Over the past few months we have blogged about how powerful a tool Pilates is for cross training for other sports. It helps you to balance the muscles around your joints, improves your posture and teaches you how to control your movements.

This is especially beneficial for equestrians. We’ve worked with a number of dressage riders over the years, which has been a really interesting experience from an instructor’s point of view. The level of control required to guide the horse through the many complex movements expected in a competitive round is fascinating and is all done between human and horse on a physical basis. It’s very similar to the overall goals we have in Pilates! Every move the rider makes can be construed as an instruction by the horse. So if your inner thigh muscles are tight and grippy, this can lead your horse to think you want him to go faster. Tight shoulders which lead to a tighter grip of the reins can be misconstrued too.
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