Which Muscles Should you use for Riding?

We often hear our instructors telling us to “Use your core!” while we’re riding, but honestly, how often do we know exactly what they want us to do? Is it our abs? Is it our butt? A lot of the time we’re just clenching our whole trunk and hoping for the best! And that’s really the worst!

For this week’s video, I’ve reunited with the awesome Stephanie Seheult from Ride Advanced Physio to drill down on EXACTLY what core muscles we should be using while we’re riding. She drew muscles all over my shirt and breeches to demonstrate what’s going on underneath our skin and what we should be using to keep ourselves in the best riding position. When you engage the correct muscles, you can correctly follow and absorb the motion of your horse instead of just stiffening up and bouncing!

Here’s some of the areas she talks about and why they’re so important

1. Take it to the… MED – When it comes to the glutes and our riding position, Med is better than Max! The Glute Med is the muscle that connects our femur to our pelvis on either side of our hips and it’s one of the most important muscles to engage when riding as it controls our stability in the saddle from side to side.
2. The transverse abdominus is the sheet of muscle that is on either side of our waist. THIS is the ab that we need to activate when we’re riding. It works in conjunction with the glute med, lifts us up and gets us deeper in our seats.
3. The rectus abdominus (or six pack, as it’s more commonly known) is the enemy of the equestrian as clenching it just rounds our back and makes us tip forward.
4. Axe the Max – The Glute Max is basically the butt muscle and activating those while we’re riding us just going to make us pop out of the saddle like a jack-in–the-box!

Watch the video and see Stephanie put me through my paces activating the right and wrong muscles, and what effect this has on the overall position! I hope you enjoy this video, we’ve got more to come! I do have a masterclass on Dressage Rider Position that Stephanie and I worked together on!

Thanks for watching and happy riding!