The EquiCan Academy can help riders (and horses) with pain and rehabiliation

Emma-Louise Emerson, a chiropractor, founded The EquiCan Academy to empower amateur riders globally with no-nonsense, unbiased advice from medical experts, professional riders, coaches and trainers.

From horse-buying success to horse welfare, to the competitive edge, there are links below from EquiCan where you can find all the information you need under one roof. 

Emma-Louise writes here for The Equine Times about hip and back pain suffered by many riders and describes how they can understand why it happens and what to do to alleviate it and make riding more comfortable and, ultimately, successful for both horse and rider.

Why are So Many Riders Living with Back and Hip issues?

Can pain be avoided?

By Dr Emma-Louise Emerson

It usually begins quietly, not with a dramatic injury or a fall, but with something smaller.

·       A stiffness that lingers a little longer after riding.

·       A pinch in your hip as you swing your leg over.

·       A lower back that feels tight halfway through a session and doesn’t quite recover the next day.

Most riders ignore it because that’s what riders do.

We get on with it, we adapt, we ride through it. Until one day, something changes.

You’re no longer riding freely.

You’re thinking about your body more than your horse. You hesitate where you did not before. And somewhere in the back of your mind, a question starts to form;

Is this just part of riding, or is something wrong?

The uncomfortable truth is that this is not normal, but it is becoming incredibly common.

Research is finally catching up with what riders have been feeling for years. A 2024 systematic review, published in ‘Sports’ by Duarte et al found that low back pain in equestrian athletes ranged from 27.9% to 87.9% - significantly higher than in the general population and in many other sports. 

Within the same body of research, equestrian sport was determined to have distinct biomechanical and workload-related risk factors, particularly associated with riding volume and stable duties. 

A separate 2024 cross-sectional study by Duarte et al., also in ‘Sports’, found that 61.7% of riders experienced back pain within 12 months, with over 63% reporting that it directly affected their performance. 

And when looking at elite riders, more recent biomechanical research in 2025 (Smit et al., ‘Journal of Biomechanics’) suggests that the annual prevalence may range from 61% to 74%, likely due to repeated spinal loading and shock absorption through the saddle. 

That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern.

To understand why this is happening, you have to look at riding differently.

From the outside, horse riding can appear almost passive. You sit; the horse moves. But anyone who rides knows that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Every stride requires your body to stabilise, adapt and respond. Your spine is constantly working to stay balanced. Your pelvis has to absorb movement while staying controlled. Your hips must be mobile yet stable. And all of this has to happen in perfect timing with another living, moving animal beneath you.

Then you add real life into the equation.

Long hours in the saddle, yard work, lifting, repetitive strain, old injuries that were never properly rehabilitated, perhaps time away from riding, followed by a return without properly rebuilding the body.

Over time, these factors don’t just create pain: they create compensation.

Research into rider biomechanics and injury patterns consistently shows that back pain is linked to asymmetry, reduced hip mobility, and deficits in neuromuscular control, as highlighted in earlier work by Cejudo et al. (2020, Symmetry) and subsequent equestrian injury research. 

In other words, it’s rarely just ‘a sore back’. It’s a system that isn’t functioning as it should.

“And here is the part that often goes unspoken.

Many riders are not just experiencing pain;

they are riding through it …” – Dr Emerson

At first, it seems manageable. You adjust slightly, ride around it and stretch it out later.

But the body never truly ignores dysfunction. It adapts to it. A tight hip can often change your seat without you realising.

A restricted lower back alters your timing and ability to shock-absorb your horse’s natural motion. 

A lack of stability shifts your balance ever so slightly.

A lack of rotation in your mid back can make you lean your weight to one side, throwing your horse off balance. 

And your horse feels every single one of those changes.

This is where rider pain quietly becomes something bigger. It’s no longer just about your comfort. It begins to influence performance, communication, and, ultimately, the horse's welfare.

Part of the problem lies in the beliefs that riders have been taught for years.

One of the most persistent is the idea that pain is simply part of the sport. That if you ride enough, it’s inevitable. But high numbers don’t make something normal; they mean it’s widespread.

Another common belief is that the solution is to get stronger. Strength absolutely matters, but only when the body is moving well in the first place. Building strength on top of restriction or imbalance often reinforces the very problem you’re trying to solve.

And then there’s the idea that rest will fix it. Sometimes it helps temporarily, but many riders find the pain returns as soon as they get back in the saddle, not because they haven’t rested enough, but because the underlying issue was never addressed.

So, what actually works?

In truth, it starts with understanding that ‘back pain’ is not a diagnosis, it’s a symptom.

What matters is identifying why it’s happening in your body. That means looking at how your joints move, how your muscles work together and how your overall movement patterns influence your riding.

This is also where choosing the right practitioner becomes critical. Many riders spend months, sometimes years, moving between treatments that ease the symptoms but never quite solve the problem.

The difference comes when someone understands not just the body, but the demands of riding itself, how posture, symmetry, timing and control all interact in the saddle.

One of the biggest shifts we see clinically is when joint function is professionally restored. When joints move as they should, everything else starts to improve. The body becomes more efficient. Movement feels easier. Compensation begins to reduce.

From there, strength can be produced in a way that supports the rider, rather than masking underlying issues. And importantly, riders start to recognise the early warning signs their body gives them - the stiffness, the imbalance, the subtle changes in performance - long before they develop into pain.

What’s becoming increasingly clear is that this isn’t about treating pain. It’s about understanding the rider as part of the horse’s performance system.

Because if your body is restricted, compensating or uncomfortable, your horse must adapt to that. And over time, those adaptations can affect both performance and long-term soundness.

If you are reading this and recognising yourself in it, you are not alone.

And more importantly, you are not stuck.

You can make significant, positive changes and ‘unlearn’ old, faulty patterns with the right people behind you. 

The first step is simply understanding what is really going on and what to do next.

We’ve created a free guide specifically for riders to help with exactly that. You can download it here:

https://go.theequicanacademy.co.uk/10mistakes

Inside, we break down the most common mistakes riders make that lead to back and hip pain, why traditional advice often falls short and how you can start making changes that last.

Because riders are incredibly good at pushing through. It is part of what makes the sport so powerful.

But the future of riding, for both performance and horse welfare, is not about pushing harder.

It is about understanding better. When your body works the way it’s designed to, everything else starts to fall into place. You sleep better, move better and ride better.

Your horse will thank you for it!

EquiCan Academy contact: https://www.theequicanacademy.co.uk

Contact Emma-Louise Emerson at Riverside Chiropractic on 01224 211517.