How Do I Get My Leg Longer and Sit Deeper?

There’s a question I’ve been getting from riders a lot lately:

“How do I get my leg longer and sit deeper?”

It’s a great question. And my answer is usually the same:

We’ve been working on it since your very first Pilates session.

It lives in your footwork.

Footwork Isn’t Just the Warm-Up

When we first learn footwork, there’s a lot to think about.

Where are your feet?
Where is your pelvis?
Are your knees tracking correctly?
Can you organize your body into better alignment and maintain it as you move?

At first, simply finding those connections is work.

But as we become more experienced, something interesting can happen. We get good at footwork.

And because we know it so well, it becomes easy to think of it as the thing we do before we get to the “real” exercises.

We press out. We come in. We change foot positions. We move on.

But there is so much more available in every repetition—and even in every breath.

Once You Have the Connection, Find the Length

As we become stronger and more stable, footwork begins to teach us something deeper.

How to create length through connection.

When you press the carriage away, you’re not simply straightening your knees.

You’re learning to create a continuous line of support and length through your body.

And just as importantly, you’re learning to maintain that length as you return.

That’s the piece riders are often looking for when they tell me they want a “longer leg.”

A long leg isn’t created by reaching your foot farther toward the ground.

It’s created by learning how to establish length from your hips all the way through your feet, while at the same time creating length from your hips upward through your spine.

Length travels in both directions.

Your feet give you something to connect into, but that connection doesn’t stop at your hips. It continues through your pelvis and up through your spine. The more clearly you can find those opposing directions of length, the more space you create through your body—and the less you need to force your leg down or push yourself deeper into the saddle.

And that changes your seat.

Footwork Doesn’t End When You Leave the Reformer

Here’s where it gets more interesting.

Once we’ve established that connection in traditional footwork, the Pilates system asks us to find it again and again—but in increasingly challenging situations.

Sometimes your foot is on a bar.

Sometimes it’s on the mat.

Sometimes you’re standing.

Sometimes your leg is moving freely through space.

Sometimes the relationship is less obvious.

But the question remains:

Can you find the same connection and length you found in footwork?

That’s why footwork is never really “done.”

As your Pilates practice advances, your understanding of footwork should advance with it.

And Then We Take It to the Saddle

This is exactly what we need as riders.

Trying to push your leg down usually creates tension. Trying to sit deeper can easily turn into driving yourself downward into the saddle.

Neither necessarily creates the connection we’re actually looking for.

Instead, think about what you learned in footwork.

Can you organize your pelvis?

Can you find your foot?

Can you maintain the connection between the two?

Can you find length from your hips down through your feet while simultaneously finding length from your hips upward through your spine?

When that relationship becomes clearer, the leg can become longer without becoming heavier or more forced. And instead of trying to push yourself deeper into the saddle, you create the length and organization that allow your pelvis to settle into it.

Go Back to the Beginning

The next time you do footwork, don’t treat it as the warm-up.

Slow it down.

Notice what happens as you press out and as you return. Look for the connection between your pelvis, your legs and your feet. Then notice what happens above your pelvis too.

Can you find length in both directions?

And as you move through the rest of your Pilates session, keep asking yourself:

Where is my footwork here?

Because the connection you’re looking for in the saddle isn’t hiding in some advanced exercise.

You’ve been practicing it since day one.

You may just need to start listening to what your footwork has been teaching you.