Good and Bad Muscles

We often look at horses and say “oh, that ones has good musculature” or “oh, that one has bad musculature.” We also look in riding and may say “oh no, we don’t want to work that one, it’s a ‘bad’ muscle.”

This is a way of looking at musculature that I find puts people at risk of causing harm when riding their horses and when exercising for riding. The reason is, we get obsessed about working certain muscles. We over-work them in specific exercises and neglect other muscles. Our horses are at a much higher risk of this than we are, as we can speak up  about something being uncomfortable, while they cannot.

Horses that have “bad” musculature simply are over-developed in certain muscles and lack balance. Usually, they have a weak topline (that is, muscles over the top of their body) with what appear to be over-developed under-neck muscles. The answer is not forcing them to work the opposite muscles; this would be next to impossible if not unfair to the horse. Instead, we need to focus on muscle balance. For dressage horses, most people focus on working “on the bit” or “round” almost constantly. But we run the risk of making our horses imbalanced in another way, making those under-neck muscles tight and inflexible. In fact, most of the time, horses with over-developed “under-necks” actually lack muscling altogether. The reason they look like this is because their neck vertebrae start in the bottom of their neck near the shoulder and make an “s” shape, moving up toward the top of the neck close to the skull. So, the neck muscles around the spine make it look more built than it is. So, that’s why working the horse too “round” too much will tighten these weak muscles. This is one reason the Old Masters emphasized working the horse in “natural carriage” so much (which is, the head position a horse takes when they trot across the field with no rider; this is a topic for another day). This is also why we work both collected paces and extended, as well as the in-between working (or as the Germans call, the “normal”) and medium paces, as well as the head carriage from up in collection to down to release the topline.

However, there is optimal usage of the body’s support system to support the rider. Our job is to develop this support system so that as we ride even out in the field, it’s strong enough that the horse can move as freely as possible. This entails using the back and abdominal muscles so that the hind end and front end can move freely. Over time, with training, horses will use this on their own, even if we’re not focusing on “on the bit.” It’s our job to teach them to do so.

The same goes for us. We tend to focus so much on muscles we use for riding that we can forget to keep our bodies balanced. We also tend to focus on muscles that we’re told are “more important” or perhaps weaker at a moment in training, and sometimes we go too far. This can lead to our own muscle imbalance. In fact we also need to work on a variety of muscles. Like our horses, we have a baseline optimal usage of our body’s support system, including a balance of hip muscles, abdominal muscles, back muscles, and shoulder muscles. If we work any of these more than another, if we stretch any of these more than another, we run the risk of injury or chronic pain. This is why cross-training and keeping our postural muscles strengthened and stretched appropriately is so important. It’s also important not to neglect the larger muscles or cardiac muscles either; strength and cardiac fitness are important for health as well. Once we strengthen these, they’ll take over on their own, just as the horse’s muscles will take over for them.

So, in short, there are no “good” or “bad” muscles for us or our horses. It’s important to balance the system as a whole so that the muscles that see the most usage are properly balanced by their counterparts to prevent injury from imbalanced. Like a house of cards, one little card being out of balance can make the entire system collapse. It’s our job to keep a watchful eye to prevent this collapse, both in our horse and in ourselves.

-Emily Wright