With the days are shorter and the weather colder and colder, I am seeing a common theme in my clients. Most are lacking, or loosing the concept of length.
In Pilates we use length to help create opposition and strength. It’s important to train length in your muscles. We often confuse strengthening our muscles with shortening our muscles. In the winter, I see riders having a hard time sitting their horses, sustaining pain in the back after their rides, and collapsing in the torso.
The general theme is the collapsing and shortening. It is an attempt for riders to better “ground” their seats, but in truth all that’s been accomplished is a collapsed powerhouse and locked, stiff muscles.
How do we break the cycle? By reestablishing length evenly throughout the body, and then translating that length it into the saddle.
As a riders we often take on our horses’ imbalances. As we get stuck in the cycle of fixing those, we lose some of the proprioception (awareness of our body’s movement) that we need to remain balanced and level ourselves. If we work on the mat, and the apparatus establishing squareness and length, we can then take that feeling into the saddle.
Start by waking up the feet. By reconnecting to the feet we become more aware of how we place our weight in our legs, and then in our hips and pelvis. Due to the fact that we wear shoes more than we are barefoot, our feet and their intrinsic muscles become weak. Tack on the heavy socks and winter boots for the lucky few of us that live in cold winter climates, and you can imagine the disconnect that happens in our feet.
Let’s be honest. Unless they hurt or cramp, how often are you thinking about your feet? Feet are our foundation and hold the attachments that link right up our backline over our head and attach right between our eyebrows. That’s a lot of energy and power to tap into and use. As riders we use a lot of leg, but if the feet aren’t awake, how can we truly use it correctly? Are you really using the whole power of your leg? Probably not.
The next step is the legs. Our legs are where the shortening becomes a tangible issue. We use these long, powerful appendages all day long, to walk, sit, stand, etc. As riders, we also use them to power our horses forward, bend, and engage them in various ways that our disciplines ask for.
If we become short and fixed in our legs then we are unable to be effective with them. Oftentimes this shortness is more pronounced on one side of the body and proceeds to effect other body parts. For example, we can’t get the horse off our left side. Even though we are working so hard with our left leg, we are getting no discernible effect in our horse. We try harder. Now our left leg is feeling like it’s going to fall off. It’s most likely gotten shorter, and our knee has probably superglued itself to the saddle, as has our upper thigh.
We are so set in our minds on achieving the reaction that we forget to let go of the aid and allow for the reaction. We are also so fixed on our goal that this constant leg engagement pushes ourselves right out of our seat. It causes our hips and glutes to tighten and fix, which then locks our lower back. This leads to a tight rider, and a tight-behind-the-leg horse.
Next we look at how the legs are affecting the glutes and hips. Remember, everything is attached.
If we have a shortness in our legs, it’s going to travel up to its connection point in the hip or lower back. It’s OK to use your butt. Often riders think they have to be soft or flat in their glutes. That’s just not going to work from a muscle-firing point and it won’t work from a balance point, either. You need your glutes to help fire the inner thighs and hamstrings.
Riders tend to suffer from very sore glutes, so thus we have to lengthen and strength the glutes and the attachment points into them as well. You need to be able to use this part of your body effectively otherwise other muscle groups will try to accomplish the job and just end up creating more blockages. These blockages will then block you seat from correctly absorbing the horse’s back and energy. They are usually the cause of a lot of lower back pain. I am a big fan of foam cylinders and massage work to help reestablish the correct balance in this region. It is usually painful but very worth the time and care.
Let’s look at the lats and core. Usually we try so hard to have a strong core that we forget the core is more than just our abdominals. To be truly long, strong and fluid, the front and back body have to work synergistically together. Often most riders’ lats are too long, and their abs and chest muscles are too tight.
We don’t really think about extension work until we realize that the horse is heavy. Our arms really don’t fix that. Or our trainers take our hands away on the lunge line. Then we see just how collapsed we are.
I love introducing extension work into every session with every body type. By adding extension into your routine, you add awareness to your back body, you strengthen the lats, and help the rotator cuff muscles to be more balanced. You can then truly breath into your body and find the connection from your ribs into your lats.
This is a powerful connection. It allows for effective half halts and for proper body position in stressful situations. Not only is it great in the saddle, but it’s also great all day long. It allows you to walk more lightly and to feel better in your body. Another huge bonus from this work is the freedom we desire in our hips.
This is why it’s so important to remember to find your length. Start by being even in your feet, so your legs can be even, so your hips can be open and your back accepting. When you give the aid with both or one leg you can then let go and stretch back down into your even, active, feet. You can also lengthen up and engage your back.
No matter the horses, level or imbalance we cannot allow the awareness of our balance to be compromised, we cannot give away our length. We can also not be afraid to let go and allow the horse to do what we asked. Maybe they do it perfectly, maybe they don’t. It doesn’t matter, you can ask and redirect them again and again, until you achieve the desired result.
The point is that you have to not sacrifice you seat, your aids to achieve it. You have to be as aware of yourself as you are of your horse. You have to be balanced and clear in your aids so that you can effectively ask, and then effectively respond to, the horse’s answer. You have to stay long and open to what’s coming next.