#RiderProblems: Hips Don’t Lie

I don’t know about you, but my hips are a mess. I guess that’s what 20 years of pretty regular riding + not a whole lot of cross-training, stretching, or other consistant forms of physical activity will do to ya (and I have no excuse…my mom is a yoga instructor! She tries to help me, and does help, but I’ve historically been horrible about sticking to a regular program.) Let me be your cautionary tale, so you can do better than I’ve done. 

What do I mean by “mess”? When I ride, I usually get one or two painful cramps in my hips during the course of my warmup. Having my legs spread wide (even though Clay is not very wide at all as far as horses go!) is just painful for me, which is a bummer, seeing as you can’t very well sit on a horse at all without spreading your legs (I guess I could take up side-saddle…) But of course, like most equestrians, I thought of this pain and discomfort as a minor nuisance, not a serious issue, and did nothing for a long time to address it (luckily for me, I believe my issue primarily stems from an unbalance between the strength of my abductors/adductors, and therefore is fixable with stretching/strengthening exercises.) But it was high-time to address it, since this issue isn’t only a detriment to riding but to other activities as well…like giving birth.

This might be going full TMI on you (perhaps skip to the next paragraph if the mention of childbirth and the notion of how that happens makes you queasy), but the painful cramping I had going on in my hips when I was birthing my daughter was almost worse than pushing the baby out. And there was nothing I could do to relieve it, since I had two midwives and my husband literally prying my legs apart with all their strength (and having a hard time, thank you very much riding-muscles) because it’s impossible to get a baby out without opening your legs, but of course, my legs being spread wide is exactly what causes my hips to cramp and I cannot un-cramp them once they’re cramping without bringing them back together for a minute to let them release. I’ll leave that little story right there, but it was NOT fun for anyone involved–least of all me–and I vowed in that moment to get to the bottom of this before I have my next child, and for the sake of my riding career as well.

So, what can be done? Well, sticking to a g-dang regular yoga routine is pretty key, in my case. Yoga is magic. It is the remedy to several other funsie issues I have as well…a sacrum that doesn’t like to stay in alignment, chromic neck and back pain, and is just a way to check in with and connect to my body, breathe and emotions. Yoga’s foundational principals are strikingly similar to the foundational principals of Dressage, so they go hand in hand very seamlessly. The issue for me has been finding time every day, amidst the needs of the household and my family (not to mention a clean place on the floor to stretch out, amidst the toys…), to do even a short yoga sequence on a regular basis.

But pain, when you stop ignoring it, is a great motivator. So is the horrifying prospect of not being able to ride comfortably for years to come. So for the past month I’ve been using 15-60 mins (depending on the day) of baby’s nap time every day to do a yoga routine. Sometimes it’s a very gentle one, aimed at just focusing my mind and connecting with myself. Sometimes, when I know I’m going to be riding that day or the next, it’s more focused on mobilizing my hips. Sometimes it’s a sacral-alignment routine. It’s less about what I “do” and more about just taking time to check in with my body and ask what it needs today. We ask a lot from our bodies all the time, and it’s pretty rare that we give back to ourselves in nourishing ways.

The hip routines I do are not “hip openers” (a popular term you hear a lot in some yoga classes). Why not? Because hip openers are typically destabilizing for the sacrum (more info on that can be found here, if you care), and I don’t need any help in the destabilized sacrum department. Instead, I am focusing on increasing blood-blow and mobility in my hips by doing slow, careful full-range-of-motion movements that are isolated to the hip socket/joint. Some people might not even consider this type of exercise “yoga” as it almost crosses over into the physical therapy umbrella. But whatever you want to call it, it’s working for me. I haven’t had a hip cramp while mounted in about a month, and I just feel generally more relaxed and less defensive in the saddle (you subconsiously hold yourself tensely when you’re expecting a stab of pain at any moment…Not exactly conducive to Dressage, since tension in the rider blocks the flow of energy in the horse.) 

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing on “hip days”:

1. The stretches in the two videos here–but carefully, as some of these can be considered “hip openers”. I don’t do these on days when my sacrum is feeling misaligned or “crunchy”.
2. The stretches in the video here– ditto the warning above.
3. This hip sequence, which is warming and focused on strengthening rather than stretching.
4. This hip sequence, which is gentle and provides a release and stretch for my hips but doesn’t irritate my sacrum/low back.
5. This more demanding hip sequence, for when I am feeling up to a stronger routine that challenges my hips’ specific issues and weaknesses. 

