Understand your body. Improve your riding.

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Rider Physio combines physiotherapy with rider biomechanics to understand how your body influences your position, movement and control in the saddle. Whether you are looking to improve your riding, struggling with pain, returning after injury or surgery, or simply feel that something isn't quite working, the starting point is the same: understanding what your body is actually doing, why it is happening and what needs to change.

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Every Rider Physio session is individual, but sessions are guided by three key principles:

 

POSITION · MOVEMENT · CONTROL

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We start with position because this provides the foundation from which you need to move and control your body. If position is limiting movement or control, we address that first rather than asking the rider to solve more complex problems on top of an unstable or inefficient base.

Once an effective position has been established, we can look at movement - how you move with the horse through different gaits and riding situations - before progressing to control, including how you maintain your own balance and use your seat, leg and hand aids.

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Assessment

Sessions begin on a mechanical horse, allowing us to assess your position and movement in a controlled and repeatable environment. Photographs and video are used alongside data from the simulator's saddle, rein and leg sensors to help us see how weight is distributed, how your position changes as you move and how you interact with the horse.

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Where appropriate, this is combined with an off-horse physiotherapy assessment to investigate pain, restriction, weakness or loss of control that may be contributing to what we see in the saddle.

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Position

We typically start by establishing your base of support.

This includes looking at:

• pelvic position and control

• foot placement on the ball of the foot

• stirrup position and length

• maintaining a level stirrup and vertical stirrup leather

• balance with and without weight through the feet

• trunk position and control

• shoulder, arm, wrist and hand position

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The aim isn't to put every rider into an identical 'perfect' position. It is to find a position from which you can balance, move and use your aids effectively, taking into account your individual anatomy, physical ability, riding discipline and goals.

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Movement and control

Once you have an effective base, we can progress to how you move and control your body while riding.

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This may include movement with the horse in walk, trot and canter; rising and sitting trot; transitions; changes in rhythm; lateral movements such as leg yield or half pass; application of the seat, leg and hand aids; or maintaining balance and control as demands increase, including jumping.

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If we identify that position is limiting your ability to perform a movement, we return to the foundation rather than repeatedly practising the movement itself.

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Pain, injury and returning to riding

Rider Physio isn't only about performance. Sessions can also support riders experiencing pain or discomfort, recovering from injury or surgery, or returning to riding after time away. The same process applies: understanding what your body can currently manage, identifying what may be contributing to the problem and gradually developing the movement, control and physical capacity required for riding.

Your symptoms, injury history and findings from the physiotherapy assessment are considered alongside what we see on the simulator, allowing the session to be adapted to you rather than following a standard program. 

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Treatment

Depending on what we find, treatment may include manual therapy, individual off-horse exercises and work on the mechanical horse. The simulator isn't intended to replicate riding perfectly. Instead, it gives us a controlled environment in which we can identify a problem, make a change and immediately see and feel the effect. The aim is then to give you the understanding, body awareness, control, balance and physical ability needed to transfer those changes to your horse.

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