Testing Your Functional Mechanism in the Rising Trot

Simple Exercises to Check Your Body Engagement in Rising Trot

The rising trot is a fundamental skill for any rider, but mastering the technique is more than just standing up and sitting down in the saddle. It’s about engaging your body correctly and moving in harmony with your horse. If you’ve ever felt out of sync, bounced, or found yourself gripping tightly with your legs, it could be a sign that your functional mechanism in the rising trot needs a tune-up. Let’s explore how you can test your body engagement and use a few simple off-horse exercises to ride more effectively and comfortably.

Understanding the Functional Mechanism

Your functional mechanism refers to how well you coordinate your muscles, joints, and posture to perform the rising trot. Ideally, you want to rise smoothly with your horse’s movement, using your core, thighs, and hips rather than relying on your hands, gripping with your knees or squeezing your glutes. When your mechanism is working, riding feels almost effortless. When it’s not, things can quickly fall apart.

Why Testing Matters

Testing your body engagement can help you identify weaknesses or habits that might be holding you back. It’s easy to develop compensatory patterns—like bracing with your hands, tensing your shoulders, or using your lower legs for balance—that disrupt your communication with your horse. Bringing awareness to your movement is the first step to improvement.

Here's a great example from the Pegasus Physio (UK-based) to show a not-so-great and more ideal version of rising the trot on a horse simulator.

Simple Off-Horse Exercises for Self-Assessment

Testing for How You Distribute Your Weight

Test Exercise [this takes less than 5 minutes of your time]

1. Take your shoes/socks off for this one, stand with your feet slightly wider than your shoulders, feet pointing forward

2. Arms soft and held like you would be holding the reins

3. You are going to slightly bend the knees (as if you were in a riding position)

4. Looking down at your feet and toes, as you squat a little lower, hinging at the hip, notice what is happening at your feet and toes.

5. Which one of these do you do:

   1. Toes curl under slightly, weight going into the feet heavily and your knees move?

   2. Toes stay light, weight going into the ball of your foot and your knees stay steady?

Here's a close up video of gripping the toes, and seeing how your foot ankle and stability is affected (feel free to slow it down in playback too):

Gripping toes

Here's a close up video of gripping the toes, and seeing how your foot ankle and stability is affected:

• notice how there may be weaknesses in the inner arch of your foot depending on how well you can stabilise big toes versus the smaller toes in your feet (I have had a full ankle reconstruction on my right foot due to major injury with hypermobility to provide some context)

• feel free to slow it down in playback too

Toes staying light creating stability

What is Going On Here

If you are doing 5 a), it means you might be doing this in your rising trot mechanism:

• Weight is going into the stirrups (heavily)

• You might even be gripping the stirrups with your toes which causes tension right up the leg into the hip

• You are destabilizing your lower leg

• You are not hinging at the hip

• You are more than likely using your reins to balance (affecting the horse)

• You are more likely to be landing in the saddle heavily in the "sit phase" of the rising trot

• You are more likely to be tipping at your torso to get into the "upwards" part of the rising trot

Here's the video of me demonstrating what this looks like with gripping toes. Watch for:

• How wobbly /unstable my whole leg looks

• Look how wobbly and unstable my knees are (these are one of the points in the 7-point seat)

• My whole body is unstable, and I find it hard to balance

• I compensate by arching my back more and leaning into my hands

• I can't control the downwards and upwards mechanics well

• Feel free to slow it down in playback too (so you can seee the compensation really clearly)

Gripping toes: unsteady mechanics

Perception/Awareness/Reset Your Feel

Let's try and bring awareness to our bodies and try the test exercise again, but this time:

1. Bring your big toes up off the floor (or if you really want to test, try all toes off)

2. Tone the inside of your knee (bringing the big toes up should help this but I wanted to bring awareness to you for this)

3. Now try hinging at the hip and see how much more stable and grounded you are

   1. You should notice how much more control/stability you have in your legs with your knees not moving outside of the stable plane they are both on

4. Repeat the squat and notice what your torso and arms are doing

5. Do you feel more stable/controlled across most of your body now?

Here's the video of me demonstrating what this looks like with toes up. Watch for:

• How much more stable my lower leg is

• Toes aren't gripping the floor

• Ankles are soft but stable

• My quadriceps and hamstrings are actively and properly engaged in the downwards and upwards motions

• I can more easily hinge at the hip (which is the mechanics we need for the rising trot)

• How much more am I able to balance my whole body?

• Feel free to slow it down in playback too (so you can seee the compensation really clearly)

Toes up stable mechanics

Taking it To the Saddle

Awesome that you now have awareness here. I can now give you a "rider's shopping list" (things you can go through and tick off as you ride around). As you repeat this new "shopping list" it will become more and more automated and you won't have to visit this list every time, but you need to start somewhere to bring awareness to this tension and reset with the new pattern for habituation.

Here's your "rider shopping list":

1. Before you go into the rising trot:

   1. Ensure your foot is on the ball of the foot to the stirrup bar (a lot of people only have their toes!) It looks like this:
      

      

      Correct and incorrect positions of feet in stirrups (most people do the first image in the second row!)

   2. Feel: Go down (don't look down) into your body and physically lift your big toe or toes so they gently touch the top of your boot

   3. Feel: Are your knees equally bent on both sides?

   4. Feel: Are your glutes relaxed and soft?

   5. Feel: Are you in your stacked, neutral spine position?

   6. Feel: Are your lats softly firmed as if you are trying to hug your bra strap?

   7. Feel: Are your elbows softly bent and gently by your sides?

2. As you go into the rising trot, focus on those toes staying up (mainly the big toe) and toning the inside of your knees to stabilise them (sometimes thinking of "kneeling into your knees like jump cups under your knee caps" helps)

3. Once you have felt this and maintain it, now think of your pelvis, think "are you hinging/bending at the hip" (almost like you are thrusting the hip forward first in the mechanism, without gyrating the saddle and horse!)

   1. At first this may feel like you a tipping slightly forward, stay with it and feel the stability this creates with steps 1 through 3 all happening

4. As you sit, slowly control and only gently touch the saddle (think if you have eggs on the saddle and you don't want to crush them or the saddle is hot lava and you want to get off it more quickly) and hinge the hip again

Added bonus: Video yourself in the exercises above and also at the rising trot before and after you attempt the new "rider's shopping list" above and compare it. Happy if you share in the comments and we can review together! It takes time to refine and get our bodies to automate what we want them to do.

Final Thoughts

Testing your functional mechanism in the rising trot isn’t about being perfect—it’s about becoming more aware of your body and how it moves with your horse. Use these simple exercises regularly, and you’ll soon find your rising trot feels smoother, more balanced, and more effective. Happy riding!