How much muscle activation is truly optimal while riding? As equestrians, we all strive for stability, mobility, and harmony in the saddle. But achieving this balance requires understanding how our muscles work and how to train them effectively. Let’s break it down.

The Equestrian’s Goals in the Saddle:

• Stability + Mobility: Supporting our joints while staying flexible enough to absorb forces and deliver independent cues.
• Harmony with the Horse: Allowing the horse to perform at its best while carrying us.
• Effortless Appearance: Maintaining a still, balanced posture while feeling every movement beneath us.

To achieve these goals, we need to optimize how our muscles activate—balancing stability, mobility, and effectiveness.

Three Muscle Activation Strategies for Riders:

Constant Engagement
This involves keeping your core, thighs, and calves engaged without squeezing the horse, while maintaining flexibility in your hips, knees, and ankles. While effective for short periods, it can lead to fatigue, breathlessness, or even injury over time.

Minimal Effort
Accepting your current strength limits and doing the bare minimum. While this approach is less taxing, it often leads to frustration as it lacks the strength and control needed for true harmony with the horse.

Dynamic Muscle Activation + Proprioception Training
Strengthen your muscles off the horse with exercises that focus on full-range activation, balance, and proprioception (body awareness). This method builds functional strength and mobility, allowing you to ride with ease, adaptability, and long-term health. It’s a commitment, but the results are sustainable and transformative.

Understanding Muscle Activation

To ride effectively, it’s essential to understand how muscles work:

• Isometric Contractions: Muscles hold tension without changing length (e.g., holding a plank).
• Concentric Contractions: Muscles shorten as they contract, creating movement (e.g., lifting a weight).
• Eccentric Contractions: Muscles lengthen while contracting, often as a joint returns to rest (e.g., lowering a weight).

In the saddle, we rely on all three types of contractions to maintain stability and adapt to the horse’s movement.

The Role of Agonist, Antagonist, and Synergist Muscles

• Agonists: The primary muscles creating movement.
• Antagonists: Muscles that lengthen to allow movement.
• Synergists: Support the agonists by stabilizing joints or adding force.

For example, during elbow flexion, the biceps (agonist) contracts, the triceps (antagonist) lengthens, and synergists like the brachialis stabilize the movement. In riding, synergists naturally assist in joint stability and mobility without conscious effort.

What Science Says About Muscle Activation in Riders

A 2020 (González, Šarabon) study compared novice and advanced riders to understand how horse movement affects neuromuscular function. Key findings included:

Novice Riders: Relied on constant co-activation of muscles, leading to stiffness, instability, and reduced harmony with the horse.

Advanced Riders: Showed better core activation, inter-muscular coordination, and contra-lateral activation (using opposite sides of the body effectively). They adapted instinctively to the horse’s movement, maintaining balance and relaxation.

The takeaway? Advanced riders achieve stability and harmony through intelligent, instinctive muscle activation—not brute force.

Choosing Your Muscle Activation Strategy

Here’s how the three strategies stack up:

• Constant Engagement: Effective but exhausting. Leads to stiffness and limits adaptability.
• Minimal Effort: Comfortable but ineffective for growth or harmony.
• Dynamic Muscle Activation + Proprioception Training: The most sustainable option. Builds strength, mobility, and proprioception, allowing you to ride with ease and longevity.

My Journey with Option 3

For years, I over-engaged my muscles in pursuit of stability, leading to stiff, painful rides. I coached others to do the same, which only created more rigidity. Discovering off-horse training transformed my riding. By focusing on functional movement and proprioception, I developed a natural, intelligent connection with my horse—and I’ve never looked back.

The Path to Embodied Rider Fitness

Option 3 isn’t just about building strength, it’s about teaching your body to feel and adapt. By training your muscles off the horse, you’ll develop:

• Joint Mobility: Absorb forces and move fluidly.
• Strength + Stability: Support your body and your horse.
• Proprioception: Heightened body awareness for better harmony.

This approach prepares you to ride comfortably for years to come, turning your body into a supportive, adaptable presence in the saddle.

Which strategy resonates with you?

If you’re ready to explore Option 3, start incorporating off-horse exercises into your routine. Your body—and your horse—will thank you.