Balanced Seat Discussion Forum
How
to Find, Use and Control Your Core Riding Muscles
by Jane
Christian
I believe ignorance of the use of these core muscles is the cause
of most of the frustrations for the rider and a lot of suffering for the horse.
If you don't use your deep postural 'control center' muscles located within your
torso (between your diaphragm and pelvic floor), the outer muscles in the
shoulders, arms, hands, hip, thigh, knee, calf, ankle WILL take over the job.
You cannot then move your arms and legs independently and freely. Stiffness and
tenseness are then the result. (see 'Want to ride better - read this")
TO RECAP - WHY YOU NEED TO USE THESE CORE MUSCLES
Consider for a moment the force that a horse, no matter what size, exerts when
moving forward. Add in gravity and the up, down, side to side movement of a
horse and you can see the rider's body needs to use some muscles somewhere to
avoid being flung off! What tends to happen is that, when we first learn to
ride, we naturally use every other muscle but the correct ones to avoid falling
off - its simply an instinct for survival. These habits then tend to stay
with us forever unless we are specifically taught how to locate and use core
muscles or we discover them by chance.
FINDING AND DEVELOPING YOUR CONTROL CENTRE CORE MUSCLES
A good image to use for visualizing the important core muscles is to think of
your torso as a box sitting on end on the saddle.
The top of the box is your diaphragm (starts just below your last ribs) and this
needs to feel like it is held down whilst still breathing in and out (will cover
breathing later!).
The sides of the box are from your underarm to your hip both sides and your
psoas muscle* needs to push out towards the sides of the box.
*(the deep core muscle that runs either side of your spine - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoas_major)
The front of the box is your abdominals that run down the front of your torso
and these need to be pressed outwards using the psoas as well.
The bottom of the box is the pelvic floor which runs from the front of your
'seat' to the back and needs to be in tone or 'up'.
'SUCKING' THE HORSE'S BACK UP
Now, here is the good part. Visualize your pelvic floor as a large muscle
running from front to back of your seat. Now imagine the middle point and try to
lift that up as if you want it to meet your navel. At the same time think of
your navel reaching down to meet the muscle that's coming up to meet it.
When on a horse, with legs hanging from the hip joints, this feels like you have
made a space underneath your seat for the horse's back to come up and, also, it
now allows you to use your legs correctly. The whole leg - from the hip joint
down - can be used freely around the horse to ask for energy. No pushing and
shoving and holding reins tight required. And, it is only with freeing the legs
in this way that effective lateral leg aids can be given.
GET ALL YOUR GUY ROPES WORKING
Now, when all these muscles are brought 'up' into tone (you may need to be shown
how to do this) they work in opposition to each other and hold you stable.
However, beware, its very like the guy ropes that hold a tent up - if one part
of the system is weaker, the stronger side will pull the weaker side over (more
on asymmetry later).
IN SUMMARY, WHEN RIDING, THINK..........
KEEP THE LID DOWN
PUSH YOUR SIDES, FRONT AND BACK OUT WITH YOUR DEEP PSOAS MUSCLE
DRAW UPWARDS WITH MIDDLE OF PELVIC FLOOR
DRAW DOWNWARDS FROM NAVEL TO MEET IT
and keep breathing deeply!
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