The Importance of a Balanced Position

I recently watched a webinar given by a Grand Prix dressage rider who I follow on social media.  She does excellent educational riding videos addressing a variety of topics to help you fix common riding problems or training problems with your horse.  If you’re interested, reach out and I’ll recommend her site but for the purpose of this blog piece I prefer to leave her unidentified. The topic of the webinar was the importance of a rider’s position in the saddle.  I signed up because I’m a huge believer in this topic and I was interested in her tips and how I might reinforce them through Pilates with my equestrian clients.   Overall it was quite interesting and she did offer some very good, actionable tips to help riders correct their position flaws.

I especially liked what she had to say about rider position and the effect it has on the horse and how important it is to fix your position in order to help your horse. Any trainer who prioritizes the horse’s well being and comfort over rider’s simply achieving success in the show ring is a good trainer in my book. Her assessment of rider position and approach to fixing it was all very much in line with how I’d been taught but I was impressed with her ability to distill the subject into simple, actionable steps.  Where I disagreed with her was when she turned to the topic of unmounted exercises that support a balanced position in the saddle. I found that I didn’t entirely agree with her recommendations on rider fitness and this got me thinking about my own approach and how it differs.

First, let me share her thoughts on rider position, its importance in becoming a better rider, and its influence on the horse.  She’s quite experienced and based on her training videos, a beautiful rider and an excellent trainer. She’s trained horses all the way through the levels in dressage as well as many horse/rider combinations in her career so it was significant to hear her say that most of the problems she sees can be corrected by simply fixing the rider’s position.  She did a very good job outlining the reasons why so here’s my summary of the points she made:

First, a correct position creates:

• a secure and balanced seat

• an independent seat that moves with the horse

• the opportunity for effective and clear communication with our horse

• an independent leg that allows for correct timing of our aids

The benefits for horse and rider are:

• reduced tension and a more harmonious picture

• reduced wear-and-tear on our body (and ultimately the horse as well)

• less fear and increased confidence as a rider

• increased satisfaction and enjoyment from riding

She then shared how she prioritizes the various components that make up a good position starting with the seat.  In her opinion, the first priority in correcting a rider’s position should be fixing their seat.  Only once you have established a balanced seat, does she feel it’s possible to address other issues.   She shared that it’s been her experience that once you correct the seat, typically any problems with your legs or hands usually fix themselves.

She then provided a number of tips for improving your seat. These included:

• taking pictures and/or videos so you can actually see your alignment while riding (ear, shoulder, hip, heel)

• keep your alignment through the gaits and be especially aware not to lean forward into your upward transitions

• LOOK UP to prevent the weight of your head from pulling you forward out of alignment and/or rounding your shoulders

• learn to rely on feel and not your eyes to feel what is happening with the horse underneath you (i.e., don’t look down!)

• focus on your center (located just beneath your navel and inward near your spine, i.e., your center of gravity) especially during transitions or if your horse spooks to help you stay in balance.

• learn to feel when your pelvis is “neutral” to allow your seat to absorb the motion of the horse Note:  I disagreed with her a tiny bit here and would add a caution to this as your pelvis doesn’t live in neutral if you are following the horse’s motion - it tips slightly forward in an anterior tilt and slightly back into posterior tilt at different stages of the horse’s gait.  I agree it is good to know where neutral pelvis is as a reference for your “home” position but it’s equally important to understand “neutral spine”.  When your horse is moving forward (in the sagittal plane), it’s primarily your spine that stays “neutral” while your pelvis follows the motion.  If your pelvis was truly “neutral”, you would bounce. Executing turns changes the equation a little as it adds an element of rotation in your spine but keeping your spine lifted and thinking “neutral” will help prevent you from collapsing on one side.  A neutral spine is a spine that’s in its natural alignment, designed to act a shock absorber and puts you in a proper alignment.

Other nuggets/relevant advice she shared included:

• Stop nagging your horse! Applying constant aids will create neural fatigue in your horse’s brain and your horse will learn to ignore you. Note: The same is true in humans! As a Pilates instructor one of the hardest things I’ve had to learn is to give a cue and then shut up a moment to let it sink in. Everyone needs time to process and it’s in the quiet moments that we learn.

• If you’re crooked your horse will be crooked too!

Then the discussion turned to rider fitness.  She has her own program, designed with the help of a Physical Therapist.  According to her description, it includes exercises to strengthen glutes, legs and arms and 1-2 sessions of Pilates each week.  She favors avoiding heavy strength training because she believes it makes riders tight and in her view adding too much muscle is an impediment to riding. She believes riders should instead focus on building strength through long, lean muscle (agreed and Pilates and resistance training are perfect for this!).   She downplayed the importance of ab work saying “strong abs don’t make you ride better!”. She cautioned riders against work outs that push them to the point of being sore, noting that in her experience this prevents riders from being able to ride softly, comfortably and without tension.  Her primary focus is on strengthening the seat, specifically the gluteus medius due to its importance in pelvic stability and the ability to apply clear leg aids (it’s an abductor muscle so it helps you lift the leg away from the horse’s side).  She singled out this muscle as the key to developing a good seat.  So this is where I got a little skeptical.

