Melinda Macaulay
Lifestyle
Mel was born a crazy horse girl, she lived and breathed horses in a non-horsey household. During her teenage years, she regularly rode the neighbourhood’s ‘naughty’ ponies, which started her journey of connecting and collecting often unwanted and misunderstood equines. Mel and her sister together competed their team of horses and ponies.
Professionally, Mel is an accredited exercise scientist, recently completing research exploring the fitness habits and perceptions of equestrians. She has a history of working with athletes to improve performance, hosting workplace wellness programs, and has assisted thousands of clients to improve their health and fitness goals. Within the health and fitness industry, Mel has been an aerobic instructor, weightloss consultant, personal trainer, gym owner, and coached and accredited other personal trainers. As an athlete, Mel understands what it takes to train, compete, and perform at a high level, having won a National Championship and twice placed 4th in the World 24hr Solo Mountain Biking Championships.
Mel has Mitochondrial Disease, a degenerative condition that has left her with vision in only one eye. Exercise and staying healthy is an important part of her life, as is her passion for horses. Mel found her body changed along with her vision, so she began utilising her skills in exercise and program design to improve her own strength, stability and balance for riding. With over 25 years of experience in adapting exercise programming to the needs of individuals, Mel has a passion for equestrian bio-mechanics and now enjoys working with equestrians to improve their postural foundation to become stronger, stable and more confident riders. She believes that there is nothing stopping us from improving the body we do have to become better riders.
Mel’s biggest enjoyment comes from hosting clinics and working with equestrians to embrace the journey of continuous rider refinement. Mel is an accredited exercise scientist and an equestrian researcher, investigating the fitness habits and perceptions of riders. She combines her equestrian biomechanics knowledge with 26yrs experience designing and coaching fitness programmes to provide simple, effective, easy to understand rider-specific exercises assisting equestrians of all ages to improve their riding and transform their horse.
