A FOCUS ON RIDER POSITION WITH JULIE MALCOLM

This month Julie Malcolm discusses with us the importance of vertical alignment.

One of the crucial building blocks of a good seat on a horse is vertical alignment. The alignment is an imaginary plumb-bob dropped from your ear to your ankle. On the way the imaginary vertical line should bisect the rider’s ear, shoulder, hip joint, and ankle joint. In my coaching work I often see riders that are nowhere near lined up - in all levels from intro to Grand Prix, amateurs to professionals.

Why is it important? When your body is correctly stacked up it is at its most stable, and able to absorb the forces acting on it. It helps our horses to carry us better, it helps us keep up with our horses and it can help keep our back in better shape too. Tipping forward typically puts the horse on the forehand, a chair seat puts too much weight on the loin area of the horse, leaning back typically speeds up horses (believe it!) and results in the classic “water skiing” where the rider is unfortunately reliant on the reins for balance. Rider’s often comment that making changes to improve their alignment results in a more forward going horse, a horse that more readily reaches for the contact and eventually more comfort for themselves (especially riders with back pain).

When we are on board our horse we are in a sittingstanding position, our weight is ideally distributed over the ribcage of the horse as well as its long back muscles. However, it’s easy to get into bad habits or not realise we are out of balance. Here are some tips to test yourself – on and off your horse.

EXERCISE 1:

Put yourself in a sitting-standing position while standing on the ground. This is with your knees bent and your legs apart as if straddling a horse. If you have a long mirror handy have a look at your line up by standing sideways on to the mirror. What do you see? I bet your ankles are almost directly in line with your hip joints (because if they are not, you will have trouble keeping upright). If you don’t have a mirror that you can use, enlist another pair of eyes to give you feedback or take some selfies or video on your phone.

While in your sitting-standing position, move your feet to get your ankles in front of your hips – what do you notice? You’ll probably fall backwards! The extent to which you fall backwards or not will depend on how well you are able to enlist your quad muscles (the big muscles at the front of your thighs), your core abdominal muscles and counterbalance with your upper body tipped forward. Either way you will notice its rather hard work to stay upright!

Now try the opposite: move your feet so your ankles are behind your hips (or your hips in front of your ankles) – you’ll notice your body will want to pitch forward.

The exact same forces will act on your body when you are on the horse. If, on your horse, your ankle knobbles are in front of your hips your body will tend to tip backwards once the horse gets in motion. If we magically disappear the horse out from underneath you, you

About Julie

Julie is an ESNZ dressage coach with a passion for rider biomechanics and equine learning theory. She conducts clinics throughout New Zealand and on-line, is a dressage competitor and List B dressage judge, has been a previous Dressage NZ board member and Auckland Dressage event organiser.

This article is modified from the original that appeared in the online magazine “The Equestrian” in 2016 might land on your feet, but you’d fall backwards. If your feet are a long way in front of the vertical line from your hip you’d be at high risk of landing on your nether regions. Consequently if your feet are too far back you will be more likely to pitch forward if the horse is taken out from under you.

Most of us will hope not to have the horse disappear out from underneath us – but this falling back or pitching forward tendency has consequences for your horse. Your weight will be pitched to the back of the saddle or the front of the saddle (not particularly comfortable for the horse). When the horse is in motion you are likely to affect its balance and/or forwardness, you may have difficulty having a truly independent seat, clarity of aids and forward pushing hand and you may affect the horse’s ability to carry its back up and support you as a rider.

The ability to keep your foot underneath you in the saddle can be affected by your stirrup length, your conformation, the flexibility of your hip flexors and rotators, the recruitment of your glutes, and flexibility in your back, hips, knees and ankles. Saddle design and fit can also have a bearing – especially the placement and size of knee/ thigh blocks. Being told to push your heels down will most likely send your lower leg forward as will taking your knee completely off the saddle.

EXERCISE 2 - NEXT THING TO TRY IN YOUR SITTING STANDING POSITION ON THE GROUND:

Look at your line up from shoulder to hip – is this vertical? You will be in near-perfect balance if your shoulder is over your hip and your ear is over your shoulder. You’ll notice that if your feet are squarely under your hips that you can in fact tilt your upper body forward or backward (shoulders in front of or behind the vertical line) and stay still on your feet. But also notice that when you tilt forward or backward how much more effort it is to stay in balance.

What are your lower back and pelvis are doing. If you are wearing a belt – is it level? Or does it tip down in front or behind? Does your lower back have too much arch in it (concave) or not enough (convex). Your lower back (lumbar spine) should have a small arch in it when you are standing. Too much arch in the lower spine is nearly always hand in hand with a pelvis that is tipped down in front (your belt will be lower at the front than the back), while the opposite is true for a slumped lower back. If you’re either one of these what do you need to do to get a level pelvis and a near flat lower back? If you have an arched back you’ll need to try pulling up your belly button or pubic bone. Notice how this will probably involve recruiting your abdominal muscles (bingo!). If you are the opposite you might need to think of dropping your pubic bone or almost making a duck bum out behind you (just a bit mind!) – imagine wagging some feathers behind you.

EXERCISE 3 – ON YOUR HORSE

On your horse how does your vertical alignment look? Have someone take a photo or line yourself up alongside an arena mirror. Is there a nice straight line from your shoulder to your hip? When looking from side on is your waistband or belt level? Is your lower back arched, slumped or nearly flat? There are many and varied reasons why folk sit the way they do in the saddle: Sometimes habit borne from our early riding days (possibly lack of tuition), habit from being told to sit tall or lean back, tight or unused muscles due to our lifestyle (eg long hours spent sitting or driving, poor posture when sitting or standing), and sometimes fear or a sense of self preservation.

Notice when you take in the full picture – upper body and leg position, where is the majority of your weight? Is it centred or elsewhere? Check both sides – we can look great on one side and out of whack on the other!

If you are not already in a near vertical line up when you look at yourself on your horse in the mirror or at the camera screen – what do you need to do to achieve it? You may need to play around with pelvic tilt, stirrup length, sliding your leg back or forward, your collar bone back or forward, shimmy yourself around in the saddle. A good starting point can be to put your feet up over the front of your saddle flaps – this will nearly always bring your pelvis into a neutral (upright) position. Remember what you had to do in front of the mirror when you were in your sitting-standing position. When you get in the near perfect line up what do you feel? Let your eyes (or your observer’s eyes) tell you the truth and take notice of the feelings. Do you feel pitched forward or backwards compared to normal? Does your foot feel stupidly back or forward compared to normal? Keep checking in with your eyes – are you still on vertical? Our bodies unfortunately don’t come with a built-in spirit level and over time can adapt to all sorts of wonkiness and it becomes our straight. When we change things, it can feel really weird to begin with –you’ll need to embrace this weird!

Once you know – from seeing or beginning to feel what your body does, you are on the journey to improvement – awareness enables you to search out solutions. Whatever you see at a standstill will be magnified when your horse moves. Make good use of videos – look at them full speed, and then frame by frame – I love to use screenshots! Here I share one of my foibles – my left leg that likes to swing back – so I’ll either pitch forward and/or start leaning back to counterbalance, neither of which are very pleasant for my long-suffering horse and it becomes seriously problematical when we want the wither to lift and the horse take more weight behind! In this series I’ve clearly lost it in the second photo – then I’m concentrating on getting it with the guidance of my coach (Filipa Valenca) and I’m checking what it looks like from on top! My leg felt like it was ridiculously forward (lol).

Next month: Your Pelvis – where your spine meets the horse!