(bright music)
- Welcome.
So what are these four question marks?
Each one of these represents a different part of your body
that I feel is essential to stretch,
regardless of what discipline you're riding in.
Each one of these areas and stretching them
has helped me in my riding.
I'm going to break down
how it can help you in your riding.
What area it's helping you with.
These are all basic stretches you can do at home
with no equipment.
This is a follow-up video
for my equestrian workout video.
If you haven't seen that,
you can check it out here
or I'll leave a link in the description below.
So the first area that we want to stretch is,
our hips.
Specifically our hip flexors.
Our hip flexors are an area of our body
that are really commonly tight
and they're tight because we're sitting long hours.
You know, a lot of times in at our job typing
or we're sitting in a car driving.
And when we're in that seated position,
our hip flexors are closed and that creates tension.
Now, when it comes to riding,
if your hip flexors are tight,
this can put your leg forward into a chair seat.
Making you less balanced
and can cause you to have more issues
of stability like bouncing,
especially when you're going at speed
and things like the canter.
So opening up those hips allows us
to be able to have a nice open leg position,
which gives us a nice stable position of our pelvis.
Makes our, allows our hips to follow the motion
and makes us really secure in the saddle.
Our first stretch has a basic lunge hip flexor stretch.
To do this you're going to go into your lunge position
and you're just going to think about
opening up that hip to the knee.
Really breathing and stretching down
into that lunge position.
You want to do this on both sides,
holding for 30 to 60 seconds.
To get a deeper stretch,
you can twist away.
And that'll help open up that hip a little more.
Our second stretch is the butterfly stretch.
This is a great one for opening up the inner thighs
and getting those hip flexors nice and loose.
When you start the stretch off,
you want to sit
and keep your back nice and straight.
Just bring your legs as close to you
as it feels comfortable
or you feel a slight pull.
You're holding this for 30 to 60 seconds.
And as you get more comfortable,
you can gradually bring your legs closer to you.
If you feel any pull in your back,
you can put a pillow underneath you
to relieve any strain in your back.
Our second area is our legs.
Specifically, our hamstrings.
Our hamstrings are really important player
in keeping us secure in the saddle.
And if your hamstrings are tight,
you can end up with low back pain.
You can end up with things like
losing one stirrup or both.
And you could end up feeling
like you're just not able to sit deep
and secure in the saddle.
So being able to have those hamstrings open
and stretched is going to allow you
to keep a nice long leg
that absorbs the shock of motion
and help you to stay more centered in the saddle.
Our first stretch for hamstrings
is a modified hurdler stretch.
You're going to bring one leg back,
one leg forward.
Think about pressing your knee into the ground,
pressing your hips away.
Really getting a nice, deep stretch
through those hamstrings.
You're going to do this on both sides,
holding for 30 to 60 seconds.
The second stretch for hamstrings is just a basic toe touch.
You're just going to go as far as you can.
And if you can't reach your toes,
you can bend one leg and then the other,
which helps you to get a little deeper stretch.
If you're like me
and your hamstrings tend to be really tight,
you can use a chair.
Just going to set your chair up,
step back away from it
and just bend down.
Nice, straight back
until you start to feel that stretch
and hold it for 30 to 60 seconds.
The third area we want to stretch is
our shoulders.
Stretching your shoulders and your pictorial muscles
in the front of your chest is really important
in being able to have a relaxed giving hands
when you ride.
Many of us have a lot of tension, our shoulders.
I know I tend to have the most tension
probably in my neck and my shoulders.
And that can come from just not having good posture
throughout the day,
or it could come from, you know,
just a weakness there.
But any time that you have tension in your shoulders
and in the front of your chest,
it can cause your arms to rise when you're riding
and can cause a lot of tension in your hands
and cause you to feel like
you're always pulling the horse back,
or it's difficult to give to the horse
and stay relaxed and have a more following arm.
So if you want to have that open collar bones.
Those really relaxed shoulders
and really soft giving hands.
Then you want to focus on stretching
your shoulders out.
Our first stretch is for our chest.
It's a wall chest stretch.
You're going to put your hand flat against the wall
and twist away.
You're going to hold this for 30 seconds
and do it on both sides,
making sure you're breathing nice and deep
into the stretch.
Second stretch for shoulders
is a doorway stretch.
This is a great basic stretch.
You're going to start with your hands up higher
at a 90 degree angle.
And you can bring them a lower to get stretched
in different areas.
You want to hold this for 30 to 60 seconds.
The fourth area we want to stretch is
our neck.
When we're riding our horses
the position of our head has a big role to play
in the balance of us overall.
Your head is very heavy
and you may hear instructors say,
we don't want to look down.
We want to be looking straight ahead.
If you're struggling with a forward head position
or feeling like you've got a lot of tension in your neck
and in the back of your shoulders when you ride,
stretching, your neck can be a great way
to allow you to put your head in a better position
and ride in better balance with of horse.
First stretch for our neck is a neck roll.
You want to do this nice and slowly.
You're going to do it once each direction.
Our second stretch for our neck is a seated neck release.
Bringing one hand back.
You're going to set the opposite hand on your neck
and very gently
apply some pressure down towards your shoulder,
reaching the other hand away.
So quick recap,
the four areas we want to be stretching
as a equestrian are
our hips,
our legs,
our shoulders,
and our neck.
Stretching in these areas is going to allow us
to sit more securely in the saddle.
Feel like we have better balance,
better communication with our horse.
And a more enjoyable, effective ride.
If this video was a help to you
and you would like to see more topics
on this subject or other subjects,
I would love to hear from you.
You can let me know in the comments below.
I hope you have a wonderful week
and I'll see you in the next video.
(bright music)