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Help with leg position

Looking for some useful exercises, tips, advice for my lower leg/thigh issue.

I lost 90 pounds 5 years ago. I have quite a bit of flesh/loose skin on my inner thighs. I have difficulty getting my thigh rolled to the inside of my saddle to engage that straight foot. I typically have the toed out heels down thing going on. It’s not severe, but enough I know that I’m going to be hindering myself if I want to progress more then second level work. I can physically pull that extra back and do the leg lift and shimmy.

Just wondering if there are any other riders out there struggling with this and what they have done to help.

can you wear really tight breeches? Or maybe firm fitting undergarment to your knees? Or maybe tight compression stockings?

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A suggestion: Acavella opera stirrups, they really, really help you naturally position your foot with the toe forward and the leg parallel to the horse.

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I just want to say - HUGE congratulations for losing the weight! (Please tell me how) As for the extra skin - have you considered having it removed/reduced? My sister had gastric bypass and has lost over 100 lbs. She is 70 but is still considering having the surgery.

Otherwise, I think the other suggestions are great ones. Good luck!

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This issue is more about your hips, rather than the loose skin (and way to go on that 90lb!!) Hip mobility, whether external or internal rotation, or open hip flexors, is a big problem for a lot of people, and you just have to work on it off the horse, as well as on

An on-horse exercise might be to stand in the stirrups - like straight up and down, not 2-pt, and really focus on exaggerating rotating your entire leg inward. Not just “toes in”. Thinking “heels out” is more effective as long as you don’t end up rolling your foot to do it. You can do that on the ground as well

But there are also a ton of mobility exercises you can do, including squats, lunges, hip openers (standing or sitting on the ground)

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How large are the blocks on your saddle? The larger blocks that push your thigh straight tend to force you to rotate your thigh and toe out in order to contact the horse’s side. The instagram account saddlefitting.us talks about this a lot.

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Yeah, the hips. For me, thinking more of kneeling so the knees are stretched downwards, helps, In the walk warmup, I’ll drop my stirrups and make sure the thigh is rotated in like you say, and then bring the whole thigh back so it’s fully straight, and even kick my foot up so I can grab my ankle (you could use a strap if you can’t get your leg back that far). The walking motion of the horse helps loosen and relax the hips. Sometimes I’ll get a muscle spasm, and using the handle end of my whip helps to massage it out while the horse is walking. Of course all this requires the horse being dependable enough not to splat you while you’re in a somewhat precarious position.

On the ground, look at YouTube for hip mobility exercises. Also, don’t neglect core strength and balance (postural muscles). As I’ve done more work with this, I’ve noticed that I can remain stable in the saddle without tensing up in my glutes and other muscles around the hips. That allows the seat to stay deeper and the leg to stay more draped.

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Yessssss. It’s just not as simple as “it’s my hips” or “it’s my shoulders”. I mean, hip mobility issues are a real thing. You can be very strong, and have limited mobility. A lot of very serious weightlifters, for example, don’t have great joint mobility, beyond just what a bulkier muscle prevents.

Mobility is different from flexibility. Mobility requires using muscle to work a joint through a range of motion Flexibility doesn’t.

Our core is really our glutes to our armpits, front to back. And a WHOLE lot of peole have weak glutes, which compromises and inhibits lower back, hamstrings, and everything.

So, working on mobility will, by default, help with the core. BUT, working on “core” work, will also help that mobility.

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I just skimmed the other posts so apologies if someone already mentioned riding without stirrups. Even at the walk, I’ve found that it does wonders for opening up my hips and stretching my legs down.

Good Luck!

Fixing your leg starts on the ground. Lots of lunges, then weighted lunges and driving through that leg to get up.

As I’ve been working really hard on a solid position that being able to engage the right muscles in the thigh and having hip mobility is key. I’ve been using a pelvic clock and hip mobility exercises plus going through my Sally Swift books and revisiting her exercises. It’s not an overnight thing but I’ve noticed a difference in my leg and how I’m draping vs blocking movement.

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Yes o had s9meone point out to me “point your knee to the ground” which really helped me get my leg straight. C9ngrats on the Wright loss, and keeping it off! Wow!

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Yes - “point your knee at the ground” is right. It can be hard to do initially. What I do (if you are physically able to) is bend my knee so that I can reach down and grab my ankle. Then pull the upper leg back so that the knee points down. At first you won’t be able to hold your leg there, but it helps you feel the goal.

This is a very good exercise, just know it requires a certain degree of hip flexor mobility and flexibility, which is a large part of the problem with soooo many people today, since most of us spend an enormous amount of time sitting (which shortens all that), and don’t spend much if any time working on that flexibility

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Thank you everyone for the tips and ideas.
I got lucky and got a clinic spot with David Lind! We had our unmounted lesson this morning and my ridden lesson will be at 5:30. I am so excited to see what he can help me with!

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Care to weigh-in on how it went?

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Had an excellent time.

We had an unmounted lesson in the morning. All about feel and awareness of our bodies. What one movement of one area of our body does and effects the rest of our body. It was very interesting. Walking around barefoot, trotting around barefoot. Learned a lot!

Mounted lesson started with sitting on small rubber exercise balls under each seat bone to feel the weight being put into each one. So very neat to see how light you can become when aware of the feel. Side-note, where the heck do I find small rubber gel balls to continue this? My google searches, while funny, have not lead to what I’m really looking for.
We really worked on stretching my legs out then keeping the toe in. It’s going to be a lot of stretch work, but I felt some improvement.
Lastly we really worked on my horse extending in the gaits. He gets complacent and down in the forehand easily. We worked GALLOPING around the ring and asking for collection in the corners and adding some up encouragement with the tap of the whip as the collection started. Same in the trot work. Really emphasizing the up and out in the work. Whole laps of gallop and big trot turned to three loop serpentines with transitions within gaits.
Dave was kind, encouraging and loved my horse. One of my favorite clinics in all my years of riding. If you get the opportunity, get the riding spot in one of his clinics!

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These are probably Franklin balls. They are available in various sizes, shapes, and textures.

https://www.google.com/search?q=franklin+balls&oq=franklin+balls&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i512l5j46i512j0i512l3.7937j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

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These are it!!! Thank you! Just ordered a pair.

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Think of kneeling. This will not only flatten your thigh but also put your lower leg under your hips.

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