My #1 Best Heels Down Exercise For Kids Who Ride, To Do at Home:

The Step Stretch
This is the oldest and best exercise to work your heels down off of the horse. It stretches your tendons and muscles, and gives you the feeling of having weight in your heels. To do the step stretch stand on the bottom step of a stair (you don’t want to slip on a higher step and go down a flight of stairs on your face) on the balls of your feet. Slowly stretch down into your heels.  Hold the wall to keep from falling.  Don’t bounce because bouncing can cause muscle tears. Do this up and down in sets of 15 several times a day.

If you don’t have stair you can purchase a foam half round.  It works as well as a step, and it’s portable. You can do the step stretch on the half round. half-rd

My #1 Best Unmounted Exercise For Heels Down For  Adults Who Ride Is The Step Stretch AND All Of The Following!
Stretch back Muscles and Hamstrings
Tight lower back and tight hamstrings account for a huge number of riding problems for adults, particularly problems in legs and heels. Good old  Toe Touches are always in style for stretching- stand up straight, roll forward and down slowly trying to touch the floor with your fingertips. Hold to a count of 12.  Roll up slowly. S-L-O-W-L-Y

Loosen Ankles and Stretch Calf Muscles
Sitting in a chair with calves vertical lift toe off floor by flexing ankle. Hold for a count on 20. Then release and lift the other toe. You can do this exercise(as well as Ankle Circles) at your desk at work.

Ankle Circles both directions
Rotate your foot to the left 12 times.  Rotate your foot to the right 12 times. This helps to loses up muscles that control the ankle.  A flexible ankle is one of the keys to having heels down.

Stretch the Calvesstretch-calves
Stand about 3 feet from a wall with feet flat on the floor.  Lean forward a place hands on the wall. Hold for 15 seconds.  Do not over do this.  Adjust the distance your feet are from the wall according to your own body.

Stretch one Calf at a time
Follow the instructions for stretch the calves but only put 1 foot back to stretch at a time.

My Personal Favorite-

Exercise Bands
Stretch you legs, one at a time with an elastic exercise band.  Put the band between the ball of your foot and your toes (or where it feels secure) point your toes and hold it for a count of twenty, flex your ankle and hold it for a count of twenty.  Sets of 10 twice a day work well. Be sure to hold your knee straight. And be sure to do both legs

BTW
In the physical realm, tendons don’t stretch a lot but you don’t need a huge stretch in order to have good heels. Since the sustained heels down position is an unusual position for anyone to adopt when they aren’t riding, it stands to reason that a little bit of work to stretch those rather unstretchable tendons ought to pay dividends.  Suppling and loosening your ankles will help your heel position and your relaxation.  And strengthening your feet will help the general strength and flexibility of the ankle, heel, foot overall.

OK- Enough Work For Between Lessons.
Let’s talk about what you can do on the horse.

IF you wear paddock shoes or field boots – anything with laces at the ankle- do not tie them tightly.  You can’t flex your ankle if it’s all bound up like you were wearing ice skates. You tighten your ice skates up so that your ankle is supported and you don’t twist it.  You loosen your laces in your riding boots so that you can have a flexible ankle.

Standing and Balancing
Hold the mane or neck strap and rise up in the stirrups, letting your weight sink into your heels.  Keep your knees slightly bent for shock absorbers. (If you straighten your knee and lock it you’re doing this exercise incorrectly)  Be sure you don’t pull your seat forward onto the pommel.  I would call that cheating – plus it doesn’t do a thing for your riding. Practice at the walk and trot. This exercise has the added benefit of working on your balance and helping you to find ‘center’.

**Two Point- Two Point gets two stars as the best mounted exercise for heels. . . and a lot of other thingstwo point
2 point is an exceptional exercise for heels down. You can hold the mane or neck     strap to steady yourself as you sink your weight into your heels.  Don’t lean on your horse’s neck because because you will end up taking the weight on your hands instead of letting it sink in to your heels.   Practice at walk, trot, and canter, also over poles. You’ll know your two point is good when you can move around, swivel at the waist, bend over to touch your stirrup. . . all without losing your heel.

Ankle Circles
With feet out of stirrups practice the same ankle circles that I mentioned for unmounted.

