What's the best way to lengthen your leg?
- Thread starter pnap
- Start date
jesterfaerie
Well-Known Member
To help lengthen my leg I stand on a step at home with my heels off the end and push down.
I also try to ride one hole longer than I normaly would do.
I also try to ride one hole longer than I normaly would do.
jumpthemoon
Well-Known Member
Lunge lessons deepen your seat and are amazingly effective. You can focus on your position and not have to think about the horse - you wouldn't need many, either.
pnap
Well-Known Member
I have had lunge lessons in the past - albeit not on Jack. Think that is probably the way to go as my position is really weak - into the lazy habit of riding with no contact and leg too far back and tipping forward. He does lunge well from the ground so hopefully it wouldn't be a drama to lunge with me on him as well.
happy_talk
Well-Known Member
What about a lunge lesson and at the end take stirrups back. You should feel that you want longer stirrups now. adjust to the new comfortably longer length. Then the next time you ride you will know what you stretched to so that should give you a target.
Somebody said to me that if you relax and hang your legs down then bottom of stirrup should just rest on the top of your foot, to be the right length.
Somebody said to me that if you relax and hang your legs down then bottom of stirrup should just rest on the top of your foot, to be the right length.
vicm2509
Well-Known Member
Riding without stirrups is definatly effective. I used to always lengthen my stirrups at least a hole afterwards.
carthorse
Well-Known Member
My daughter has been riding bareback while she had saddle problems and that has really helped
Equus Leather
Well-Known Member
Riding without stirrups for the first 10 mins helps. I always need to stretch my legs before I start working properly.
amandathepanda
Well-Known Member
I keep contemplating sticking myself in a rack & being stretched...! I ride without stirrups as much as possible, have a lunge lesson whenever I can & nag myself constantly when I hack out about relaxing my knee & pushing the weight down into my heels more.
MillionDollar
Well-Known Member
Lunge lessons, riding without stirrups and riding bareback- all fab ways!
pnap
Well-Known Member
Think I might need to give the bareback a miss - I appreciate my "fairy" too much and with his high withers it'd be in imminent danger. Definately going to give the lunge lessons a try though and then when out hacking put the stirrups down a hole or two.
(The fairy thing will only make sense if you read my post about my first dressage type lesson)
(The fairy thing will only make sense if you read my post about my first dressage type lesson)
reynold
Well-Known Member
lunge lesson in a good quality dressage saddle
pnap
Well-Known Member
Ah a double team approach - you're mean
reynold
Well-Known Member
the dressage saddle will help if your leg is swinging back, esp. if it's got good thigh rolls and a dressage saddle helps your seat to go deep anyway
combine that with about 6 lunge lessons and a packet of painkillers for after the first two sessions as your hips will ache........ ;-))
I hack, gallop, and ride all the time in a dressage saddle and wouldn't swap back now - even jump up to 2 ft in one without any problems and my riding length is so long now that the soles of my boots are hardly higher than the stirrup tread when I take my feet out of the irons
really recommend putting the two together
combine that with about 6 lunge lessons and a packet of painkillers for after the first two sessions as your hips will ache........ ;-))
I hack, gallop, and ride all the time in a dressage saddle and wouldn't swap back now - even jump up to 2 ft in one without any problems and my riding length is so long now that the soles of my boots are hardly higher than the stirrup tread when I take my feet out of the irons
really recommend putting the two together
Orangehorse
Well-Known Member
You have to taken into account your own conformation too.
If you are a rounder lady, you are never going to be able to look like Carl Hester. Men and women are physically different (surprise!) and women's hip/thigh angle are not the same,
There is an article on www.equinestudies.org - the Who is Best Built to Ride article. It was something I hadn't really considered before.
If a lady has too long stirrups it will tend to make her hollow her back and stiffen. A man, on the other hand, might tend to ride "like a sack of spuds" and so is told to put the shoulders back and stick out their chest, which will straighten their back.
Still, I think the best thing to do to improve position and security in the saddle is lunge lessons and riding without stirrups.
If you are a rounder lady, you are never going to be able to look like Carl Hester. Men and women are physically different (surprise!) and women's hip/thigh angle are not the same,
There is an article on www.equinestudies.org - the Who is Best Built to Ride article. It was something I hadn't really considered before.
If a lady has too long stirrups it will tend to make her hollow her back and stiffen. A man, on the other hand, might tend to ride "like a sack of spuds" and so is told to put the shoulders back and stick out their chest, which will straighten their back.
Still, I think the best thing to do to improve position and security in the saddle is lunge lessons and riding without stirrups.
pnap
Well-Known Member
I am indeed a slightly rotund lady and being short of the arse also makes it slightly difficult to have anything resembling long legs. Doesn't probably help that at 17.2hh I sometimes wonder if I have overhorsed myself as he'd quite deep through the chest and I tend to shove my legs back to make sure I hit something other than the saddle flaps!
Years of forward seat jumping when I was younger and teenage years in nothing but stilletto's probably have shortened my calf muscles also.
Years of forward seat jumping when I was younger and teenage years in nothing but stilletto's probably have shortened my calf muscles also.