Pegasus Physiotherapy

10/08/2026

🙋‍♂️Everyone asks how to improve sitting trot, but before we talk about how much your pelvis needs to move, we need to talk about the position it is moving from.

A neutral pelvis, rib cage organised over the pelvis and shoulders over the hips gives you a position from which your trunk muscles can actually do their job.

And that job isn’t to hold you rigidly still.

Your trunk has to work both anticipatorily and reactively. It needs to prepare for movement and incoming forces, but also continually respond to the forces created by the horse underneath you. The aim is to keep the rib cage and trunk organised over the pelvis while still allowing the pelvis to move underneath it.

That becomes particularly important in sitting trot because of the much greater vertical forces, alongside the alternating left-right movement you need to follow and absorb.

This rider has a tendency to lean backwards, particularly as the forces increase. In this session we used weights held in front of her to help her feel what it was like to keep her rib cage connected over her pelvis rather than allowing the trunk to move backwards.

The weights aren’t an exercise to make sitting trot harder. They’re simply giving her a different sensory and loading experience so she can find and recognise the position.

Once she can organise her trunk over her pelvis, the pelvis has a much better opportunity to move underneath her to follow the horse.

That’s why sitting trot, for me, doesn’t start with trying to move your pelvis more.

It starts with having enough trunk control to stay organised while allowing your pelvis to move.

And importantly, this isn’t a special ‘sitting trot position’. The Riding Ready position is the same whether you’re in walk, trot or canter. What changes between the gaits is the direction, timing and magnitude of the forces your body has to manage.

That’s exactly what we build through in the Riding Ready Position Course - finding that position first, understanding why it matters, and then developing the control to maintain it while your body moves with the horse.

Because you don’t need a different position for every gait. You need a position that is ready to adapt to all of them.

09/08/2026

09/08/2026

👌Yesterday I talked about why we need to look beyond heel position and actually look at what is happening between the foot and the stirrup. This is why it matters...

Your stirrup is part of your base of support. It is one of the surfaces through which forces are transmitted between the rider and the horse, so its orientation matters.

When the stirrup is relatively horizontal, as in the first image, the reaction force from the stirrup is directed predominantly vertically back through the foot. You have a stable surface to load, good contact through the ball of the foot and an ankle that still has movement available.

Drop the heel further and the stirrup can start to rotate forwards. The surface you’re loading is now angled, so the reaction force acting back through the foot changes direction too. At the same time, the ankle often moves further towards dorsiflexion, leaving less movement available to respond to the horse.

Move the stirrup onto the toes and you have an even smaller base of support. The toes are extended, the soft tissues underneath the foot are tensioned and you’ve reduced the stable contact between your foot and the stirrup.

This is why “heels down” isn’t enough information to tell us whether a rider has a stable lower leg.

We need to look at the base they’re balancing over.

Balance comes from your base of support, not how far you can push your heel down.

And once you start looking at the stirrup rather than the heel, you see rider position very differently.

If you want to understand the biomechanics behind your position rather than simply being told where your body should be, the Riding Ready Position Course takes you through the foot, ankle, lower leg, thigh and hip- helping you understand what your body is doing, why it’s doing it and how to change it.

Join the Riding Ready Position Course and start understanding the why behind your position.

09/08/2026

🛞 Loaded pelvic rotations tell us a lot.

You have to stabilise your pelvis over the supporting leg while deliberately rotating it, then control the movement back again. That requires lateral hip stability, control of loaded hip rotation and the ability to move the pelvis without the whole leg simply following it.

And importantly, it should be pain free. The aim isn’t to push further into range or work through pain. It’s to find a comfortable amount of movement that you can actually control.

When someone has reduced hip strength or control, this is one of the exercises I like to start with. Before adding more load or making an exercise more complicated, can you control your pelvis over one leg?

Can you rotate it while keeping the supporting leg organised? Can you stop the knee and foot simply turning with you? Can you control the movement in both directions without shifting your weight or using your trunk to compensate?

