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Rider Biomechanics: Does Getting the Right Result Mean You're Doing the Right Thing?
A successful response from the horse doesn't necessarily mean the rider's position, aids or movement were correct.
We spend a lot of time assessing the outcome of riding - whether the horse performed the movement we wanted and how well it performed it - but considerably less time establishing how the rider actually achieved that result. If the horse responds correctly, we often assume the rider must have applied the aids correctly, yet the horse may be responding to learnt signals, changes in balance or compensations the rider isn't even aware they're making, which means that what we see happening isn't necessarily an accurate reflection of what the rider intended to do.
Just because you did something and got the result you wanted doesn't necessarily mean you did the right thing.
I think this is particularly important when we're talking about rider biomechanics, because there's a fundamental difference between improving the horse's performance and improving the rider's ability to control their own movement. The two are obviously connected, and ideally we want both, but a successful outcome from the horse doesn't automatically demonstrate successful execution by the rider, particularly when the horse may have learnt to respond to movement patterns or signals that the rider isn't consciously controlling.
The horse's response tells us whether something worked, but it doesn't necessarily tell us what worked, why it worked or whether it was what the rider intended to do, and if we're genuinely trying to improve rider biomechanics, surely we need to understand those differences rather than simply assuming that because the horse did what we wanted, the rider must have done the right thing.
The horse doesn't know what the rider intended
A horse doesn't know what its rider is thinking or what movement they're consciously trying to produce, it simply responds to the information it receives, and that information can influence the horse through several different mechanisms, some related to the physical effects of the rider's position and movement and others to learnt responses developed through training.
When a rider changes their weight distribution, shifts their centre of mass or alters how forces are transmitted through the saddle, the horse may need to adjust its own posture and movement to accommodate those changes. That doesn't necessarily mean the horse has interpreted the rider's movement as a deliberate aid, because changes in loading and balance can influence how the horse moves regardless of whether the rider intended to produce them, and the mechanical effects of those changes may occur alongside any learnt response.
Other responses develop through training, including operant conditioning, because a horse doesn't inherently know that pressure from the rider's leg means move forwards, sideways or change its movement in a particular way. These associations are established through learning, often using negative reinforcement, where the removal of pressure following the desired response increases the likelihood of that behaviour occurring again, so when the rider applies leg pressure, the horse moves forwards and the pressure is released, the horse gradually learns which response produces that release.
Rein aids can work through similar learnt associations, although rein tension also creates mechanical forces through the bit or other equipment that can influence the horse's head, neck and movement, while weight and seat aids are particularly interesting because they can involve both mechanical effects and learnt responses. A change in the rider's pelvic position might initially influence the horse's balance, but if that same change repeatedly occurs before a particular movement, the horse may also begin to recognise it as a signal of what comes next, meaning that what started as a mechanical influence can gradually become a learnt cue through repeated experience.
And this is where things become more complicated, because the horse responds to what the rider actually does, not what the rider thinks they're doing. A rider might believe they're applying a particular leg aid when they're also shifting their weight, altering their rein tension or changing the position of their pelvis, and the horse may respond to the intended aid, one of those additional signals or a combination of them. If the horse then performs the requested movement, the rider may reasonably assume that the aid they consciously intended to give was responsible, when in reality the horse may have been responding to something quite different.
The outcome alone doesn't establish which of those signals produced the response, or whether the rider actually executed the movement they thought they were performing.
When the outcome improves but the execution doesn't
I was recently sent a video of a rider who was gripping with their knees, and the correction they were given was to transfer more weight towards the outside of their feet. The intention was to encourage the knees to move away from the saddle, reducing the gripping and allowing the horse to move more freely, and from the outcome in the video, the correction appeared to work because the rider was no longer gripping with their knees in the same way and the horse's movement was described as improving.
So, from an outcome perspective, the correction appeared successful, but what had the rider actually done to achieve it?
Rather than addressing the position and control of the thigh through movement at the hip, the rider was being instructed to change how they distributed pressure through the foot, shifting their weight towards the outside and encouraging supination. Depending on the position and loading of the lower limb, this can influence rotation through the tibia and consequently alter the position of the knee, effectively moving the knee away from the saddle without necessarily developing any greater ability to control the thigh independently at the hip.
The knees were no longer gripping in the same way, but that didn't mean the rider had learnt to control their thighs differently, and this is where I think we need to be much more careful about distinguishing between achieving a visible correction and actually improving the movement strategy behind it.
For this particular problem, we want the rider to be able to control the position of the thigh from the hip while maintaining balanced support across the ball of the foot in the stirrup, rather than relying on changing foot and ankle position to move the knee away from the saddle. Deliberately shifting pressure towards the outside border of the foot changes how that base of support is loaded and, depending on the positions of the hip, knee and ankle, may introduce additional rotational demands through the lower limb, so although the knee may appear to be in a more desirable position, the rider hasn't necessarily developed the movement control we're actually trying to improve.
