Pilates for Dressage Riders – Cookridge Hall March 2010
The real beauty of pilates is that once you have mastered the exercises you can use the technique in all areas of your life because they not only make you stronger , but also teach you to become aware of your body and how you use it.
Darcy Bussell
Joseph Pilates first developed the technique to help strengthen his body after being plagued by asthma and rickets as a child. Moving to New York in 1926 he set up his first pilates studio and it soon became popular among dancers and celebrities alike. In recent years there has been a surge in interest among riders and dressage riders in particular.
I have just completed a pilates course at Cookridge Hall with Anna Nelson and Louise Grant. They are physiotherapists that based at Physiocure in Cookridge Hall, Leeds. Anna is also both a rider, and works as physio with the Moodys in Sheffield. The course is held in the lovely environment of Cookridge Hall and was well supported with some 20 riders, some from a dressage background and some not.
For me, the timing of the class was perfect. I had just changed my saddle and was trying to get my position to match and had started to realise how stiff I was through the hips and pelvis. I had also developed back ache.
I really enjoyed the classes- the exercises were carefully built up so that you became very aware of which bit of your body was working, and mentally I felt relaxed and clear by the end of each session. The exercises include stretching, working on a mat and at times, exercises with balls, bands and balance rolls. Anna and Louise take it in turns to teach and demonstrate each exercise whilst the other walks round helping and correcting here and there. It’s strange how you can think you are doing it correctly but with a small adjustment from Anna and Louise the difference is amazing. No high impact or burn, just careful, slow movements and deep concentration that really works each bit of the body. I hadn’t realised how calm and centred I would feel or how soon I would become so much more aware of the movement of my body, my balance and my posture.
However, as very experience physios with years of NHS experience between them before building up a very successful private practice, Anna and Louise are not just there correcting technique, but are also eagle eyed, looking for any signs of underlying problems. And with two of us in the class, they found just that.
As Louise says,” The medical aspect of it can be very important. Pilates is an excellent exercise program for a well functioning musculoskeletal system, but it can’t do everything. If there is an underlying problem the muscles may be in spasm or there may be a lack of proprioception (the fine communication with the brain) so they are not working properly and other muscles are, wrongly taking over. No amount of pilates will overcome this until the underlying problem has been corrected. The benefit of doing pilates with a physio is this medical input – so that these problems are not overlooked. Otherwise the client can spend years doing pilates and not really getting anywhere” They are quick to suggest to people that they have an assessment and readily will communicate with their GP.
And I am just such a case in point. At the start, my back pain limited some of what I could manage and I was alarmed to notice how wobbly I was in certain exercises, particularly when using my left side. The rest of the class seemed poised and in control and I was utterly perplexed. I ride several times a week and have always kept myself fit so I’m not really used to struggling like this.I am also a GP with an interest in sports medicine but even so I had put the back pain and stiffness down to a rather large buck I had sat the previous week. Little did I know…
However help was at hand- I wasn’t doing a pilates course with physios for nothing. The morning after that very first session, Anna rang me up and suggested I came in for an assessment. They had noticed I was struggling during the class. The assessment soon revealed a problem with my left hip which Louise thought could be a torn cartilage in the hip joint. This was making my left side both very tight and very weak, and was making my lower back rotate in compensation -hence the pain and stiffness. This made sense of so many things- not only why I wobbled in pilates when trying to stabilise with my left side, but also that we had recently noticed my horse was more built up on the right side compared to the left. Thinking about it, I remembered a couple of years ago an incident when my 7 year old son had dived on me, causing a sharp pain in the hip. I’d also had on and off groin pain ever since which I had paid scant attention to. The pieces of the puzzle started to fall into place.
I’ve been to see Louise for some treatment and have worked on the pilates at home and now we have completed the six weeks course at Cookridge. Through Louise’s instigation, I am now on a waiting list to see an orthopaedic surgeon to have the hip investigated. If a tear is present it will be repaired. If it hadn’t been detected it is possible I could have been in line for an early hip replacement. And apparently, these hip tears are by no means uncommon, particularly in dressage riders.
And the result of the pilates course? I am hooked, a complete pilates convert. Given that, as Louise says, the pilates will only take me so far until the hip problem is sorted, I am still amazed at the difference. I feel stronger, fitter and much more flexible and loose. My friend says I look “ longer and more compact” - which I think may be a compliment!
But the most exciting benefit is in my riding. I guess we have all had the experience of experimenting with the sitting trot, knowing only too well the theory but somehow not quite getting that beautiful ease of sitting in the trot. Now I realised how little I was actually in tune with how my body was functioning and what it was actually doing. My right side was doing all the work and my left side just putting in appearances. I can now feel it all so much more clearly, and can feel that with core strength and longer stretched muscles how to relax the hip and pelvis and go with the motion in a soft relaxed motion. My position on video looks so much softer and straighter. I can’t do it all the time but I have had the odd moment of getting it. (And I’m sure I heard my horse say “thank god!” )
I have no doubt too that it will ultimately help my horse to go better through his back. My stiffness may have been mirrored in him. Of course, I still have the left sided problems which won’t disappear until after my hip problem has been corrected and have gone through rehabilitation, but even now I can see my horse’s left/ right imbalance evening up –in only a matter of weeks. It has been a real learning curve for me. How many riders are unwittingly causing problems for their horses and we don’t think to look to ourselves for the cause.?
I am so pleased and grateful for Anna and Louise’s help and support. They are hugely enthusiastic and professional and I wholly recommend both them and pilates. Even better, both together.
In ten sessions you will feel the difference, in twenty you will see the difference, and in thirty you will have a whole new body
Joseph H Pilates