It looks simple, but there’s quite a lot going on - and for riders, being able to control the pelvis over a loaded hip is pretty useful.

Want to understand what your hips and pelvis are actually doing when you ride?

This is exactly the sort of thing we assess and work on in Rider Physio sessions - identifying where you lack strength, control or movement, and then giving you the right exercises to change it.

Rider Physio sessions available in Cheshire and at clinics around the UK.

08/08/2026

🤒So annoyed got ill this week!

08/08/2026

🧐A lot of riders will look at these and immediately look at which one has their heels down. But we need to look a little closer at what is actually happening between the foot and the stirrup.

In A, the ball of the foot is supported on the stirrup, the foot is relaxed and the stirrup is relatively level. The ankle sits around the middle of its available range, meaning there is still movement available when needed for shock absorption.

In B, the ball of the foot is still on the stirrup, but the heel has dropped further and pushed the stirrup forwards into an angled position. The ankle is now closer to the end of its dorsiflexion range. How quickly this happens depends on individual ankle mobility, but being closer to end range means less movement is available to absorb the horse’s movement.

In C, the stirrup has moved onto the toes. The toes are held in extension, tensioning the plantar fascia underneath the foot. The rider now has a smaller area of support and is loading a part of the foot that isn’t optimised to provide the same stable weight-bearing base.

We spend so much time looking at whether a rider’s heel is down that we can miss what has happened to the foot and stirrup to achieve it.

And that matters because the stirrup isn’t just somewhere to put your foot. It’s part of your base of support.

Tomorrow I’ll explain why the position of the stirrup matters, how it changes the forces acting through your leg and why a lower heel doesn’t necessarily mean a more stable lower leg.

If you want to understand your position rather than just being told where your body should be, that’s exactly what we work through in Riding Ready - understanding the biomechanics, recognising what your body is doing and developing the strength and control to change it.

Join Riding Ready and start understanding the why behind your position.

08/08/2026

🙌Helping riders understand their body and balance

07/08/2026

🧐 This video caused a bit of controversy a couple of years ago when another equestrian physio used it in a post. My logo and name were blurred out, but it was still fairly obvious it was mine.

Apparently, the exercise “wasn’t good enough”, was “too basic” and riders should be “working harder”.

When I found out, I commented and owned it. Because yes, it IS a basic exercise. It was supposed to be.

The original post was about the hamstrings: where are they, what do they do and do you train them? It wasn’t claiming this was the best exercise for building hamstring strength.

If maximal strength was the goal, would I choose this over a deadlift, Nordic curl or another appropriately loaded exercise? No.

But that wasn’t the purpose.

Exercises like this can be useful for neuromuscular control. Can you stabilise your pelvis on one leg while moving the other into hip extension? Can you move the leg without tipping or rotating your pelvis or compensating through your trunk?

That matters for riding because we need to move our legs independently to apply an aid while maintaining control of the pelvis and trunk.

If the goal is strength, we need appropriate resistance and progressive overload. If the goal is movement control, simply making an exercise harder doesn’t necessarily make it better.

There is a difference between strengthening a muscle and learning to control a movement. Both matter.

That’s also why my Rider Physio sessions aren’t a gym programme. We look at what your body is actually doing when you ride, then work on your understanding, body awareness and physical ability to improve it.

Not every rider has the time, money or desire to spend hours in a gym. That doesn’t mean they can’t improve.

Being the best you can be for your horse doesn’t automatically mean lifting heavy weights. Sometimes a basic exercise has a very specific purpose.

06/08/2026

👀 Any guesses??

06/08/2026

🐶I’ve been trying lots of natural treats for Willow lately, and pigs and cows ears last 5 mins max 🙈 so keep trying different things and today finally cracked it!

Love popping into my local pet shop and chatting through all the different options, they are so knowledgable about all the food there!