Of course, if the original problem had been inappropriate foot loading or ankle position, then addressing that would be a different discussion and potentially an entirely appropriate correction, but in this example the problem being addressed was excessive knee gripping, and the instruction encouraged the rider to achieve the desired change through the foot rather than establishing what was happening at the hip.
Now, that doesn't mean the correction has no value, because in the short term, asking a rider to shift their weight towards the outside of the foot might be a useful way of helping them experience what happens when they stop gripping with their knees. They may suddenly recognise how much pressure they were previously applying through their thighs, feel a different relationship between their legs and the saddle, and notice that the horse responds differently when that pressure is reduced, all of which can be valuable information when someone is learning to recognise and change an established movement pattern.
But that needs to be explained to the rider as a temporary strategy to help them experience and understand a change, rather than being presented as the correct way to position their lower limb when riding, because the longer-term aim is to develop the ability to control the thigh from the hip while maintaining appropriate support through the stirrup, without needing to rely on altering the position of the foot and ankle to move the knee away from the saddle.
And, more importantly, we still need to establish why the rider was gripping with their knees in the first place, because excessive gripping isn't necessarily the original problem but may instead be a strategy the rider has developed to compensate for something else. They might be using their thighs to compensate for insufficient trunk or pelvic stability, they may lack the ability to control hip rotation independently, their lower leg position might be affecting how they transfer weight through the stirrups, or they may simply have very little awareness of how much pressure they're applying through their knees.
Those are all different possibilities that require assessment rather than assumption, and the appropriate correction will depend on what is actually contributing to the movement rather than simply what the position looks like.
This is also why the explanation given to the rider matters so much, because if they come away from that lesson believing that whenever they grip with their knees they should roll their weight onto the outside of their feet, we've potentially replaced one compensation with another. But if they understand that changing their foot pressure temporarily helped them recognise what happens when they release their knees, and that the next step is learning how to achieve the same result through better control of the thigh at the hip while maintaining their support in the stirrups, then exactly the same exercise becomes a useful part of developing their movement awareness.
The immediate outcome might be the same, but what the rider understands and learns from it is very different, and I think that distinction is particularly important when we're trying to improve rider biomechanics rather than simply achieve an immediate change in position.
A correction can be useful for helping someone feel a difference without being the movement strategy we ultimately want them to maintain.
Rider Biomechanics- Understanding the cause before correcting the position
This is why I keep coming back to three areas when working with riders - understanding, body awareness and physical ability - because before we can expect someone to change how they move, we need to establish whether they understand what we're trying to achieve, whether they can recognise what their body is currently doing and whether they have the physical capacity to perform and maintain the alternative movement.
In the example of the rider gripping with their knees, understanding would involve explaining the relationship between the pelvis, hip, thigh, knee and foot, and how those structures contribute to the rider's base of support and ability to remain stable in the saddle. Rather than simply telling someone to move their knees away, I want them to understand how the thigh moves at the hip, how that movement influences the position of the knee and lower leg, and why we want to maintain appropriate support through the ball of the foot rather than using changes in foot pressure to compensate for what is happening elsewhere.
Body awareness then becomes important because understanding a movement doesn't necessarily mean someone can recognise whether they're performing it, particularly when they've developed a movement pattern over many years and it has become their normal way of maintaining stability. Can the rider recognise when they're gripping with their knees, accurately identify how they're distributing pressure through their feet, or distinguish between moving their thigh at the hip and moving their knee by altering the position of their lower leg? If they can't, simply giving them a positional instruction may not produce the movement we intended, even if the resulting position appears to have improved.
And finally, we need to consider physical ability, because even when a rider understands the movement and can recognise what they're doing, they may not have the mobility, strength, coordination or motor control required to perform and maintain it. Does the rider have sufficient hip mobility to achieve the required position, can they control rotation at the hip without compensating through the knee or foot, and do they have the trunk and pelvic stability needed to maintain balance without relying on excessive gripping through the thighs? Being able to achieve a movement briefly in isolation is also very different from being able to maintain it when the horse starts moving, particularly when the rider has to respond to changes in balance while simultaneously coordinating their aids.
These are different problems requiring different approaches, which is why I don't think rider biomechanics should be treated as a standard checklist of positional corrections that every rider needs to follow. Not every rider needs to externally rotate their thighs, just as not every rider needs to internally rotate them, and not everyone needs to bring their lower legs further back, lower their heels or sit up straighter, because the appropriate correction depends on what the individual rider is actually doing, why they're doing it and what they need to be able to control differently.