I was glad to hear she’s an advocate of Pilates for riders but it got me thinking about my program and where it differs from hers.  I agree that there’s often too much focus on abdominal work in fitness programs.  People are a bit too obsessed with trying to achieve a flat stomach or a “six-pack” which really doesn’t matter in riding.  However, I believe strongly in a whole body approach. In placing so much emphasis on the seat (and specifically the glute medius) I think you miss how the body works as a system, providing support, structure, strength, stability, balance and power.  Muscles work in coordination with other muscles - the primary movers (agonists) get help from other muscles (synergists) to produce movement at a joint while other muscles (antagonists) do the opposite (they “relax” or lengthen) to maintain structural integrity (tension) and control the movement like a brake.  I imagine the body as an orchestra, not a single note.

Your seat alone will not keep your upper body from falling forward on the drop side of a fence. Nor will it keep you upright while executing a square halt or, in reining, a sliding stop.  It won’t keep your upper body square or help you maintain your alignment.  Your glute medius works with its synergists, the psoas, piriformis, tensor fasciae latae (TFL), quadratus lumborum and rectus femoris.  It’s antagonists are the hip adductor muscles (basically your inner thigh muscles).  Without strengthening all of these muscles you risk injury to your gluteus medius from overuse, as well as strain or injury in your low back, groin and hips due to weakness.  To stabilize your pelvis, a requisite to healthy hip mobility as well as a “good seat”, you need to be able to engage and strengthen your deep abdominal muscles (the transverse abdominis and obliques).  These also help with alignment and posture, along with many muscles in your back and along your spine including the spinal extensors, trapezius, lattisimus dorsi and quadratus lumborum just to name a few.   And we can’t forget the adductor muscles of your inner thigh which also help to stabilize the pelvis.  Even though riders generally have strong adductors from riding, these muscles, as the name suggests, are the primary muscles involved in adducting the thigh.  In other words, they enable you to bring your leg in towards your mid-line (medial plane) or past it such as when you cross your legs.  This movement is important for maintaining a healthy range of motion in your hips and it’s compromised as we age.  This makes it doubly important to include in our daily exercises for our quality of life as well as longevity. Any rider’s fitness program should be focused on not only improving your riding but also improving your quality of life.

My point is that it isn’t just one muscle that provides the basis for an effective, balanced position.  Taking a whole body approach to your exercise program helps prevent weaknesses in your system (your body) which can lead to injuries which prevent you from riding.  It also ensures you aren’t doubling down on imbalances that already exist in your body, imbalances which tend to pull you out of alignment.

Here’s how I outline my approach in developing a rider’s fitness program:

1) Learn to breathe using your breathing muscles, the diaphragm and intercostal muscles of the ribcage;

2) Learn to disassociate your pelvis from your upper body so you can move your pelvis independently;

3) Learn to disassociate your pelvis from your legs so you can move your legs independently;

4) Learn how to engage your deep abdominal muscles (your transverse abdominis and obliques) in order to help stabilize your pelvis and spine and move safely;

5) Find and feel your body’s center of gravity and learn how to how to use it when you move for more power, strength, stability and balance;

6) Improve your proprioception so you can feel where your body is in space and whether you’re straight and centered so you can correct yourself;

7) Learn to stabilize so that you can improve mobility (prioritizing stability before mobility).  A corrollary to this is learning to distinguish between mobility where you’ve trained your muscles to support your range-of-motion vs. flexibility where you may have mobility or hyper-mobility at the joint without sufficient muscle tone to support it which can lead to injury;

8) Learn to use your connection to your powerhouse (center) to carry yourself with greater balance, fluidity and grace;

9) Learn to lift from your center, lengthen your spine and stand taller.

In working with equestrian clients, I generally prioritize muscle strength and development in the following order while taking into account individual client needs:

1) Abdominals (deep layers including the pelvic floor muscles)

2) Glutes and hamstrings (for pelvic stability)

3) Back (for spinal stability)

4) Inner thigh (adductors)

5) Shoulders and chest

In my experience, clients progress faster and gain confidence once they feel stronger through their abdominals, especially if they are in a de-conditioned state.   Depending on the individual, I might prioritize back strength before glutes and hamstrings based on what they need and deficits I see.  I find that riders often lack strength in their backs and this, combined with weak deep abdominals, leads to back pain.  Strengthening the muscles of the back along with deep abdominals helps them to counter the spinal compression that results from riding.

Although this is how I prioritize the exercises I start clients with, every session I design includes a little of everything unless there’s an injury which prevents certain movement.  This gives them a whole-body experience, leads to less muscle fatigue and leaves them feeling good afterward.  My goal is to help them gain strength and stamina but most importantly to FEEL GOOD.  Otherwise they won’t stay with it.  When I see a client stand a little taller or tell me they “feel lighter” I know I’ve done my job and I’m confident they’ll stick with it. I also know they’ll take this feeling with them into the saddle, making it easier to refine their position when they ride.