# Should the posting trot be nearly effortless?



## zialov (Jun 20, 2012)

I started riding Western and switched to English last fall. I lost about 3 months of riding around Christmas so all together I've had 16 lessons in English. I ride in a large Dressage ring (66' x 197') and my teacher's specialty is also Dressage. Since I've been here, We've worked primarily on the posting trot. Several younger people I know have told me the posting trot should not be physically hard. The horse should throw you up in the trot and it should be almost effortless. I'm 61 by the way. I don't find posting the trot to be effortless. I get tired and have a hard time getting completely around the ring. I'm also 30 pounds over weight which I'm working to get off. So what do you guys think? Doesn't it take a certain level of physical fitness to post and don't you have to work on that. My friends (actually they're family) make me feel like I'm doing something wrong and not making the progress I'd like to make.


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

Well, it's not effortless but it shouldn't be a chore either. However, if you are not used to using those muscles it takes to post, yes, it will be a work out. Hang in there, you will build your muscles, maybe lose some weight and it will get easier. Anything that takes work and effort has a pay off, if it was easy, you would be surrounded by 61 year olds posting all over the arena.


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## Allison Finch (Oct 21, 2009)

The key to an easy posting trot is good timing. If you allow yourself to relax and FEEL the horse's movement, you will find that the saddle will have a tendency to push you up out of the saddle. Use this "push" to help you out of the saddle. Then that is where the timing comes in. When to go down....If you go down just as the saddle is going down too, you will settle quietly into the saddle and very quickly be propelled up again. If you settle down too soon, you will slap hard into the saddle and not be ready for being propelled up again. Then your timing will be very off and you will have to use muscle to get up. If you settle down too late, you will be going down when the saddle is coming up which will slap you forward awkwardly. Sit in the saddle and try to feel the movement. It will be 1-2..1-2..1-2..Rise on 1 and down on 2.

Yes, sounds easier than it is.


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## Saddlebred11 (Mar 27, 2014)

It is very hard to learn and when you begin you will most likely post up very high and down very far. It is a hard thing to learn though then becomes very easy. Since you ride western you may be able to practice in a western saddle where the stirrups are wider making it easier balance wise


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## bkylem (Sep 21, 2013)

You are probably over-thinking the process. Try to relax and move with the horse. I used to really try hard to post and didn't really get it until I quit trying so hard. The posting will just become a natural rhythm once you ease up and let the horse "lead". 

Now if I could only be consistent on my diagonal transition.


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## zialov (Jun 20, 2012)

bkylem said:


> You are probably over-thinking the process. Try to relax and move with the horse. I used to really try hard to post and didn't really get it until I quit trying so hard. The posting will just become a natural rhythm once you ease up and let the horse "lead".
> 
> Now if I could only be consistent on my diagonal transition.


Is it physically difficult or demanding until your muscles get stronger?


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## QuietHeartHorses (Jul 31, 2012)

I had issues with the rising trot up until recently. I have learned that the more forward (faster) my horse trots, the more fluid the action of posting is. When he trots slow, I have to make more of an effort to rise up out of the seat. I barely have to try when he is forward, I really do feel like I am naturally being lifted out of the seat. Also, pay attention to your legs when you are posting. Your lower leg should be gripping your horse like a big beach ball, the rising should come from your upper leg. Think of it like you are standing up from a chair, and bring your hips forward towards your hands. 

It does take practice and you'll have to build up your strength and stamina, but you'll get there. I am a plus size rider, so if I can do it, you can do it! :wink:


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

my dad has a poster on his wall. it says, "All things are hard before they become easy".

posting will become effortless, but not initially. I am out of breath if I post steadily for several laps around the arena, but the horse I ride is big and has a big motion that takes leg and core strength to ride. I am also overweight, and I am certain it would be easier if I were not.

riding only once a week means you must do something else to build fitness, or you will be perpetually taking the first steps up the mountain, over and over again, and never gain any altitude.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

zialov said:


> Is it physically difficult or demanding until your muscles get stronger?


Yes. It will become easier as you become more fit. While general strength is necessary, there are specific muscles that will increase in strength as you do more posting trot work. 

You will get it. It takes time.


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Are you able to ride without the coach being around? This can take the pressure off. My advice is to just get out there and do it, lots of trotting. Don't be afraid to experiment. Your knees and hips need to work independently of your lower leg.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

You can also straddle a chair at home and rise and fall in it, as that will help strengthen muscles needed for posting.

And it is much, much harder to do at our age, or with extra weight, if we haven't been doing it all along.

Too, some horses are just flat out hard to post smoothly to, not good match it seems at times.


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## Allison Finch (Oct 21, 2009)

Saddlebag said:


> Are you able to ride without the coach being around? This can take the pressure off. My advice is to just get out there and do it, lots of trotting. Don't be afraid to experiment. Your knees and hips need to work independently of your lower leg.


I TOTALLY agree. What is needed is miles!


