Riding Dressage with a Labral Tear, Part 2

When we last left my labral tear journey retelling, I'd just started with my new physical therapist. I wasn't expecting major changes with this therapist, but she really surprised me. The initial work was very similar to the first round of therapy I had done. However once I started opening up, we realized how much this injury was tied into my riding issues and overall balance.

It's basically making me ride like I'm a contortionist.

I started analyzing my rides from a physical therapy standpoint. Mid-canter I'd find myself activating different muscles to try to solve my leaning problems, or keep my right hip from tipping off level. I began bringing this insight back to my therapist, along with photos and videos both recent and from riding Pig in his "prime".

Look at that hip do it's thing. Sorta. Kinda. Mostly held up by abs and tight psoas.

This process took a bit of a mental shift. Instead of feeling out of place in physical therapy (where the focus was on being able to stand, walk, do the dishes, shower normally, etc.), I started considering riding part of my normal daily activity. With this in mind, I felt empowered to demand changes at a larger scale than I did before. Sure, I could stand and wash dishes like a normal person, but why couldn't I keep my hip from pulling me off the right side of my horse? Why were my right stirrup leathers constantly stretched out? Why was my horse coming up with unexplained NQR inconsistencies in the same areas? Why couldn’t I turn my horses left without my reins or get a left hand shoulder in?

Why was I always falling off to the right?

My therapist rose to the occasion. She started pulling exercises out every session that were more and more creative and challenging, each one teaching me something new about how my body was compensating for my longterm injury. She had me doing things like kneeling on a balance ball while doing resistance twists, planks while sliding my feet in patterns, and flattening my back on the floor while holding a ball in the air and stretching alternating legs and arms out.

All of this taught me my hip was fundamentally unstable. My coping mechanism has been to hold my tension in my shoulder and upper back to keep my balance. My psoas do get tight easily, which causes my hip to be pulled out of alignment more easily. The entire joint is weak, and when I'm relaxed it drops on the side with the injury. I must constantly be aware of the flatness of my back on both sides, and think of pushing my right hip up and forward.

My whole experience with this process has given me back my athletic ability. I can lift again. I can run again. I can ride my horse effectively again. However, I am coming to the realization that this injury is never going away. The labrum of the hip protects and stabilizes the entire joint, without it intact my right hip joint is wobbly. The joint seems to be causing more problems as the years pass, which does not bode well for my future. Surgery is probably in the cards.

Can't we just gallop away from this sort of problem?

Research into hip labral tears is making it clear to me that there will be continued degradation of my hip. The lack of stability that I feel is quite common, and dressage riding's requirements makes that instability more obvious. The joint itself will break down without the cushion provided by the labrum. Further imaging or arthroscopic surgery will be needed to make this issue less of a problem. Unfortunately the length of time since the original injury may mean I'll be forever planking in an effort to just hold my hips even.

I'm still coming to terms with all this and deciding how to proceed. In the meantime, I'm so excited to be able to ride my horse without screwing him up with my own issues. At least most of the time. I'm so thankful that my time with this therapist has lead to understanding my own issues in such a useful way. It's pretty magical, actually.