Any tips for opening the hips?

[Virago]

I often ride a gorgeous 15.2hh cob mare called Tia at my RS. She a darling really but, my oh my, does she take some waking up! I find that if I use lots of leg, I end up tensing up, sitting very shallow and being closed at the hip.

Tia really responds to open hips and not so much leg. I used to be able to ride her like that with no problems. Just recently I have lost the knack of opening up my hips. It now seems to take me about half my lesson to get her moving forward and listening to me. Once she is 'there', she goes beautifully off my leg.

Does anyone have any suggestions for exercises (on or off the horse) to help open my hips?

[Bay Mare]

Gym or Peanut ball :)

Great fun and you can also practise absorbing the trot and canter :D

[mogadoga]

I desperatly need to open my hips. My muscles are so tight as i had problems when younger (and in the cold...) and a bad back. So my hips need elasticated!! So to hijack your thread, im here to nose for tips:p

[Anvil83]

There's a few exercises that I do to help open up my hips as my hips are soooo narrow, but I think it's got to be all down to the actual hip joints rather than the narrowness of your hips otherwise men wouldn't be able to ride coz their hips are narrow too. Here's a few of the exercises I've been doing that are really helping to open my hips & I've only recently started doing them.

Lie on your back next to a wall with legs crossed but legs need to be raised to be able to have your bottom close to the wall. Then raise your legs & have them upwards against the wall, then gradually let gravity drop your legs wide, don't let one leg go wider than the other though, use your hands as brakes to stop this. Your legs rest against the wall, you will feel a stretch on your inner thighs & also your hamstrings, don't overdo it though, have your knees slightly bent if that helps. Don't make sudden movements otherwise you will really hurt yourself. Each time you do this exercise always hug your knees into your chest afterwards & make big circles with your knees to massage your lower back.

Another exercise I do is I sit on the floor with my legs bent & the soles of my feet touching, I then try to gently push my knees down to the floor, again don't bounce the knees or make any sudden movements.

I also do another exercise where I sit down on a chair, place the ankle of one leg onto my other leg just resting on the knee. Then I stretch upwards with my arms raised & breathe in then breathe out & bend forwards from the pelvis not by just rolling your back. Hold for a breath or two then swap legs.

Hope this helps. An on-horse exercise that's great is to bring the knee up towards the pommel, one leg at a time, then turn/rotate the leg outwards from the hip joint & place back & down to the side of the horse, then do the same with the other leg. This helps get your legs more under you & I find it helps widen my hips a little too.

There's also the "pigeon pose" in yoga that's supposed to be great & the "warrior poses" are good too, I think these are on youtube. Good luck! :) I'm still trying my best to widen my hips, I can't even ride a wide horse otherwise my left hip twinges loads! So at the moment I just stick to narrow horses, but hopefully not for long.

I was going to visit my GP because I did have some pain whilst riding but after doing these exercises for a few weeks, I noticed a huge improvement so I have no need to ask my GP about my hips now, but if I do get any pain in the future then I'll be booking an appointment straight away, I have to have a really good reason to visit him otherwise he reckons I'm wasting his time, horrid GP, they're all like that at my local practice.

I started these exercises 3 months ago & they do seem to be working, I am finding that already my legs can move more than 90 degrees apart, I could hardly widen them before coz otherwise I'd be in quite a lot of pain. I did attend yoga classes twice a week but that wasn't doing anything for me as it wasn't often enough, so I bought Yoga for Riders DVD & practice that plus other movements I've learnt & I do those every other day.

Good luck & let me know how it goes.

[emm]

Have someone holding your horse whilst you are mounted. Best done at beginning of lesson. Take feet out of stirrups and raise knees above saddle. Then open knees out and take legs away from saddle and as you lower them down, push your whole leg down and backwards holding them away from the saddle. Does hurt a bit at first, but really opens hips for rest of lesson. Another one is letting legs hang freely by saddle and swinging legs backwards and forwards, in halt, then in walk. I find these work well.

[Virago]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Anvil83 - I found your off-horse exercises particularly useful! I had a great lesson today. Hips already felt suppler and Tia went really well for me right from the start. I'll carry on with the exercies to keep my old bones loose!! ;)

[Anvil83]

Hi virago, I'm really pleased that you had a great lesson & that you got on well with the off-horse exercises I had suggested, I'm glad that I was of some help to you. :)