If you’re experiencing something similar, I hope my story helps you to know you’re not alone out there dealing with this, and that there are ways to fix it! Of course, as always, nothing mentioned on this blog is supposed to replace the advice of your medical practitioner or an expert in the fields of yoga therapy/physical therapy. This is simply my experience, and I am sharing it in hopes of opening up discussion on this issue and perhaps prompting others dealing with this to give yoga a try, because it has been working for me. I’d love to hear from you if you’re in a similar boat…what have you tried that has worked for you?

#RiderProblems: The Lower Leg

Cute horse, bad lower leg position.

Ah, the lower leg. It’s too tight, it’s too loose, it’s too far forward, it’s slipping back, it’s everything besides what it’s supposed to be: Soft and draping, so that the heel is in line with the hip. In the trot and canter, the lower leg should “breathe” against the horse, neither flapping against them nor locked stiffly in place. Toes should be forward. Sigh. 

If we’re too stiff, we can’t use our legs properly to give cues. If we’re too loose, we’ll feel insecure and will likely stiffen up elsewhere to compensate. A noisy leg might desensitize the horse to the leg aids over time. A locked leg doesn’t communicate anything at all, except tension. A foot that flaps around too much might jab the horse with the spurs accidentally. A too-stiff ankle will limit the fluid use of the leg aids. Jamming into the heels too much can contribute to the lower leg being too far out in front and puts the rider in a “chair seat”. Not having the heels down enough can make the leg feel shortened and the hip flexors tense. Toes that turn out too much cause the rider to ride on the backs of the legs too much, the knees to pop off the saddle, and contributes to “chair seat”. Turning the toes in encourages pinching with the knee, which pops the lower leg off the horse and the seat out of the saddle, encouraging an unbalanced pitched-forward position in the upper body. 

…Have I said something yet that sounds familiar? Nearly every rider grapples with one or many of these issues of technique, no matter what discipline they ride, at some point or another. Personally, my feet (especially my right foot) like to point outward. They do this naturally, even when I am walking, so it is a physiological asymmetry rather than a bad equitation habit–which makes it much harder to correct. I have been doing yoga and getting chiropractic adjustments to help the issue, and I’m also trying to be very aware of it while I ride because it is a big reason why I lose my leg out from under me, most notably at the sitting trot, and end up in that dreaded chair seat. 

One little mental trick that works for me is to imagine I am touching my toes under my horse for a second. Of course I can’t really do that, but if I imagine I’m doing it, my toes turn forward, my lower leg stays back where it should, and my core muscles have to “turn on” to do the work of stabilizing rather than relying on my hamstrings. I use this imagery when I first start out in sitting trot, to get myself into the correct alignment, and once I’m in that place of balance and correctly using my core, I can relax and just ride. 

A moment of good ear-shoulder-hip-heel alignment with toes forward!

Another common problem is the “jammed down” heel and very stiff lower leg. I see students doing this all the time, especially when riding spooky or excited horses. It may feel more secure to have the heels way, way down but actually it is making the low leg “ski” out in front of you, for which you then have to compensate somehow–usually by leaning forward too much and sticking the hips out behind you. This tense and perched position is not good for much and usually makes an already tense horse even more so.

Heels jammed down. Image borrowed from Sustainable Dressage.

To fix this, you must learn to trust your seat to be your anchor point, rather than the stirrups. Do some riding without stirrups on a quiet horse or on a lunge-line and sit as “deep” as possible in the saddle, feeling how your stomach and back muscles have to work harder when you anchor through your seat. Let the legs drape against the horse, long and relaxed–don’t “hang on” with them–your seat and core are what keep you on the horse.

When this feels good at the walk, see if you can maintain that position and feeling at a slow trot (it helps to hold a bucking strap at first so you aren’t tempted to balance on the reins. I used to hold the straps on my saddle pad because I didn’t have a bucking strap on my saddle. You can keep your reins in your hands at the same time.) Again, don’t grab with the legs–try to let them “breathe” against the horse’s sides. Don’t let the upper body tip forward. Keep the “back pockets” in the saddle and imagine the pelvis rotating up and down with the rise and fall of the trot. I like to imagine I have a big fancy belt buckle on and it tilts up, up, up with the “up” part of the trot. You can’t be stiff in your lower back, and you can’t be hanging on with you legs or else your seat will lighten and you’ll pitch forward and “bounce” against the rhythm. 

