posture posture posture
Core muscles in general terms are the muslces that surround your back and abdomen (abdomen, below the chest and above the pelvis). Core strengthening is easy for riders. Riders sitting on board their horses , in alignment with the horse through posture, are immediatly prepared for core strengthening and stability. Each and every time the rider performs within any gait, they have to breathe harder and through natural respiration it enlists the diaphram (dome shaped muscle below the ribs) in contraction and relaxation. When it contracts your tummy muscles tighten and at the same time, the muscles in your back do too, wow, they support one another well! How easy is that? That's just sitting and naturally breathing on your horse. The deepest core muscles are transverse. Transverse means going across i.e:
from A ------------ to -------------- B
picture these deep abdominal muscles wrapping you up in a mini blanket. These are the instant muscles that assist in movement and start the ball rolling. As a rider, your body is constantly performing and working these core strengthening muscles. This is because you are not sat at home on the settee or walking around your house, you are on something that moves and breathes underneath you.On board a horse they are always virtually switched on due to the unpredicatbility with horses and them moving around.
How do riders know if they have good core stability or
not?
I set you a task: Have a look at as many riders as possible on you tube doing basic arena work. How many have a little slouch forward? how many are on the forehand? How many look puffed out? These riders are out of neutral alignment due to lack of core stability. (Neutral alignment: stand yourself against a wall in your house, this, is neutral alignment, now try and walk like that, awkward eh! ). Slouchy head, bouncing around in trot, find it hard to do sitting trot? These are a few tell tale signs.There you go, you should ride tomorrow and set yourself a task in strengthening your core muscles. Rider tip: Find a position on board comfortable for you, then work with it, do not fix yourself into a forced instant text book posture, you have to train the muscles to give you that look, the main key here is to keep your lumbar region flexible (lower back). This will all create an achievement of working for 'centre of gravity' (Will go into in more detail on another blog day).To find out if you are achieving that lumbar flexibility, walk around the arena on your horse in your new found position and see if your hips and bottom are actually flowing with your horses natural four time movement in walk. If you are still pretty fixed and tense: count to yourself whilst walking around the arena, one, two , three, four, one , two, three, four and you will have instant relaxation and flowing movement in conjunction with your horse. This is all down to the psychology of riding, you are not thinking of the task now of finding that position, you are concentrating on the horses gait. Honestly it's that simple. All riders should ride like that on many sessions, just so they remember how to feel the horse. You will also be surprised at how natural in motion you both are if you can close your eyes with someone else being your eyes on the ground for you. Amazing how all the pressure of trying too hard just disappears like you have thrown a switch off, you will feel how quickly your horse relaxes and picks up the impulsion in his movement too! Try it, go on!! To help you upright ask your friend on the ground to keep shouting at you "puppet strings" , different eh!? You dont want learning to be boring do you? puppet strings is a good way for you and your helper to keep letting you know a slouch is happening, imagine your helper has you as a puppet and they want you upright. (this is great for teaching children too) .Another little tip: Get a spare schooling whip or something straight that will not cause any harm incase of an accident and place this behind your back under your arms. Its all posture gathering tips.
Dont forget your head! Your head weighs loads, many riders have a habit of looking down or have a slight head tilt whilst riding, this is because it feels pretty natural , if you look at the neutral alignment of yourself following the exercise above, the position feels pretty weird and un - natural in a way. However, because of the weight of the riders head whilst riding you unknowingly can naturally encourage the horse to lean on its forehand , this will weaken the horses' neck muscles also when they are supposed to support your horse and work with your horses' back for optimum correct anatomical performance. Really a slouchy riders head is due to a weak splenius muscle, the muscle that supports your head and keeps it upright, this can be altered by core stability exercises.When you see a horse working below the bit and on its forehand, your horse too, has weak splenius muscles. Have a look at a nice dressagy horse on you tube, see how its majestically working at the poll, and through it's back due to correct muscles use through it's back and neck, at the poll, in basic terms shows the anatomy of the horse working correctly,the splenius muscles contracts to support the weight of the head. look where you're going, and your body will follow.
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| Charlies' Splenius muslce |
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| Here is Pearls' Splenius muscle |
Have a good pal or instructor assist you on the lunge, work stirrup less safely with a helper, it is so rewarding. If you want to work from home, buy yourself an exercise ball for strengthening them core muscles to give you that dream posture, this is a great way and can quite easily simulate riding because it actually moves all over the place and you have to teach it to behave using your body!! Its all fun, others might think you look odd but I bet they would have a sneaky go at it. If you would like a basic exercise plan for using a core / yoga ball , send me a message. FOR EXAMPLE OF CORE BALLS AVAILABLE CLICK HERE
(If you do not wish to purchase a ball as a moving object, you can use a simple dining chair at home, search the net for easy to understand videos to suit your style of learning in core strength exercise / pilates / yoga)
Ok, so you have a goal now when you get to the yard, you will be working hard to acheive it, you will be sore a couple of days after, ouccccccccccchhhh them tummy muscles, you might even feel like you have a bad back too. If you are feeling the pain for your hard work your'e doing good! Pain in muscles 24hrs - 72 ish hours later has it's own name Delayed Onset Muscles Soreness (DOMS) but I'll talk about that next time!!
Good luck xxx I dont half rabbit on when I pick a topic! xxx
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| Slouch, Aligned, Tranverse line, Alignment with slight head tilt
THEORY : ON LINE
CORE STRENGTHENING LESSON TO FOLLOW
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