Equine Mechanics

Category: Riding Instruction

  • Five Steps to Straightness

    Five Steps to Straightness

    Caught collapsing
    Different horse, same left hip too far in advance.

    Do you collapse on one side? Perhaps your shoulders look unlevel and try as you can you can’t seem to correct it. Maybe one heel doesn’t stay down, or your horse is just stiff and resistant on one side and you haven’t gotten around to blaming yourself yet. As you can see in these pics I sit asymmetrically like the barber who never gets his own hair cut so I thought it’s about time I corrected my own biomechanics. You’re welcome to watch & comment and hopefully we’ll all learn something.

    Here are two pictures from a couple of weeks ago showing the side of shame at its worst. My left hip is too far advanced and as a result my leg is crunched up, little man has too much bend in the neck and his left shoulder has drifted out. Note also the crinkled numnah as I’m twisting it with my crooked riding of shame!

    Tension, resistance and fall out of left shoulder.

    So: Step 1) Hips. I look like I have slightly asymmetrical shoulders. Technically I do but what’s more important and normally entirely overlooked is that I have very asymmetric hips. What you’re seeing in my shoulders is a result of that pelvis rotation, not a cause in itself. Similarly it looks like I’m sitting to the right, but this is just because I’m rotated to the right. If I pull my left hip back so that my pelvis is actually straight my horse stops resisting on the left. I can tell when I forget, because luckily my main horse is an unforgiving git – or if you prefer an excellent teaching horse who is sensitive to my aids. If I sort out my pelvis, my shoulders should look after themselves. Same goes for you, rubbish left leg.

    Step 2) Sleeping position. Have you ever noticed that people that crunch forward when they ride also sleep in the foetal position? I like to sleep on my right side, with my right leg straight, left leg bent up. It’s lovely, we snuggle. It’s allowing me to practice my folding up on the left bad habit to the extent that it feels natural & safe to sit that way. So I’m now going to stop reinforcing this asymmetry every minute of the day. I’ll try to sleep in a better position – stretching my left side; try not to sit on the sofa with my legs tucked up to the left; try not to carry my bag on my right shoulder… Basically if something feels natural I’m going to reverse it!

    Step 3) Halt. Not the horse, little horse recently has stopping as a forte – I need to practise my own halt. This morning I looked at my shoulders in the mirror, and noticed that when I’m on the ground they are indeed unlevel. Then I looked down and saw that my hands are uneven – I can see more of my left hand – so I tried to roll my left shoulder back. Then it twigged and I looked even further down. I’ve only got two legs and still I had not pulled off the square halt. My left foot was way in front. If I shut my eyes and stop left foot first it looks fine. Right foot first and I don’t naturally halt square. I’m not mentioning any names, but one of us is going to practise until I do.

    Step 4) Horse is going to go straight. Little boy and I had a good deal going – he likes to go crooked – I like to be crooked in a matching way! Great! He likes to put my weight on his right, where we both reinforce each other’s bad habits and just hope we never need to go left. So now that there’s a new regime in town we are going to go straight. Even when on a circle or going sideways we are going to be straight. My hip will be back, my weight will be down his left side as well, and I’ll know when it is as our lateral right will be as easy and round as our lateral work left, and when we land from a fence, we’ll go straight between two ground poles. For our piece de resistance when we turn left towards a jump or in counter canter in a test, he is not going to get gobby and complain. And I will pat him; with my right hand.

    Step 5) Biomechanics. I often video and check what’s going on. I video my riding & I video trot ups. Sometimes I’ll calculate joint angles, but this isn’t biomechanics. Joint angles and videos are kinematics and they’re useful – particularly if you have a robust way of calculating accurate and repeatable angles and aren’t just “joining the dots”. Biomechanics is the combination of these kinematics with kinetics – the study of the forces. By including the forces we can work out where the rotation originates – what is a primary problem and what is a secondary compensation, which muscle is too short, which one is too weak. Clinically and in training it’s important to consider the biomechanics, not just the kinematics. In my case that’s correct the pelvis, not the shoulder or leg position. If I just force my leg into the right place without correcting the pelvis I’ll make things worse. I need to correct the muscle imbalance & tightness that causes the pelvic rotation in the first place. That’s why I’m also working at it on the ground. So: I’m not going to force my left heel down, I’m going to drop my weight. I’m not going to correct my shoulders I’m going to straighten my spine. I’ll get my thumbs on top by correcting my elbows. I’ll go to the gym and stretch and correct until I’m neutral. I’m relying on you guys to keep me on the straight and narrow!