Now, once that feels good, take your stirrups back but maintain the draped, soft feeling in the legs, the engaged “working hard” feeling in the core, and your deeply connected seat (sit bones might even feel bruised after riding this way–that’s a good sign!) You no longer need to grab with your leg and jam those heels down for security because you can trust your own balance and core strength!

Do you have a particular “lower leg struggle”? Have you figured out a trick for fixing it?

#RiderProblems: Sciatica and Piriformis Syndrome

Generally speaking, humans are not anatomically perfect. This is kind of a bummer when it comes to horseback riding–and specifically when it comes to the discipline of Dressage, which has been described as the art of taking an asymmetrical person and an asymmetrical horse and making them both straight.

But straitening a naturally asymmetrical body is not an easy task considering the sport that aims to do so can cause a lot of physical issues in the process, in addition to the ones we may have just inherited. The fact is that riding is demanding on the body, and when you don’t counter-balance your rides with cross-training, stretching, and other supportive and restorative therapies, problems arise. Many riders ignore these problems their whole lives, and end up nearly crippled by age 70. We all know an old trainer who can barely walk. But it is extremely common to see even young riders suffering from lower back pain, hip pain, numbness in their legs, etc.

Hopefully our horses are being maintained in a way so that they do not feel pain after a life of demanding work…But how to properly support your equine-athlete is a whole other topic for a whole other post. Today I want to talk about some of the physical issues that arise for riders, how to identify them, and how to work towards reversing or minimizing their impact with proper support. I’m going to focus on sciatica, which is extremely common, and piriformis syndrome, which is related. 

Obviously, I am not a doctor or physical therapist, so please don’t let your research on these issues end here. This is meant to be an introduction to this topic and a discussion of these issues as they relate specifically to horseback riders, since we are a group in which these issues are common and yet I rarely hear these things talked about in our community. 

So what are we talking about when we talk about sciatica and the piriformis? Well, one is a muscle and the other is a nerve, and they are next-door neighbors in our bodies. Paraphrasing from an article on piriformis pain on the Health Post website:

The piriformis allows us to move the hip, upper leg, and foot outward from the body. This muscle covers the sciatic nerve, that runs from the lower back down into the legs. The piriformis is not only important for hip and leg movement but it is a key part of our overall balance while upright.

One end of the piriformis is attached to the front part of the sacrum, the triangular bone at the base of the spine. It’s the only pelvic muscle that attaches to the front of the sacrum, providing balance between the pelvis and legs. Its counteraction with the psoas muscle at the front of the pelvis and the gluteus maximus at the back maintains stability.

An impeded piriformis limits both mobility and balance. Sciatica is a condition in which the sciatic nerve is pinched in some way, causing pain.

If you want to determine whether or not a pinched sciatic nerve or tight piriformis might be the culprits of any back, hip or leg pain you might be experiencing, I found a couple great Youtube video that demonstrate a few positions to try. The doctors are pretty hilarious. They’re worth watching just to hear their intro-music…

By now you might be able to tell if you fall into the camp of having some or all of these common rider problems. Or you’re simply interested in preventing these problems from arriving. So, what can you do? 

1. Get serious about a yoga practice. From body awareness to relaxation, from breath-control to increased strength, flexibility and alignment, the list of benefits that yoga offers us is long. Regular yoga can reverse the issues we’re talking about in this article, as well as prevent future issues like slipped disks that could otherwise require surgery to fix.

Ideally, find an instructor with a therapeutic-yoga license or at least a detailed knowledge of anatomy. Steer clear of instructors who focus purely on flexibility or the flashy, athletic poses. Acrobatics will do very little to fix your pain or improve your riding, and it’s likely to cause additional problems and injuries. 

If videos/online is your only or best option, the same cautions apply. I personally really like the website of Certified Yoga Therapist Olga Kabel. Here is a list of her videos and practices that apply to the issues discussed here:

–Three Types of Butt Pain and What to do About it
–Yoga Practice for the Hip Flexors
–And conversely, Stretching the Hip Flexors is Not Always a Good Idea
–Yoga Practice to Release Piriformis Tension

2. See a chiropractor and/or acupuncturist regularly. Muscles can actually pull our skeletal structure out of whack, so getting adjustments from time to time helps ensure we’re not going around with one leg an inch longer than the other. Acupuncture is extremely helpful for healing injuries and calming nerve and muscle pain. 

3. Stop ignoring pain. Pain is a signal from our body that something is wrong, and we should use it as a tool to inform our decisions and actions. 

Let’s continue the conversation: Do you struggle with pain while riding? What therapies have you tried, and what have you found helpful?