(cheerful music)
- Hey guys, today we're gonna be talking about part two
of a four part video series on rider position.
And in this part of the video, I'm gonna be breaking down
the second area that is really essential
for securing you in the saddle and helping you to balance.
So let's jump into it.
Our second area is our legs.
So your legs help to absorb shock when you ride
and a really essential part of staying on your horse.
This is an area that I get a lot of questions about,
is how do I have the stable leg that is still relaxed
and, you know, helping secure me in the saddle?
So first, let's talk about what correct leg position is.
Correct leg position, you've got a slight bend in your knee,
and when I do this, I'm talking about just strictly
a position that you're sitting in,
so I'm not talking about jumping here.
So dressage, western riding, we're sitting.
We've got a slight bed in our knee,
which allows our thigh to be a little bit ahead of us.
And we have a nice open knee.
When we go down, we've got our toes straight.
And we've got our toes lifted.
So let's talk a little bit about what could go wrong
that could cause our leg position to not be stable.
The first one is if we are gripping
with our thighs, which is up here.
If we're gripping with the thigh,
that's gonna push us up out of the saddle.
We're gonna have less contact with the horse.
If we're gripping with our knees here,
so we're twisting our knees inward like that
and gripping with the knees,
that's gonna push us up out of the saddle
and give us less support and make us feel
like we have more friction there in our knee.
Or if we're turning our toes out like this
and gripping a little bit with out calves,
that can cause us to have a lack of stability.
So how do we find this correct leg position?
Well you're gonna start off by taking your feet
out of the stirrups.
And if you have a horse you're not sure about,
have someone hold your horse.
And you're gonna bring your legs up like this.
And then you're gonna set them down where they feel
like they're nice and loose against the saddle.
So I've got a nice opening from my hip to my knee.
I can point my knee down and have my hip flexor open.
And I feel like I can swing at the knee.
And then you're gonna find your stirrup,
just wiggle your ankle and catch your stirrup.
And then once you've caught your stirrup,
you're just going to lift your toe up.
So it's very important that we don't
press our heel down like that,
'cause that locks our knee and it locks our ankle.
And these are shock absorbers.
Your ankle there is a shock absorber,
so you want it to be nice and loose like this.
So just lift your toe up.
The muscle groups that we're using in this correct position
are our hamstrings, our quadriceps,
our medial glute, the glute on our outside
that helps stabilize our hips,
and we're stretching through our calves,
and we're stretching our Achilles tendon as we lift our toe.
So if you're struggling, how do you strengthen
these muscles so you can have an appropriate leg position?
Well you can do wall sits
to help strengthen your quadriceps.
You can do squats to help strengthen
your hamstrings and glutes.
And you can do side leg lifts
to help strengthen your medial glutes.
If you wanna check your strength in your leg position,
you can do this exercise where you stand up like this,
you can take your hands off of your reins.
Have somebody hold your horse so that you're safe.
And you should be able to stand up here
and feel like you're nice and stable.
You don't wanna feel like you're falling back
or you're falling forward.
So you should feel like you could stand up here
at a standstill and then even at a walk,
and this is nice and easy for ya.
So when it comes to finding that secure leg position
and breaking old habits or building it for the first time,
it takes time to build that muscle memory
and feel comfortable.
So be kind to yourself in that process.
Remember that if you have an old habit like gripping,
when you change that habit it might feel a little bit weird
and kind of unbalanced to begin with,
and that's totally normal.
So just be patient, give yourself that time,
and before you know it, you're gonna feel nice and secure
in your leg position.
I hope that you have a wonderful week
with your horses and your practice.
And I will see you in the next part of the video series.