Q: How can I go about strengthening my lower leg?

A: Many of us have issues with our lower leg when riding. It might be that we struggle to keep our heels down, or our lower leg slips back when jumping or even that we regularly lose our stirrups. The four exercises outlined here are great for strengthening your legs and establishing them as the base of support.

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NOTE

Before beginning these exercises, you must ensure that your stirrup length is correct for you. If you constantly lose your stirrups, have trouble keeping weight in your heels, or your leg slips behind the girth, and your upper body tips forward over a jump, no matter how hard you try not to, then there’s a decent chance that your stirrups are the wrong length. A correct, solid lower leg is essential because it gives your whole position a foundation, but without the right length of stirrups, this can be impossible to achieve.

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The general rule of thumb for riding on the flat is that the stirrup irons should hit your ankle bones when you sit in the saddle with your feet out of the stirrups and your legs stretched long against the horse’s sides. If you’re on a narrow horse who doesn’t have much curve in the barrel to take up leg length, then you might need to shorten your stirrups a hole or two. Alternatively, if you’re on a wide horse, you might need to lengthen your stirrups slightly to stretch around his belly.

For jumping, you simply need to put your stirrups up from the flatwork position by one or two holes. [end box]

Exercise 1: On the edge

This exercise is particularly valuable for those of us who struggle to keep our heels down. Stand on the edge of a step with your heels hanging off the edge. Lightly rest one hand on the wall if necessary to maintain your balance. Then keeping your back straight, flex your ankles to allow your heels to drop below the level of the step. You should feel your calf muscles stretch. Hold this position for about 10 seconds, then step off the stairs and rest for a moment. Repeat this ten times.

Exercise 2: Two-point

With your body balanced, come out of the saddle into a two-point position. Initially, do this at a walk while you get the hang of the exercise. As you lift out of the saddle, drop your weight equally into both heels and rest your legs against your horse’s sides. Keep your hands off the neck to ensure you only balance with your legs.

As you get better at this exercise, you can add in transitions to halt and then walk off again without sitting back down in the saddle or resting your hands on the neck. If your upper body tips forward, backward or sideways, restore your balance and continue.

Over time as you get stronger, you can progress into trot and canter, doing plenty of transitions and turns in two-point position to test your balance and leg stability. The goal is for your legs to eventually stay in place without you having to think about it.

Exercise 3: Rising without stirrups

Rising trot without stirrups is an excellent exercise to strengthen your lower leg position. It is a surprisingly challenging exercise to do, and you will find that your knees slip down the saddle within minutes. When this happens, practice lifting your knee in the saddle. This is the same motion you need to make when trying to relocate your stirrup, so you are practising something valuable whilst also getting stronger.

Exercise 4: Longeing

Another excellent way to solidify your leg position is to go for longe lessons. Longe lessons allow us to focus on our position while someone else is in charge of the horse. Specifically, the longe is a great way to practice the two-point position at the walk. With your attention solely on body posture, you should easily detect if your upper body tips forwards when your lower legs slip backwards and if your body tips backwards when your lower leg comes forward. In this position, you need to keep your legs directly underneath you, regardless of what your upper body might be doing. As your get stronger, you can start to exaggerate the two-point position by bringing your chest closer to your horse’s neck. You can then try leaning from side to side over his neck. The more you change your centre of gravity, the more secure your lower-leg position will be!