A connected leg

To improve suppleness, it is important for riders to have some basic knowledge about their own anatomy, and in this post I thought to start with the legs.

In riding the rider's legs belongs to the horse's trunk. The legs should rest around it without squeezing, ready to support the aid from the hand and equally ready to send information about the horse's movement to the rider.

There are many who on a straight question as to where the hip joint is actually do not know the answer. To be able to improve our riding skills it is worth while to spend some time learning more about how our body works; where movement take place and what happens when we move. Let's take a closer look at how our legs are connected to our torso both bone wise and muscular. (Picture below comes from Wikipedia).



As you can see by the picture, there are several muscles in and around the pelvis attached to the femur. (There are 17 different muscles responsible for moving the femur in different directions, the other can be found here.)

The hip joint, like the shoulder joint, is a ball joint with the ability of movement in multiple directions (picture from healthpages.org).



A muscle that is relevant to the rider's ability to obtain a stable vertical seat is psoas major. Its origin is on the inside of the spine, lumbar vertebrae 1-5, and it attaches to the inside of the thigh bone. Psoas, among other muscles, are responsible for the flxing of the hip, that is to bend the torso towards the legs (the legs are fixed) or the legs towards the body (the trunk is fixed).

A shortened psoas muscle pulls the lower back forward and tilts the pelvis forward (increased lordosis). If the pelvis is tipping forward it means that the movement the head of the femour is impaired and that affects our ability to absorb the horse's movement.

A gentle stretch can help to overcome a shortened psoas muscle is the Alexander rest. During activity it can be helpful to think about letting your legs and torso "let go" of one another so that the legs can hang down from the torso and the trunk can have a direction straight upwards over the legs.

We may be content with less mobility than this three-year-old can produce but the potential is there...




"Riding turns 'I wish' to 'I can'."
Pam Brown