Improve The Health Of Your Spine With This Great Exercise For Dressage Riders

Spine health is crucial for a dressage rider to be able to absorb the horses movement effectively. Today I wanted to share with you a great exercise to help mobilize your upper back.

Great posture is one of the keys for a balanced horse that’s connected with their rider. That’s because spine health is vital for the dressage rider to be able to absorb the horse’s movement effectively.

As a dressage rider, you’re creating this illusion of stillness, however your body is actually working overtime. When your posture is rounded or stiff you create movement in your back that’s out of sync with your horse’s motion. In this case, the motion of your horse travels up your spine and becomes blocked, immediately travelling back down. This results in a disrupted and unbalanced seat. It also puts you at great risk of injuries.

Mobilising and improving your upper back will help you become supple through your thoracic spine, resulting in an improved posture. In this video, I demonstrate two exercises which will help you loosen up your thoracic spine and upper back.



1. Side to side twist
Starting with your feet hip width apart, spread your arms out to the side as wide as you can. Turn one thumb up to the sky and the other down to the ground, and shift your gaze to the thumb pointing up.

Slowly, turn your thumbs in the opposite direction moving your gaze with it so you’re looking towards the other side.

Focus on turning the shoulder joint as you turn and shift your gaze. This will help loosen up the upper back.

Try for 1 minute at the rate of your breath.



2. Front to back twist
Stretch out your arms wide with one in front of you and the other behind. Shift your gaze behind you, keeping your body still from the belly button down. As you switch to the other side, focus on reaching out and rotating your upper back.

These two exercises will help you gain the mobility and alignment through your body to create balance and freedom as you ride. That way, when you turn up on your horse, you’re not going to affect their movement. Instead, you can focus on improving how your horse performances knowing you’re not holding them back.


Combine that with creating a neutral stable spine, check out my video here on this -    • Dressage Position - How To Create Neu...  

Also take a look at my video here all about improving hip mobility which will also really help with leg position -    • Stretches To Help With Hip Mobility I...  

To learn more about rider fitness, core workouts, dressage specific stretches and exercises to help you become a better rider, download our free guide -
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To join in on our next 12 week online Dressage Rider Training Program click here - http://dressageridertraining.com/regi...