A brief anatomy of the horse stance

 

A fundamental part of traditional training the horse-riding stance (Ma Bu in Chinese) is a popular yet painful exercise. Here we are going to look at the anatomy of Ma Bu and some of the benefits it produces.

Ma Bu is an Isometric exercise in which the muscles are contracted and held in a static position, what is great about Ma Bu though is that it performs two tasks simultaneously; it is both isometric strength training for the quads and glutes and isometric stretching for the inner thigh.

Muscles stretched: 

Adductor longus, Adductor brevis, Adductor magus.

Gracilis, Pectineus, quadratus femoris

Isometric stretching can be uncomfortable, but holding tension in the muscles while they are lengthened will increase flexibility and improve the strength of the muscle fibers.

By pushing out the knees we will stretch the muscles of the inner thigh which are used to adduct the leg (pull it towards the centre of the body,) if you want to increase your hip flexibility, kicking range or do the box splits, isometric training of the adductors is of substantial help.

Muscles Working: 

Quadriceps femoris (rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus intermedius, vastus medialis,) Gluteus maximus (used to outwardly rotate the legs.)

The quads and glutes are some of the largest muscles in the body and used for things such as running, jumping and kicking.

Physical and mental endurance: 

Holding Ma Bu for even two minutes is tough, (five minutes is great, going beyond this is said to have little impact on strength gains,) but by holding this high intensity position we are improving our muscular endurance and lactic threshold.

Importantly it isn’t the body that gives out first for a majority of people it’s the mind, we just give up. Holding through the pain when you really want to quit will increase your mental endurance and discipline.

Ankles knees and hips: 

Because we are talking about a low horse stance with the feet facing forwards, we will increase the tension on the tendons and ligaments of the hips, knees and ankles, this is fantastic for drawing blood to these areas increasing their strength and health.

Ma Bu may be limited by its static training position when most of our training requires us to move, but it provides some unique benefits and can quite easily be added to your training regime if you have a few minutes spare, which let’s face it we all do at some point.