What Jon had Alex doing reminded me of a performing seal
When I was at the Beijing Olympics Megan (Jones) and I decided we should head to the gym each morning. A gym is not my natural environment but then neither is an Olympics so I pretended I was a real athlete and went and did a bit of cardio and lots of stretching.
Each morning in the gym would be the handsome young Chinese rider Alex Hua Tian. Alex was a bit up market on us as he had his own personal trainer. Watching them I was quite glad I didn’t! This personal trainer was Jon Pitts.
Jon seemed to find it quite entertaining to make poor Alex do feats of balance and strength that I didn’t think looked fun at all. Impressive yes - fun no. It was at the stage when Alex was balanced on a ball with one arm straight out in front and one leg straight out behind, looking like nothing other than a performing seal, that I meet Jon when I asked him if I should fetch the Sardines!
That should have been enough to warn Jon that having me become one of his clients was not going to lead to a peaceful life. However Jon even with a degree in Neurology was silly enough to take me on.
At first this was only mildly painful for both of us as Jon tried to turn my battered and not always elegant body into the body of an athlete. I recently went to watch the Circus de Soleil film, ‘Worlds Away’ and after seeing it I sent Jon a text saying I felt a very inadequate athlete. He replied saying “I’m good, but not that good”.
Sonja at the Beijing Olympics. Photo by Julie Wilson
Anyway he may not be good enough to turn me into a Circus de Soleil performer but he is good enough to have discovered that in 2011 I had broken my pelvis and from England he created a program, in consultation with my surgeon, physio and masseur that had me back able to compete at Adelaide CCI4*seven months later at Adelaide 4* in 7 months!
Jon is also the sort of person who on seeing that I ‘sit left’ had pointed out which muscle group was not active and told me how to activate it. I had no idea I owned two transverse abdominus muscles!
Jon down on the farm
Recently I organised a clinic with Jon in Albany. It was amazing to watch him swop from helping the likes of me doing dressage to people who were jumping to a quick polo lesson. The fabulous thing was we all really felt we benefited from his help.
I suppose to sum up Jon the great thing about him is he has the wonderful knack of putting pain on you and making you enjoy it!
So if you are feeling brave enough to challenge your mental and physical horizons with the aim of improving your ability to stop your body being a detriment to your horses way of going ‘give him a ring.’ Jon has a web site called Fit to Ride, which is focused on safety, confidence and performance.
Jon has also written some articles for us which have proved very popular. You can find them on the links below along with John's contact details
The life of a Performance Coach
Uncovering the art of riding and busting the myths