Oh, But I do all of those things

Here’s the truly hard part.  Even if you are doing all of these things now, developing good heels takes a lot of time and even more work but it’s worth it because one day you’ll have great heels and not need to think about it any more.  And you’ll always want to keep some of these exercises as part of your warm up routine.

Is That It? Is that all you have to say about heels?

Well there’s the ‘Mental Exercise”- Letting the weight sink into the heels is as much a mental exercise as it is physical. Riders need to picture the flow of weight from the head down to the heels.  They need to think about the feeling of becoming heavy in the lower extremities.  Adults, especially, carry a lot of tension between the shoulder blades.  This tension causes the center of gravity to rise, which countermands many of the good things we try to achieve in lessons, including good heels.  Picturing the weight flowing, not just to the seat but through the seat will help.

It’s hard for us to think about lowering our weight.  When your horse spooks, your first reaction is probably to raise your hands and tense your shoulders- but guess what? your weight just went up and I bet your heels did too.

Develop a ‘weight down’ mind set. Think about letting your weight down (not slump, not rounding your shoulders or collapsing your core) through your shoulders (get your shoulders farther away from your ears), through your core, through your seat and thighs, down through your knee and ankle.

Try some of these suggestions on a regular basis. You may be surprised at how your heels improve.

Thanks for reading The Riding Instructor!

Barbara Ellin Fox

Barbara Ellin Fox TheRidingInstructor
  • When I jump, I have trouble keeping my hands up and my heels down. This is causing me to get ahead of my horse. He has a really heavy head and pulls my hands down, that causes me to try and use my body to pull his head up. I guess I’m asking how to keep my heels down and not get ahead of my horse. One disadvantage I have is my left side of my body has never been as strong as my right, making it hard to get my left heel down. How do you get both heels down so your not be ahead of your horse?

    • Hi Paige,
      It’s difficult to give advice about specific riding issues, online, because there are so many factors that go into good riding. I can give you general ideas but please make sure they will work safely for you before you try them. Ask your instructor to help with the exercises.
      Most of the time we need help with ourselves and help with the horse. If your horse lugs or is heavy on the forehand, I would suggest gymnastic jump (grids). Grids will cause him to use his body in a more athletic way.

      Most of the jumping ahead of the horse issues I see stem from an over dependence on the crest release. My recommendation, if you have a safe area and a safe horse, is to jump without reins holding your arms out to the sides like an airplane. Also riding on the flat without reins will help your balance. If you can’t do any of this, try taking a few lunging lessons on the flat.

      If your left side is not as strong as your right, try working out off the horse to balance your strength.

      Ok these are very general answers. I’ll write a post soon to cover these things in more depth. Thanks for asking your question and best luck to you. Barbara

  • This is an amazing website I always have it open in a tab ! But the thing is I don’t own my own horse so j can’t really just try what I want and the j mounted excercises no matter how hard I stretch, try and work hard to get them down…. It doesn’t work pls help me

    • Chloe,
      Thanks for reading The Riding Instructor. It would be hard to help with personal riding skills without seeing you ride. My best suggestion would be to have a good instructor and as many hours on a horse as you can. Best wishes. Barbara

    • Dear Bennett,
      I’m always encouraged when I know I helped someone. Thank you for your comment. Barbara

    • Jacques
      My favorites for kids (well adults, too) are standing and balancing, riding in 2 point, and toe touches, both cross overs and same side. Be sure when they do toe touchers that they press the heel on the toe that is not being touched, down. This helps to stretch the muscles out a bit more and to give the feel of independently pushing that heel down. When they stand and balance (and 2 point) work toward not holding on or leaning on the horses so they can actually work the weight into the heels. Heels work is very important especially when you consider that the heels down position isn’t one we practice off of a horse much. Most exercises work for kids and adults. Does anyone else have favorites for kids? We’d love to hear from you.

      Thanks for your comment
      Barbara

  • Thank you very much! I’m an adult rider who has very very tight calf muscles and the one thing I have never been able to master is heels down. I’m definitely going to try these great ideas, and hopefully improve my heels 🙂 Thanks again!

    • Claire,
      It always makes me very happy to know that I helped a little bit. Thank you so much for letting me know. I appreciate it.
      Barbara

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