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## zialov (Jun 20, 2012)

This is good advice from everyone. I do only ride once a week so I need to build fitness elsewhere. I do wish I could ride some without my riding instructor. My step-daughter asked me if I'm ever allowed to just take my horse out into the field with instructions like just walk her 5 minutes, then trot for 5 and then bring her in for the instruction part of the lesson. She said her lessons were often like that. I didn't know a situation like that even existed but I think it would be a lot more fun. I'm feeling sort of bored just riding around the ring all the time or walking a serpentine pattern. I do like the way I'm learning to ride which is the natural horsemanship method. Many things are taught differently from when I was taking Western lessons.


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## zialov (Jun 20, 2012)

waresbear said:


> Well, it's not effortless but it shouldn't be a chore either. However, if you are not used to using those muscles it takes to post, yes, it will be a work out. Hang in there, you will build your muscles, maybe lose some weight and it will get easier. Anything that takes work and effort has a pay off, if it was easy, you would be surrounded by 61 year olds posting all over the arena.


Thank you, you make me laugh. :lol:


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

zialov said:


> I started riding Western and switched to English last fall. I lost about 3 months of riding around Christmas so all together I've had 16 lessons in English. I ride in a large Dressage ring (66' x 197') and my teacher's specialty is also Dressage. Since I've been here, We've worked primarily on the posting trot. Several younger people I know have told me the posting trot should not be physically hard. The horse should throw you up in the trot and it should be almost effortless. I'm 61 by the way. *I don't find posting the trot to be effortless. I get tired and have a hard time getting completely around the ring.* I'm also 30 pounds over weight which I'm working to get off. So what do you guys think? Doesn't it take a certain level of physical fitness to post and don't you have to work on that. My friends (actually they're family) make me feel like I'm doing something wrong and not making the progress I'd like to make.


OMGoodness OP. I am 48 have less than 10 pounds of extra weight, and I will tell you; there is *NOTHING* effortless about posting the trot. I have been working weekly at this since August and I still have only 5 out of every 20 steps of "true posting" and the rest of the steps are hanging on and standing in the stirrups. I practiced the trot hard last weekend on Sunday and today, Thursday, my back is still so stiff I can't put my socks on. 

I ache so bad I don't want to go to the barn tonight for my lesson. 

My horse has a wonderful gait and maintains tempo. I try often to point a finger at him but each time my instructor tells me it is not the horse. :shock:

I can't maintain the one-two beat tempo. Half way around the ring I am completely out of breath. 

I've been watching youtube videos hoping to pick up a trick and it does look effortless. My instructor told me it is all in the lower leg. I refuse to trust my calves and I am working harder trying to do this from the thighs and knees.

If you figure out the secret please share it with me.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

Allison Finch said:


> The key to an easy posting trot is good timing. If you allow yourself to relax and FEEL the horse's movement, you will find that the saddle will have a tendency to push you up out of the saddle. Use this "push" to help you out of the saddle. Then that is where the timing comes in. When to go down....If you go down just as the saddle is going down too, you will settle quietly into the saddle and very quickly be propelled up again. If you settle down too soon, you will slap hard into the saddle and not be ready for being propelled up again. Then your timing will be very off and you will have to use muscle to get up. If you settle down too late, you will be going down when the saddle is coming up which will slap you forward awkwardly. Sit in the saddle and try to feel the movement. It will be 1-2..1-2..1-2..Rise on 1 and down on 2.
> 
> Yes, sounds easier than it is.


This may be the best visual description I have had yet. Thank you. I have the slap hard thing going for me. I can check that off my list. :wink:


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## ecasey (Oct 18, 2013)

I am also older and overweight (although I'm losing weight the more I ride.) Yes, it is normal for it to be a chore under these conditions. It just takes more time to get it right. As the weight comes off and your muscles build (you need ALL of them from ankle to neck), it will become effortless. Just be patient and don't stop riding. Ride at least twice a week. More is better, so long as you aren't too sore.


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## wild old thing (Jun 15, 2012)

OP! take heart!

I'm 67, started riding when I was a youngun of 64 and I'm more overweight than I care to discuss in a public forum. I post the trot most of the time, in different ways - mostly I do a modified post, meaning I ride with my seat lifted off the saddle, letting my knees take the brunt of the momentum (like ball joints in a car) - and the saddles sort of comes up to my butt rather than me moving up and down. I do this to ease my ridiculously big butt off my big butt horse's back while we warm up and hopefully I get to sit his trot if he's feeling generous. 

The formal POST, is hard work. And being older, it's a lot harder. But it's good for you. JUST DON"T OVERDO IT <-- If it seems like I'm shouting, I don't mean to shout at you. I'm just shouting because I will never forget that day: last year I decided to be stubborn and not take breaks during the posting warmups in a dressage class (my first) and by the time we were cantering I was too pooped to pop and was sent airborne by my giant steed (who was very upset by my sudden take off and required a soothing peppermint).

Posting is feeling as if you're swinging your hips kind of forward and off the seat in rhythm to the horses cadence, holding your core: torso, back, head, hands steady and straight. 

