I started practicing yoga in my early twenties because I wanted to get more flexible. I started during a time when I was riding very little, so I was more motivated to explore different types of exercise. I’ve now been practicing yoga pretty regularly for about 8 years. It certainly has helped me become more flexible. For example, when I first started, I could not touch my toes. Not even close. Now I can put my hands flat on the floor when I bend forward. That flexibility is one big way yoga helps me ride better. There’s no longer a moment when I first get on when I feel like my hips or upper thighs need a stretch to get them all the way down over the horse’s sides. Other important ways I’ve noticed that yoga has helped me ride better are:
Yoga makes it easier to get my legs into the correct riding position
Swinging my legs backward and forward from the hips has become much easier due to my yoga practice. Since yoga is mainly an isometric exercise, I’ve built strength to hold my legs in position and resist movement.
I’m more aware of my alignment
In yoga there is a lot of focus on feeling the difference between one side of the body and the other. You also practice becoming attuned to the alignment of your hips, shoulders etc. and position of your feet without looking. It’s useful to practice feeling this without the movement of the horse or other distractions, and the skill will then directly transfer when you mount up.
My body is more symmetrical
Along with the focus on alignment, as mentioned above, yoga encourages you to notice how one side of the body is different than the other. This way you give your body a chance to start to even out asymmetries. You can even spend a little longer in a pose on one side if you feel like you really need it. Since my body is more symmetrical now, I’m not fighting so much against my own body asymmetry in addition to the horse’s asymmetry when I’m riding.
My back is stronger
When I first started my yoga journey, I found it difficult to sit up straight in a cross-legged position for very long. Now I can sit cross-legged with a straight back and use my back to hold myself and help my horse when I ride.
My ankles are stronger
My ankles have always been a little bit weak. When I do standing balance poses, the balancing part is not as hard for me as the burn that begins in my standing ankle very soon after getting into the pose. You might not think about ankle strength as important in riding, but it certainly is helpful, in my experience. Riding in stirrups takes some strength in the ankle area to hold the foot steady. This is especially true during extended periods of rising trot or two-point.
My shoulders are more relaxed
Almost every yoga practice includes an opportunity to slide your shoulder blades down your back to drop your shoulders away from your ears. Practicing this so many times has made it easy for my body to make this movement automatically when it’s needed on horseback.
Use yoga to help your riding
A lot of the benefits of yoga are similar to the benefits of riding itself, which makes it great cross-training.
Interested in adding yoga into your routine but not sure where to start? I use Yoga with Adriene YouTube videos for almost all my practices and would highly recommend her for beginners through advanced. She is a great guide through the practice and offers many variations of poses so you can safely tailor your practice to your own body. With well over 600 videos so far on her channel, there is plenty of variety to choose from. She even has a 30 minute practice specifically for equestrians.
Get on your mat, and I’d love to hear what you discover there to help your riding!
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