Right up until I began re-training as a Bowen Practitioner, my attitude to fitness work was pretty much, no pain, no gain. Years spent doing athletics, pounding up and down hockey pitches, around netball courts, slogging it out in the lanes of the pool and sweating myself to the brink of dehydration in the gym, all contributed to my conviction that if I’m not severely testing my cardiovascular system and finishing half dead, then I won’t be achieving anything.

The idea of cultivating strength, tone, or testing my fitness levels through dynamic, or static stretches such as yoga, or pilates, perhaps on machines, or in a heated room, was just a little too, well, static for me. It demanded a much more arguably grown up and centred approach to fitness that sat somewhere far away from my established modus operandi of go faster, go for longer, feel the pain, go through the barrier and sweat loads.

Unsurprisingly, this no pain, no gain attitude transferred seamlessly to the physical therapy and bodywork that I spent thousands on over the years. Many a time, as I spent 60 excruciating, white knuckle minutes clutching at the treatment table and crying into towels or a strategically placed pillow, as my muscles, tendons and ligaments were persuaded to come back from the brink and coaxed into functioning correctly again, I debated which was more painful, sustaining the injury, or picking up the pieces afterwards?

I will continue to be eternally grateful for the physios and sports physios that continue to listen to me drone on about the latest injury and keep straight faces and not roll their eyes when I lie, both about how much I have rested the injury and the fact that I won’t ride, walk, work out until I am advised that I can. However, my re-training, firstly in the Bowen Technique and secondly, in the subsequent studying I have been doing as a result, has opened my eyes to the myriad of options we have to keep ourselves and our equines fit, both mentally and physically fit.

Clients/ owners often comment on how amazing it is that such a seemingly gentle, quiet, smooth, non-invasive, minimal pressure technique like Bowen, can have such profound, long lasting, tangible, visible effects on themselves and particularly, their horses.

It is true that a core principle of Bowen is the belief that “less is more”. This is demonstrated in a number of ways such as the pressure we use, the time we spend ‘hands on’ vs the breaks which allow for processing and the number of moves we actually make. The benefits from this pain-free, holistic approach are clear, ranging from detoxing and rebooting the immune system, easing allergies and digestive issues, to the release of the body’s natural endorphins and the re-aligning of the skeleton facilitating correct movement and the eradication of muscular tension and pain, the treatment is intensely relaxing.

I’m not going to lie, I’m still very much a sports physio girl myself, but I have bought myself an Equestrian Pilates book and intend to do the exercises, more for my mare’s sake than mine! Speaking of Tooreeney Rose, she is fortunate in that she gets to have physio, Bowen and the odd massage as part of her general fitness routine. I try and be guided by her and what she tells me she needs. Unlike her rider, the no pain, no gain approach is definitely not one that she subscribes to !!!