated fats can actually lower the risk of coronary heart disease and are found in foods like olive oil, canola oil, avocados, almonds and pecans. Polyunsaturated fats, found in sunflower oil, safflower oil and corn oil are not thought to contribute to heart disease but don’t offer the same protection as monounsaturated fats.