Training at Position Perfect Equestrian

Body Analysis

Position Perfect Equestrian can provide riders with a unique training system specifically designed to help riders identify strengths, weaknesses and imbalances within their body which impact their riding.

Many of our bad habits as riders come because of incorrect ‘muscle memory’. Whenever we continuously repeat a movement our brains gradually learn a certain movement pattern as being ‘correct’. After a period, these muscle sequences are stored to our long-term memory and the movements become ‘natural to us’.  It can take as little as 300-500 repetitions of any movement for it to be stored to our long-term memory, so bad habits can very quickly arise.

In the case of riding there are several reasons why an incorrect muscle memory pattern can arise.  Sometimes it can be because of incorrect coaching in the learning stages of the task, if we are taught to do rising trot with our heels up, this will become the learnt pattern and thus the bad habit arises.  Bad habits may also arise due to weaknesses in certain muscles.  Whilst learning sitting trot, if we are not strong enough through the core, we will recruit other muscles to help achieve the task.  For example, riders often recruit the back muscles because of a weak core, which inhibits our ability to use our pelvis’ correctly and therefore makes a correct balanced sitting trot very difficult. 

Through the Position Perfect Body Analysis system, we can identify these incorrect learnt muscle memory patterns and give the rider the ability to create new correct muscle memory.  We do this in a variety of ways;

Firstly, riders are given an on the ground analysis session.  This enables us to see exactly how your body is working, we look at conformation, where your weak, where your strong and what muscles are compensating where.  Riders are then given a selection of specific exercises tailored to your needs.  These help you really feel how your body is working.  The aim of the exercises is to help ‘fire up’ those muscles which are being ‘lazy’ and not working as they should.  All the bad habits we have help our strong muscles get stronger and our weak muscles get weaker and lazier, so it’s important that we target those weak muscles and create new good habits, the exercises will be specifically tailored to your body to help you achieve this.

Once we've discovered exactly how your body works, worked on your proprioception and done some exercises we then move you onto the horse. It's very important that you learn to use your muscles correctly and correct your imbalances both on and off the horse, as just working on the ground won't rewrite your muscle memory.  Working on the horse also enables us to discover any bad habits that haven’t arisen because of muscle weakness or imbalance, it is important to work on habits that have just been learnt incorrectly to help you achieve your riding goals.

Our aim is to give you the tools to be able to self-analyse and self-correct. As it takes 30 days for your body to learn a new 'habit'. So consequently, you need to be able to work on your muscle imbalances and position on your own to help learn new muscle memories and achieve your goals.

For more information or to book a session, please contact us using the form below.