04/06/2026
Every exercise we do and teach.. ground or ridden- there is purpose and biomechanics behind it.
Understanding biomechanics is an essential part of quality horsemanship.
If youโve attended a clinic with me, you will have heard me refer to a few specific muscles and chains of muscles. Having some knowledge of these areas opens a great many doors in your programme for strength and conditioning, and using an exercise to strengthen a completely different area!
For instance, I love doing a variety of backing up exercises. Backing through things, backing obstacles, loading the weight back to work a cow, stopping and backing, dragging a log back, backward leg yields - the list goes on! Itโs important that the horse backs up correctly, with softness through the neck and energy through the body - if you do, there are a whole bunch of benefits.
Doing a lot of this really builds the gluteal muscles! As well as the semitendonosus, and biceps most notably. Because the horse โsits downโ a little bit in the back up, the hind end really engages.
The follow up from this is of course, that the horses abdominal muscles have to engage to lift the back, and you create elevation in the pectoral muscles and all the muscles that make up the thoracic sling.
Imagine how a horse that has spent a couple of years developing these muscles on the ground will never feel the need to be on the forehand. Imagine how much easier learning new skills will be, when their body is physically able to do it with ease.
The argument of age and training usually comes up at this point. Obviously you have to be sensible in your work load in your young horses. But we can all agree that the structure that isnโt yet developed (skeleton) is supported by the muscles, tendons and ligaments that make up your horses posture. Personally, I think itโs vital in our horses physical development that they begin the strengthen that support. The benefits in bone density are a big deal too!
Now, imagine youโve done lots of thatโฆ even with a young horse on the ground.
What do we want in a canter transition?
You could say we want engagement of the hind end? Lift in the front end? Core engagement and lift in the back?
We have to do these things to strengthen and develop our horses posture. If their posture is weak, we really DONโT want to be riding millions of 20 metre circles. Why? Because youโre going to strengthen all the muscles that are overworking, increasing the contrast in the strong and weak muscles - making the posture worse.
Backup and canter is just one example - but do try and identify what your horses physical weaknesses are, and adapt your work to suit!
Oh and be sure to put side reins on whenever you exercise your horsesโฆ joking - set those on fire!
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