How To Sit The Trot Training Muscle Memory

This is a pace that all horse riders have trouble with. The header photo shows me struggling with my riding posture after injuries and age-related changes. I am a work in progress as I return to my pre-injury skills.

The sitting trot can be quite a challenge, especially if your horse has a lot of movement or does not quite use its back correctly yet. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: If your horse does not use its back correctly, it will be a lot harder for the rider to sit quietly. And if the rider does not sit quietly, it will be much harder for the horse to move well and to use its back correctly. We spend hours riding at the rising trot and struggle with the sitting trot. 

How To Ride a Horse and How To Sit The Trot. Can be learned using Movement Patterns.

Your core strength, coordination, and synchronisation are the key to both. If a horse rider can sit and trot well, then they can ride just about any horse. You require a strong core and good lumbar, pelvic, and hip flexibility.  By understanding the muscles and movements required for horse riding, it is easy to learn to ride a horse and to sit the trot by breaking the movements down and practising each individually.

Horse riding also requires a strong, well-balanced posture. The sitting trot is an upright posture, and the rider’s seat must stay in the saddle, unlike the rising trot, where the rider moves their weight from their seat to their stirrups and back again. There is no weight transfer with the sitting trot. 

The sitting trot is a very bouncy movement, so the rider must learn to absorb the two-beat footfall through their seat, which is easier if the breathing pattern and core are trained. 

Horse riders need to be symmetrical with their power, coordination, and skill on both their left and right sides.  To ride a horse well, riders must train both their left and right sides. I spend time trying to write left-handed just to train my brain and left side. 

The muscles needed for horse riding are different from those for many other sports. They all need to be trained for riding, not for netball or football. Although horse riding is good for fitness, it requires endurance and strength in all the postural muscles, especially the core. Good horse riders, especially dressage riders, have great posture out of the saddle. They may be stiff and sore, but they do stand up tall. Training out of the saddle with core exercises will solve many “in the saddle” posture problems. To ride well, a rider first needs to learn to stabilise their lower leg.

To be able to sit trot well, a rider needs to be able to coordinate their breathing, their core, and their lower leg to work as a team, not independently, in this case. The rider needs a strong lower back to maintain an upright posture while the core and legs move with the horse’s two-beat gait. By understanding the actions required, it is easier to work out which muscles and which movement patterns to train in order to achieve the skill of the sitting trot.

How To Ride A Horse.The Sit Trot

  Many horse riders are taught to sit, trot on the lunge, and spend hours circling, clinging to their thighs to build core strength. (This is a great technique, but only with a skilled handler and teacher. The core will only build strength if it is engaged properly. Unfortunately, lunging and clinging do not build strength in the right muscles and can teach a rider to cling like a monkey. The time spent doing this exercise often results in a rider giving up, simply because it is too hard and does not work. I will state it does work for some riders, but generally, it is a waste of time and effort. I believe this exercise is wrong. However, I do acknowledge that it does work well for some learners. I train my pupils out of the saddle as well as in the saddle.

All my pupils follow my program, so these core exercises are easy for them to understand.

 Learn to Core Crunch. (Not an Ab Crunch). Many think the sitting trot is only about the seat. It isn’t! The core and lower back need to be engaged and flexible, and the lower leg is the body part that controls the bounce as much as the breathing and the seat. All my pupils learn the “Core Crunch” before any other core movement pattern. The next 18 movement patterns are specific to horse riding. These patterns are unique to my Applied Posture Riding program and have become among the most successful training methods for horse riders to learn to sit the trot.

How To Ride a Horse.The Sit Trot

The benefits of this training are not only to train horse riders to ride well, but also to manage lower back pain and posture problems. The benefits of core exercises are many. The benefits of training under an expert are even greater. To learn how, why, and then what movement pattern is the difference between having knowledge and just exercising.

Would you like to get more support and a personal training plan to improve your riding? Sign up for your APR Membership Training, Applied Posture Riding Program, designed and written by Annette Willson

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Enjoy your riding and good luck, Annette Willson, Author Applied Posture Riding