From: Sarah Zmuda
HI! im a 13 y/o rider and im having trouble w/ my leg muscles, i can never get my horse to move forward enough due to lack of muscles in my legs, what can i do to strengthen them, so i can be more effective? are their any excercises that would help me?
thanx, Sarah Zmuda
If your legs are weak, there are a lot of exercises that will make them stronger. Many of them can be done OFF the horse. Walking -- not strolling and stopping, but brisk walking for fifteen minutes or so -- will begin to build leg (and back) strength. Bicycling will help -- so will swimming (practice those frog kicks!).
ON the horse, the best exercise to strengthen your legs is very simple: after you've warmed up, spend ten minutes or so riding in a two-point position. Your horse can walk or trot -- walking is just fine, you'll still get all the benefit of the exercise.
It's a good idea to strengthen your legs, so that they can help you balance and ride better. But you don't need extra-strong legs just to send your horse forward! What you need is leg CONTROL and a horse that understands leg aids. Talk to your instructor about making your horse more responsive to the leg. With her help, you can use a riding whip to reinforce your leg aid, so that the horse will learn to move forward from a soft, brief squeeze with the leg. You send him forward with SIGNALS, not with MUSCLE POWER.
It might interest you to know that there was once an Olympic rider who had almost NO leg strength, because she had had polio as a child. If she had needed extra-strong legs, or medium-strong legs, or even just normal legs to ride her horse, she would probably never have learned to ride -- fortunately, she learned to ride very well, and won a medal at the Olympic games. She needed good balance and coordination, and she needed to communicate clearly with her horse -- and that's exactly what YOU need too! She didn't need super-strong legs, though, and neither do you.
Your riding instructor can help you learn to communicate better with your horse. It's a little bit like tuning in a radio station that isn't exactly set right, and sounds like a lot of static -- turning it UP won't help, but tuning it IN will help. You need to be clearer with your horse -- not louder.
Jessica
Jessica Jahiel's HORSE-SENSE is a free, subscriber-supported electronic Q&A email newsletter which deals with all aspects of horses, their management, riding, and training. For more information, please visit www.horse-sense.org
Please visit Jessica Jahiel: Holistic Horsemanship® [www.jessicajahiel.com] for more information on Jessica Jahiel's clinics, video lessons, phone consultations, books, articles, columns, and expert witness and litigation consultant services.