As I Strengthen My Hip Joints

Ever since I re-started taking lessons, my long term goal has been to gallop and jump again. I became so very, very week after my car wreck and the ensuing frequent exacerbations of my Multiple Sclerosis, until I was just too weak to ride faster than a walk. Through riding horses I started to regain my strength, but each exacerbation wipes out a LOT of my strength and I have to start all over again.

Over the past decade, taking lessons from Debbie, I am stronger, somewhat. My serious exacerbations of the past 4 years wiped out most of my muscular strength that I had built up for years. Since my muscles became so terribly unfit, I am always discovering “new” or forgotten muscles. This has the fortunate side effect of me being aware of exactly which muscles work harder in each exercise, usually because they start hurting. After two weeks of doing the “rider's push-ups” I can confidently say that this exercise works many more muscles than ANY other ridden exercise I have ever tried, though the posting trot without stirrups comes close.

I now do the “rider's push-up” every ride, and I do one each time, three to five times each ride. The first time I do it I do not get my chest all the way down and my hip joints do not “unlock”. I then check my position and I invariably find that my lower legs are too far back, and that my WHOLE BODY is too far back in the saddle. I then bring my lower leg forward (I look down and check that I can see the tip of my foot a little past my knee), and I set my pelvis forward enough in the saddle so my knees “fill” the knee roll, and I check my foot position again! Then, when I lower my chest from two-point, I have no difficulties in touching the horse's neck with my chest.

Usually the second time I do it I manage to get my chest all the way down, and as long as I keep my lower leg stable, my diaphragm pushed out, my buttocks pushed back and my eyes looking forward, my hip joints finally “unlock”. This is when my back, from the waist up to the area of my collar bones and across my back, starts “burning” and hurting. Obviously I need to strengthen these muscles! My back muscles continue bothering me after I touch the horse's neck with my chest, improving a little bit when I sit in the saddle or do two-point, and getting worse when I do another “rider's push-up”. This is a different pain than the ones I got when I started holding my face vertical at all times, and when I learned to keep my shoulders back, those pains were localized, not spread over my whole upper back.

The third time I do the “rider's push-up” all the muscles in the upper third of my thighs start burning and hurting, each and every muscle around the circumference of my thighs. Once my upper thigh muscles start burning they tire quickly. The burn lessens somewhat when I get back into two-point but I tire quickly. This is the first ridden exercise I have done where all the muscles around my thigh start burning and hurting. When I used to post without stirrups and do two-point without stirrups only the inside muscles and tendons of my thighs hurt.

I have had other pains, once or twice. At times I become super aware of my buttock muscles. One time the muscles of my lower back, across my sacrum, started to spasm. A few times the muscles of the nape of my neck started to hurt. I am getting the feeling that all the muscles around my hip joints are getting stronger, stabilizing my pelvis. During my riding life I have gotten many sore muscles, but this is the first time I have felt pain in such big groups of muscles, across my upper back and around my thighs.

When I did my stretching exercises during my last lesson, Debbie told me that my lower leg was much more stable than before. Bringing my lower leg forward so I can see the tip of my toe is essential to doing the “rider's push-up” properly, and though I feel like my feet are too far forward they are more stable. Could this be because I have my lower leg in the horse's girth groove? When I am in two-point with my lower legs forward I sort of feel like I am going to plop back into the saddle, but so long I bend at my hip joints (not my waist), push my diaphragm out and look up and forward I stay stable up in my two-point even though I still feel like I will drop back into the saddle. During the last third of my rides my all my upper thigh muscles burn during two-point. The good part of this is that as my hip muscles get stronger my hip joints become more stable, greatly increasing my security in the saddle.

Debbie told me that, even though I want to jump, she is not going to let me jump until I can do the canter well. This is going to take me a LOT of time, since the last few times I cantered I was totally exhausted by the third stride. Even if I never have another MS exacerbation it may take me a few years before I am strong enough and secure enough in my position to be able to canter a horse all the way around the ring once, much less three times. When I started taking lessons with Debbie over a decade ago I told her I wanted to jump again, and I promised her I would not jump at all until she told me I was ready to, and then only during a lesson with her. I do not know if I will ever be able to get strong enough so I can safely jump a horse again, but if I ever do get strong enough it will be because of all the “rider's push-ups” that I do every ride. I am confident that when I do get strong enough and when my position gets good enough Debbie will start schooling me over fences.

And that will be because the “rider's push-ups” make my whole body stronger and force my body to learn a good, effective position for jumping.

Have a great ride!

Jackie Cochran