    Comments?

  • Hand in glove: can wearing gloves make you a better rider?

    Hand in glove: can wearing gloves make you a better rider?

    I like gloves because I like my hands, and I particularly like my hands with the skin on – not ripped off by some leadrope or lunge rein. Also I hate the cold and I live in the U.K. so I have expensive gloves and I use them. However this evening I started to think about their effect on my riding, when little stallion had a few rather unkind things to say about my hands and then I realised I had forgotten to put them on.

    Why do gloves improve your riding?

    (Good) gloves increase the friction between your hand and the reins. That means that you can keep a more relaxed hand and still have the reins secure. In turn this relaxed hand means a more relaxed forearm, as like horses we keep the muscles further up the limb, away from the digits. If your forearm is relaxed you have softer more responsive hands and your stallion stops whinging (or whining and complaining in American). Everyone’s a winner. My gelding also tells tales on me, but apparently I wore gloves to ride him.

    I have ambitions, Sox merely likes grass and doesn’t see why he has to put up with fools.

  • Engaging the hindquarters and lengthening the stride

    Engaging the hindquarters and lengthening the stride

    Photo from BritishDressage.co.uk
    BD Convention supported by The National Saddle Centre

    The recent BD convention featured the training talents of the Academy Bartels. It was covered by an informative write-up in the most recent British Dressage magazine. There was some very refreshing talk of responsiveness and relaxation – a horse that waits for, not predicts, the commands and once asked to go forward continues in these longer strides until given an aid to change without continual nagging from the legs. Similarly a half pass ends in a new set of commands not in the removal of the aid. The removal of any aid has already occurred as soon as the horse complied. This strict philosophy gives a strong foundation, and shows how the Bartels achieve such relaxed, engaged horses.

    The classic changes of stride length and tempo exercises are used to reinforce this. However I found these two types of exercises a little confused in the report. The report appears to refer to longer strides being faster strides, and this being part of the tempo exercise. The accepted wisdom in dressage, entirely supported by the scientific literature, is that in order to maintain the same tempo, longer strides should in fact feel a little slower. Tempo exercises changing the rhythm are very useful in creating engagement and responsiveness, as are exercises changing the stride length, but these are not normally seen as the same thing. As early as ’94 we knew academically that in high-level horses stride duration is maintained (canter) or extended (trot) with increases in stride length (Clayton, 1994a; Clayton, 1994b). Biomechanically speaking speed is the product of stride length and stride frequency, so it is entirely possible for speed to increase, as a result of longer strides, whilst the horse’s stride frequency (tempo) slows. However the article refers to faster strides rather than faster speeds. Was the journalist making an error here, or do the Bartels really change the stride frequency as well as the stride length when in training? Anyone?

    Interesting the research also shows that in order to achieve increased stride length, the footfall rhythm in canter is altered by increasing the time spent in suspension and hence the distance covered between leading front leg and the next hind leg placement. The timing of the hoof-falls within the hind leg-diagonal pair-front leg part of the pattern is proportionally quicker, with longer spent in suspension. Perhaps this is why lengthened strides, which have the same duration and in fact feel slower to ride, are often described as faster.

    In trot, stride length is increased by increasing over-reach distance, and stride duration increases (tempo slows) with increasing stride length. In other words medium and extended trots do have a higher speed, but a slower stride frequency. So in fact in both gaits higher engagement of the hindquarters is needed for lengthened strides, and this would be undermined if the strides were faster rather than longer.

    I wish I had attended the convention and will try to make the next one. The report was a great read, and I particularly liked the following points, which fit well with my last post on the equine back:

    On straightness: “The hind legs must step into the same tracks as the forelegs, whether on the straight line or a curve. Tineke used the helpful image of the horse having to be like a train that stays on the railway lines…..The aim frequently spoken was to ride into the two reins.”

    On roundness: “..they put great emphasis on getting the muscles from the tail, under the hindquarters, under the saddle, into the area in front of the wither and up the neck, soft and malleable. Being round and soft on a connection helped soften these muscles and remove blockages. Any blocks of tension in the upper line would mean there is no connection from the hindquarters to the bit….. Until the horse took the rein down there was no work on the movements.”

  • Be your own Biomechanist: What to look for in your photos

    Be your own Biomechanist: What to look for in your photos

    If you can afford regular lessons with a good instructor you’re laughing. If not eyes on the ground or at least a video can be a real help. Even if all you have is the odd photo you can still plan and make progress.

