Rider Fitness - are you strengthening unhelpful movement patterns?
Not one human is completely symmetrical. Not only do we each have a dominant hand (and foot) but our internal organs are not arranged symmetrically.
Even if we did have the potential for absolute symmetry, from the moment we start to move patterns develop. And this is a good thing — without these patterns life would be impossible!
There are numerous factors that influence our patterns, I have already mentioned dominance of one hand/foot, our habits (at work, at play, at rest), injury (even minor or short term), our emotions, our thoughts, our environment…. I am sure you can think of some more.
Very generally speaking we will move through our dominant (dexterous) side and find stability through the other. Try standing on one leg and “swinging” the other one, then switch over. Do you notice any differences?
When you sit do you have your legs crossed? Do you prefer to sleep in a particular position? Do you muck out every day? Do you always mount your horse from the same side? (NB I am not necessarily advising you should start clambering aboard from the other side!)
Have you ever had your foot trodden on? Maybe broken a toe? How did that affect the way you walked? Maybe you have ongoing aches and pains?
Are you a shrinking violet? The life and soul of the party? Would you say your posture reflects your character? Self-image is a huge area for consideration when it comes to our patterns and how we ride.
An important point to remember is that because our patterns are so totally ingrained on a sub-conscious level we are often totally unaware of them. Others can recognise you from a distance by the way you walk, to some extent our patterns make us who we are and what we project to the outside world. They certainly form the basis of any sporting technique we develop.
When our balance is challenged our own unique patterns tend to take over, as our bodies “work” to prevent us from falling. Our patterns often become more obvious with effort, e.g. imagine your horse is reluctant to move off your leg as you ask for a lateral movement.
Consider this for a moment:
“Imagine that your body is one long stick with a ball on top which represents your head. Your job is to keep the stick upright so that your head stays centred and balanced on top. The moment your head slips to one side, the muscles have to work hard to stop your head from falling. The stick/skeleton has a superior strength and ability to support your weight, but the nervous system will always prioritise the muscular compensations in its attempts to restore equilibrium. Now replace that one joint of the stick and the ball/head with the 24 vertebrae of the spine, the pelvis, the hip, knee and ankle joints and the 26 bones of the feet. Imagine how complicated it is for us to stay in balance well enough that our muscular compensations don’t kick in! Each of these joints has the capacity for both movement and support. And we need the right balance of each to be able to move as well as the blueprint of our skeleton allows. For example any loss of support in your ankle will create a contraction of the muscles in that area to compensate. Add to this that you may want to use that foot and ankle to propel you through space and you have a major loss in efficiency”. Andrew Gibbons, Feldenkrais Practitioner.
A small problem in your foot can set off a whole chain of muscle compensations all the way up through your body. These muscle compensations are evident in your postural and movement patterns.
If the problem is due to an injury, the pain may resolve, the injury mend but it is quite possible that the foot does not return to “optimal” function. Or it may be that our choice of footwear just does not allow our feet to move as they need. There is a whole host of causative possibilities. If these are not addressed the foot continues to move (or not move!) in a sub-optimal fashion and it doesn’t take long for a sub-optimal pattern to develop all the way up through your body.
Imagine you are having a lesson on your horse, your excellent trainer gives you an instruction to improve your position, you make your very best effort to “sit up/keep your elbows in/stop gripping with your knee/insert your nemesis here!”, you may well achieve the desired effect, but how is your tension? How is your breathing? How much effort does this require? How much of your attention does it take to maintain the “correction”? Does another area of your position suffer? Do you lose your effectiveness?
Effectively you are layering a “technique” over your pattern and the two conflict! Conflict is hard work, it creates tension and it drains energy!
You resolve that you need to get stronger and fitter. Then it will be easier. You stretch, you run, you weight train, you work on your balance…..
When you stretch, your “stretchy bits” get “stretchier”, but the stuck bits stay stuck. Each running step you take compounds your pattern, as you lift weights your body gets even better and stronger at using your pattern and as you perfect your balance you fine tune your ability to stabilise in your pattern.
This was me. I was that rider. I worked super hard, yet I felt stuck, riding didn’t get any easier and essentially I was still “blocking” my horse.
Now don’t get me wrong, ALL movement is good. Whatever you enjoy doing, keep doing it! BUT there are some things you can do that WILL optimise your patterns and massively increase the benefits you get from any training you do.
This is not a comprehensive list, merely what I have found helpful in my quest to develop and refine dynamic stability in order to stay in balance with the horse, facilitate movement and enhance performance. (Rather than just getting in the way!).
1. Reduce areas of tension/restriction in muscles that are “holding” you in your pattern BEFORE stretching. (Imagine a rope with a knot in it: when you stretch the rope the knot tightens, easing out the knot before you stretch the rope makes all the difference). I do this mostly through MET’s (Muscle Energy Techniques) and SMR (self myo-fascial release).
2. Optimise the movement in your feet, what they do (or don’t do) reflects in our bodies with every step we take! I can provide some simple “selfcare tips” for looking after your feet and some highly effective exercises to facilitate “optimal” movement of the joints in your feet.
3. Take a “mindful” approach to your fitness training. Build your awareness, feel what is happening through your body, I love Pilates but if that isn’t for you still pay attention to what ever it is you are doing and how you are doing it.
4. Prioritise quality over quantity. 20 “poor” movements will not help you improve, one “quality” movement will enable you to repeat the same movement with more quality the next time. (If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got!!).
5. Keep an open mind and be kind to yourself. Remember that perfection is impossible! Often we feel our patterns are “bad” but they are an inextricable part of us. As your awareness increases acknowledge them and work, not to eliminate them, but with them to build your movement possibilities and the quality of your movement. You may find that taking your body “into” your pattern helps to open up other options!
6. Take time to understand how your body works. e.g. if you have a clear idea of where your hip joint is, the enormous range of movement options available through the joint and what actually happens at the joint during a movement, you can picture this in your minds eye and facilitate the desired effect. (I think the positive impact of “mental visualisation” on performance is widely accepted now. This is absolutely applicable to movement).
I am committed to helping riders achieve their goals in the most effective way possible, optimising our movement patterns is key to being able to move with our horses in a seamless partnership. The horse is half of that partnership, but when the rider has independent dynamic stability he/she can resist being pulled into any unhelpful patterns the horse may have (as no horse is entirely symmetrical either!) and start to positively influence the horse.
