This is a part of the Hot Topic podcast series from the Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center on Exercise and Fitness After Spinal Cord Injury. Katie Smith, SCI Survivor, discusses Horseback Riding with Spinal Cord Injury.

To get onto the horse, I go up onto a ramp and a platform, and I transfer onto the horse as if I were transferring from one chair to the other. But I have support staff, and they lift my legs up so that I’m able to get onto the horse. And the horseback riding — like all of the sports, they’re very good and engaging for your body. But horseback riding is very unique because the movement of the horse relaxes your muscles and even trotting — the movement of a horse’s hips when you’re trotting — mimics what a person’s hips do when you’re walking. So it works your body in a different way while engaging your core muscles to help you sit straighter.

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