Tight Leg

[equestria]

Anybody know any exercises to develop a tight leg?? Please!?!?!?

[intouch]

Why would you want one?
Sorry, being funny, - what exactly do you mean?

[equestria]

I mean, how do you develop a strong enough leg that it's not wobbling everywhere?

[anuvb]

I "think" you are confusing a tight leg, with a relaxed leg. Let me explain what I mean.

A tight leg is where you hold the muscles tightly against the horse's side. To do this you tighten not only the calf muscle but also the thighs. This has the effect of tightening your seat up, in fact making you more unbalanced and therefore your legs move even more. What I "think" you are wanting to know is how to stop this.

The only way to prevent your leg from moving about is to learn how to relax your leg, seat and lower back. Any tension in any of these areas will cause unecessary movement in your lower leg. Why? Because basically, to achieve the appearence of a still leg, you are in fact moving very slightly with the natural motion of the horse. Tightening any aspect of your body, in fact braces that bit of your body against the natural movement of the horse, and so causes your seat to be unbalanced and your leg to move. Then when you apply the leg aids you squeeze your leg against the side of the horse, but again this is very different to tightening your leg.

The strength of your aids will increase with more riding practice - like any muscles they need time to build up. But don't confuse strength with the ability to give really clear and correct signals. If you don't get the signals correct then all the strength you develop will not achieve the result you want.


Exercises.... lots and lots of work without stirrups will help increase your balance and encourage your confidence in your seat and leg aids and help prevent you from tightening your leg against the horse. Practice relaxing when you are riding and getting used to riding without stirrups in all the gaits. Also read Heather's pages on this web-site about improving your seat and balance. These aspects of riding are all inter-twined and get one right, then you are on the road to correcting the others.

[jUmPingIsLifE]

riding:D
its hard to work some of the muscles needed for riding, but what i did was LOADS of running!

i ran all winter last year and my first lesson at camp and the first thing out of my instructers mouth was "nikki, i see your leg is much stronger!"