A rider might bring their lower leg back by changing the position of their pelvis rather than moving independently at the hip, move their knees away from the saddle by altering how they load their feet, or sit more upright by increasing muscular tension through the trunk rather than developing better postural control, and in each case the position might look closer to what was requested without the rider necessarily having addressed the underlying movement problem.
If we don't understand why someone is adopting a particular position, how can we know whether the correction is addressing the problem or simply encouraging another compensation?
Improving the outcome and improving the execution
Ultimately, I think we need to be clearer about what we're actually trying to improve, because if the aim is to get the horse to move better, then changing the rider's position or pressure distribution may produce an immediate improvement, and that can be a perfectly useful result. But if the aim is to improve the rider's biomechanics, we also need to establish whether the rider has developed a more appropriate movement strategy rather than simply achieving a different appearance or response from the horse, and those two objectives shouldn't automatically be treated as though they're the same thing.
Ideally, of course, we want both, because effective riding requires the rider to control their own movement while communicating clearly with the horse, but a horse can respond successfully to a compensation just as it can respond to an intended aid, and a rider can achieve a more desirable-looking position through a movement strategy that doesn't actually address the original problem.
There's also an important difference between using a cue to help someone experience a movement and teaching them that the cue represents the final position they should maintain. In rehabilitation and motor learning, temporary strategies, exaggerated movements and changes in sensory feedback can all be useful ways of helping someone recognise what they're doing and explore an alternative, but the purpose of those strategies needs to be understood, and the next stage is developing the ability to perform the intended movement without continuing to rely on the temporary correction.
In the knee-gripping example, moving pressure towards the outside of the foot may have provided useful feedback about what happens when the knees release, but that should be the beginning of the process rather than necessarily the final instruction the rider takes away and repeats every time they ride.
And this is why my approach to rider physio begins with assessing the rider rather than simply correcting what their position looks like, because using the Racewood simulator allows us to investigate movement patterns, identify compensations and develop the necessary control before progressing to the additional demands of riding a real horse. We can establish whether a rider understands the movement, whether they can recognise what they're actually doing and whether they have the physical ability to change it, without relying solely on the horse's response to tell us whether the correction has worked.
Sometimes the rider needs a better understanding of the anatomy and biomechanics behind a particular movement, sometimes they need feedback to improve their awareness, and sometimes we identify limitations in mobility, strength or motor control that need to be addressed before expecting them to change how they sit or move in the saddle, although more often than not it's a combination of all three.
It's also why I developed Riding Ready, because understanding the anatomy and biomechanics behind riding gives riders and coaches a better foundation for recognising what they're doing, why they're doing it and what may need to change. Rather than simply learning a collection of instructions about where different body parts should be positioned, the aim is to understand how those positions are achieved, what the body needs to be able to do to maintain them and how the rider can develop greater control over their movement.
None of this means the horse's response is unimportant, because ultimately the interaction between horse and rider is what we're trying to improve, and a successful response provides valuable information about how that interaction is working. But the horse's response is only one part of the assessment, and if we're genuinely interested in improving rider biomechanics, we need to understand the movement that produced it rather than simply assuming that the outcome validates the execution.
We also need to recognise that there isn't always one single correct movement strategy, because riders naturally adapt their position and movement depending on the horse, the task and their own physical characteristics, and the aim isn't to make every rider look identical in the saddle. It's to develop the understanding, awareness and physical ability to use appropriate movement strategies deliberately and consistently, rather than relying on compensations simply because they happen to produce the desired result.
We spend a lot of time asking whether the horse did what we wanted, but perhaps we should spend more time establishing whether the rider actually did what they intended, because getting the right result doesn't necessarily mean the movement used to achieve it was appropriate, and changing the appearance of a position doesn't automatically mean we've improved the control behind it.
The outcome tells us what happened. The execution tells us how it happened. And if we want to improve rider biomechanics, we need to understand both.
Want to understand and improve your riding?
Through Pegasus Physio, we assess how you actually move in the saddle, identify the factors contributing to your position and develop the body awareness and physical control needed to make meaningful changes. Sessions begin on the Racewood simulator, allowing us to focus on the rider before applying those improvements to a real horse.
If you want to develop your own understanding of rider anatomy and biomechanics, Riding Ready provides online education for riders and coaches, explaining not just what to do in the saddle, but why, and how your body influences your position, balance and control.
SymmFit helps you see what you're actually doing through riderwear designed with visual references, making it easier to recognise differences in your position and movement, and helping to bridge the gap between what you think you're doing and what's really happening.
All three are brought together through Be a Better Rider - combining rider physiotherapy, education and visual feedback to help riders understand their movement, recognise what they're doing and develop the physical ability to make meaningful changes.
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