Hi, Welcome back to the rider fitness blog. We had a great question from a reader last week about tight hips, and tight inner thighs. The fact is, riding causes tightness in the hips and thighs which has to be undone to ride better. As is the case with many sports such as hockey, golf, soccer and the list goes on, practicing your sport uses your muscles within a particular range of motion, in repetition. Failure to bring the muscle out of that range results in a shortening of the muscle, tightness in the joints attached to it and ironically, diminished performance in that activity. In the case of riding, one common muscle group would be muscles responsible for inward rotation of the knee, or squeezing of the horse either for balance or aids. The more a rider is balancing by gripping, the more the inner thigh muscles (adductors) contract in short range.

Just because you get off the horse again, does not mean your muscles all of a sudden relax and go back to full elasticity. In fact, our relatively sedentary (seated a lot of the time) lifestyle makes the problem worse by not requiring the body to stretch enough, and by not exercising other muscle groups sufficiently to provide balance across your joints. That's why stretching alone is not enough for a rider, and our rider's situation and question this week is a good illustration.

Tight hips impact our riding negatively across all disciplines. However, because I am most often among dressage riders, I often hear the problem expressed as an inability to 'open' the hips. Actually, sometimes the problem isn't the hip's resistance to being open, so much as it is the outside of the thigh and gluteal lack of strength to keep the thigh in the open position, especially in motion. There really are two steps involved in unblocking, and keeping a joint free: keeping the tightening area lengthened through resistance training and stretching in full range, and balancing the body by strengthening the antagonist muscle groups (groups responsible for the opposing motion).

The Rider
To see Barb's question in full, read the comments section from last weeks' blog. In summary, she just turned 60 and has been riding for over 30 years across many disciplines. She comments that her body is stiffer than it used to be, and she has noticed a tendency to find balance by gripping the horse more from her left side (leg). She has to lengthen her stirrup to mount as her hip on that side is stiffer, and she has some chronic low back issues which when treated by a physiotherapist, seem effective in removing some of the hip stiffness. She feels she does not have tight hamstrings as she can get her heels quite low in the stirrups, and can touch her toes easily. When she is riding and tries the 'legs off' exercise, she gets cramps in her thigh. For exercise, she is already stretching her hamstrings and opening her hips through sitting on the floor with her feet together and knees out. She does lunges to strengthen her legs.

Analysis
Barbara- if you can post some photos of you riding, it would help solve some mysteries and make things clearer to me. Going blind like this though, I can see links between everything you've mentioned.

1. First, stiffness affects balance, and you are balancing with gripping rather than in your seat. In a full program, I'd suggest balance work as well as aggressive stretching. If you can take yoga once a week, that would be fantastic. Whether you can or not, at home most days in between, you should be stretching your inner thigh with doing the splits or side lunges for stretching. Don't put yourself in a position where it's excruciating- just where you can feel a stretch and hold it for a while so it has time to take effect. You can put your body weight on a couch or exercise ball, while your legs are stretching to ease some of the pressure. You also need to stretch your hip flexors (a runner's lunge is perfect). It sounds like they're pulling on your lower back, rocking you forward of your seatbones (unbalancing you) and also creating tightness across your hips, and in your lower back.

2. Also do front leg raises standing (about 20 each leg) to build some strength in the hip flexors and lower abdominals so the flexors don't tend to tighten as much, you have abdominal strength to support your lower back (and balance) and it's easier to lift your leg to the stirrup.

3. While you're working your legs, add in about 30 side leg raises lying on each side, and about 20 pairs of side 'pushes' (standing on an exercise tube, holding the handles, pushing out like a metronome with your legs). These two exercises will strengthen your outer thigh and glutes, and give much better support across your hip joints, in comparison with your inner thighs. You will be better able to hold your legs more neutrally around your horse, without gripping, or having to cramp your outer thigh to avoid the gripping.

I actually see unbalanced clamping tendencies quite often in clinics. I wouldn't be surprised if you clamp with your left leg, if you also had a tendency to have tightness in your shoulder/neck area on the right.

I hope you can post some photos. I'm so interested to know if I'm close here going relatively blind like this. (Well, going by what you've said combined with experience of similar issues observed in clinics and with clients.)

Finally, I just have to respond to one of your last comments in your question posting. You are practically resigning yourself to being a worse rider because of age. I've got my coach's hat on and I'm blowing the whistle on that one! We ride first with our mind. Yours has never had more knowledge than it has now. You can be a better rider than ever. Yes, you may have to engage in deliberate acts of exercise to do so. I'm a fan of self myofascial release on a regular basis, and of either deep stretching (15-20 minutes or more) or yoga because quick little stretches are not enough to maintain elasticity in your ligaments and joints with age. However, with a few minutes a day and some persistence, a little effort adds up to a lot and is well worth it in avoided health care bills, and better use of your riding lesson money.

Happy trails!

Heather Sansom
www.equifitt.com
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