    So, without further ado, here is why Carl Hester is better than me, from a biomechanics perspective.

    Here’s that photo from the previous post, of Carl and Uthopia in competition (right) and me slobbing about on the left:

    Carl’s horse is obvious happier, it’s more uphill, it’s more engaged and swinging through. All this is easy to see when you have a comparative photo opposite. But let’s assume you don’t. Here’s a few basic biomechanics things you can look at in any picture, with or without a gold standard.

    1) Would it make a statue?
    Even though Uthopia (right) is on one leg, you could imagine it as an ambitious statue. If my photo was made into a statue, little horse would fall on his nose. In biomechanics terms, what you’re looking at is whether the horse and rider’s centre of gravity is over the base of support. Imagining the statue helps you do this, without the maths, and in my case makes it obvious that he’s not that well-balanced. I find thinking about this helps when I’m riding too.

    2) Check your verticals (pictures below)
    Carl’s horse’s nose is slightly in front of the vertical, as is correct for a dressage test. He is sitting slightly behind the vertical (the line of his back is more or less parallel with his horse’s nose). My horse is behind the vertical and I need to straighten up and get my shoulders back too.

    3) Check your horizontals – is the horse uphill?
    Badly timed or angled photos can easily hide how uphill a horse actually is, so if you compare your horse’s back to the fence line look at the whole horse -. If we look at the top of my horse’s back it doesn’t looks so bad, but if we look at the whole horse and check for lowered (engaged) quarters and raised shoulders the illusion is shattered. Compare the little guy to Carl’s horse.

    Moving on….

    4) Is the horse tracking up and symmetrical?
    For the horse to use its back effectively (see previous posts) the hind legs should be stepping well underneath it. Check whether the hind hoof is landing in the print of the fore hoof. In walk your horse should over-track – the hind hoof should land well in front of where the front hoof left the ground. My horse, on the left, is trotting so we can also check for symmetry – are the diagonal pairs synchronised? It’s pretty common to start to spot problems in extended or very collected work. My horse is looking nicely symmetrical and similarly Uthopia is clearly in the midst of a clear three beat canter, with the diagonal pair well matched.

    5) Is the horse happy and relaxed?
    Yes, this is a biomechanics thing! Muscle tension is the enemy of athletic performance and my little stallion is not just giving his grumpiest just-been-told-off face and tail twitch but you can see the muscle tension in his neck, shoulders and back. Carl’s horse, Uthopia, on the other hand.. oh, you get the idea…..

    6) Is the rider secure? Dancing with the horse or fighting against it?
    Ok, first let’s all concede that my photo is taken from a very unflattering angle! Ok. So if you look at Carl’s seat and leg, ignoring the lower leg, you can see his security comes from the seat and length of thigh. Even if his leg ended where his boot started, you can see he’s staying on. Look how ineffective my seat and thigh look in comparison. Admittedly my legs are shorter than Carl’s but I’m not using what I’ve got. My security is coming from the lower leg, a show jumping habit, whereas it should be coming from higher up.

    People are intuitively good at maths. You use it every time you catch a ball – having successfully predicted it’s path and timing, allowing for gravity, momentum, and air drag. Horse riders tend to be doubly so. Carry on using it.

  • Homework: lengthening without tension

    For Sue and Claire, who don’t get off that lightly!

    Stride counting exercise to be done at walk, trot, canter and leg yield. 🙂

    Choose two markers, tufts of grass or trotting poles and count the strides the horse takes between them. Concentrate on riding between them sitting tall and moving with the horse in a relaxed, swinging way. The horse should feel like they are dancing with you, not having a fight. Repeat, changing ONLY the number of strides the horse takes between the markers/poles. Some change of carriage (longer/shorter horse) is fine.

    DO: Prioritise keeping the same tempo, and the same relaxed, swinging rhythm, even if that means that it takes several attempts before you achieve a longer or shorter stride length.

    DO NOT: Cover the ground in half/twice the number of strides, but in a rushed or tense way.

    THE POINT: By concentrating on counting e.g. less strides between the markers you won’t be as likely to tense up or “force it” and should get a bigger, more ground covering movement in a more correct, obedient and elastic way. Counting also tests whether you are actually lengthening and shortening without the need for eyes on the ground.

Equine Mechanics

Insights and resources on equine biomechanics for horse owners, trainers, and enthusiasts.