How breathing influences rider biomechanics

Everyone has heard their trainer tell them to breathe, relax your body, don't hold your breath while you ride. It gets brushed off as a bad habit but what if breathing actually has to be used as a tool to support rider biomechanics through our fascia?

The fascia is a connective tissue in the body found wrapped in and around our bones, muscles, organs, blood vessels, spinal cord, and nerves. For a long time fascia was only considered as just wrapping paper, when we studied muscles it got cut away and it wasn't until recently we started to fully understand the many jobs fascia has.

Some of the main points to consider to understand fascia in terms of mobility is that it works
​with the muscles to provide things like structure and stability but it also gives the muscles their elasticity, provides nutrition, transfers fluids and supports neuro conductivity and nerve health. Fascia is a continuous fibrillar network that creates form, and function, of all 3 seperate systems, but thanks to the fascial network, it makes 1 whole functioning unit out of different systems. The three separate systems of the body are parietal (musculoskeletal), visceral (organs), and craniosacral (parasympathetic nervous system). Fascia is the reason that these structures are connected but that also means that they compensate for each other.

When we stop breathing, have irregular breathing patterns or low lung capacity/mobility how can it affect the rest of our biomechanics?


Our diaphragm also has a huge role to play to the mobility of our abdomen and chest. When you take a deep breath you achieve the biggest range of motion through your rib cage. When you breathe deeply you might also observe the slight changes in your spine and posture. A great way to visually see this is to have a friend lay on the floor on their stomach and have them take deep breaths and watch the tilt and sway that the lower back and sacrum has.

Any dysfunction in the diaphragm will change the pressure on the pelvic floor, the tilt of our pelvis and the weight in our seat bones. Breathing has a greater impact on our riding than we realize, make sure you take moments throughout your sessions to check into your breath and balance. Diaphragm dysfunction in your riding may feel like a stiff seat, instability, trouble following motion, difficulty breathing, and leaning left or right in the saddle. Rider fitness is incredibly important and its vital to look at the whole rider and your systems the same way we evaluate the horse. How’s your diaphragm?

Better than yesterday

Courtney and I had a very monumental lesson tonight. The arena was loud and creaky, the wind was howling and her mare, Ellie, was rather jumpy and tense in the beginning. They had experienced a difficult patch in their relationship, developing trust and compassion, and working on establishing an open line of communication between one another. Today’s session was a huge test to see how much their relationship has grown and how well they could continue to communicate. 

Instead of fixating on having Ellie focusing on Courtney and micromanaging, we started playing with leg yields, shoulder-in and lateral games. These are all movements that I find to be extremely intrinsically motivating when done correctly, meaning they feel powerful, comfortable and fun for the horse to do, so naturally they want to do more of it. 

Just by working on sideways movement and coordination, Ellie started to feel more confident, relaxed and slowly started stopping instinctually reacting to the noises. Courtney started to feel like she was in better control and let go of the feeling that she needed to grab her reins to be safe. Instead she learnt how to move Ellie’s feet and set a consistent pace and rhythm. 

Together they passed the test. They left the arena feeling relaxed and proud of what they accomplished, as they should.