I promise the more you do it, the easier it will get but some days will be murder and some days will be golden. Learning to ride standing in the stirrups is very helpful because it strengthens you and lengthens your muscles in addition to letting your horse relax and warm up easier and it gives you better balance. A lot of good posting is about being so balanced, you're in total rhythm with the horse.


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## wild old thing (Jun 15, 2012)

AQHSam said:


> This may be the best visual description I have had yet. Thank you. I have the slap hard thing going for me. I can check that off my list. :wink:


ditto on the slap hard some days. 

but some days I am a lady.


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## ecasey (Oct 18, 2013)

What helped me post better was to have my stirrups longer. Yes, I said longer. When they are shorter (the correct length for English), I end up going too high or using the wrong muscles and then it's a "wobbly" feeling for me. I went many lessons with my stirrups longer and it became much easier. Then I could go back to shorter stirrups without a problem. Maybe try that and see how it works for you.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

Alison Finch said what I wanted to say already - stiffness and tension makes for hard work in riding, the more you can relax the easier it will be to 'go with the horse'. Most beginners try to make themselves post with no connection at all to what the horses legs are doing - having someone call to you 'up, down' as they watch the horses diagonals might help, as long as the horse has a constant rhythm going you'll soon fall into it


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## Woodhaven (Jan 21, 2014)

Would it be possible to get a lunge line lesson? That way you can concentrate on yourself and not have to worry about controlling the horse. Even take hold of the pommel or the mane during the lesson to help you with your balance at the beginning and have your instructor count out 1, 2 ,1, 2, I find counting like that helps with getting the rhythm. I'm 73 but have been riding for over 55 yrs and don't remember having any problems with the trot (senior moment??) but I would trot for miles when I was younger.
If this is a dressage barn I'm guessing the horses are forward moving and probably don't have the easiest trots which can make it harder.

Don't give up, as the others said it will become easier with time and getting those muscles in shape.

Another thought. Can you sit to the trot for a few steps to feel the rhythm and then gradually start rising with the motion of the horse? Try to relax and just let the horse push you slightly out of the saddle ( you don't have to rise very high) and then back down, counting out the strides as you go.


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## horseNpony (Sep 27, 2013)

I havent read read all the other posts fully, i just skimmed over them so sorry if i repeat anything. When i first started doing a rising trot i found it almost impossible, i had no idea how anyone could do it with so little effort. I would get tired after a lap of the riding ring. After a while i found it easier and easier until it became natural to me. Right now its my instinct to post when a horse trots. When i didnt ride for a few months when i came back i found i got tired after posting after one or two laps. Now after 4 or so months of weekly lessons i no longer get tired, and at times i ride at a trot for a full hour. 
So at the moment a rising trot takes some effort, but after you start riding more and your muscles strengthen riding a rising trot will seem easy. Then you can start working on the tougher stuff without having to focus on your trot.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

*Weeeeee!*

After reading this thread I really worked at memorizing the comments. 

I lengthened my stirrups 1 hole

I loosened my back. 

I smiled

I kept my shoulders back chest out. 

I let the saddle throw me up and out. 

It was easier. I went roughly 100 yards and realized hey I am doing it. My trainer even commented that we looked better tonight. 

And to think I didn't want to ride tonight. Loosen your back. It helps.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

Funny, I find that a lot of the time people who don't post well have their stirrups too long, too much chest poked out and too much arch in the back and bum pooched out.


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## AQHSam (Nov 23, 2011)

Tiny I tend to fall forward badly. My idea of chest out is probably still shy of vertical. I felt much more balanced today.


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## tinyliny (Oct 31, 2009)

the thing with chest out is that it tends to put a curve into the back, too much. 
try to think of your pelvis being pulled forward, up and forward, then falling back, as if you had a line hooked under your pubic bone, and it was angled up at about a 45 degree toward the sky, and this is how you are hefted up and out of the saddle (ouch!), then you go back. and you don't reallly "fall' back, you ease back . the upward motion will be a bit faster than the sitting back down motion, like UP! aaannd Up! aanndd UP!


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## ecasey (Oct 18, 2013)

When my stirrups are shorter, I lose balance easier. I know it's not "proper" English riding to have stirrups where I have them, but it's how it works well for me. It's why I love Western so much (one of the reasons). The stirrups are longer and that suits me better.

I believe that with different body styles (and with that, different centers of gravity), different arrangments of tack or different types of riding (forward vs. traditional), might work for one person and yet not work for another. It behooves all riders to try different things until she/he finds what works for her/him.

I think it's great you're coming on here, getting suggestions, trying them out and having success!! That's what the forum is all about, right? Good for you!!


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## Roux (Aug 23, 2013)

I was going to say with learning to post I think it is a struggle until it just clicks and then it just hits you.

Its a hard skill to learn because it takes strength, timing, balance and concentration almost too many things to remember at once!

Sounds like it might have just clicked for you!!


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