How They Work
Contact problems?
SteadyHands Gloves help with the following issues:
❌ Fiddling with the reins
- Provides increased awareness of hand movements
- The resistance bands limits the range of hand movement
❌"Pram"/"piano"/downwards facing hands
- Engages arm, shoulder and back muscles to correct this common fault
- Use regularly to overcome the habit
❌ Hands too wide
- The band limits how wide apart the hands can be held
- Builds new muscle memory of correct distance
❌ Hands too low
- Encourages bent elbows which leads to better hand carriage
- Usually goes hand in hand with hands too wide
❌ Overreliance on reins
- Limits/brings awareness to use of the reins
- Invites rider to use legs and/or seat instead
❌ Hands moving around too much
- Gives significantly greater awareness of hand movements
- Engages the correct muscles to keep hands more steady
❌ Hands not working as a pair/unlevel hands
- The band linking the hands together acts as a "bridge"
- Develops mind-body connection of the feeling of each hand individually and as a pair
For beginner riders
SteadyHands will guide the hands in the right position and produce a more independent hand through encouraging better balance.
Beginner riders will form correct habits from the start, and won't have to work hard later to fix a poor hand position.
The SteadyHands safety clip will release easily if needed.
For intermediate riders
This is the time when riders can struggle the most with getting their horse "on the bit".
SteadyHands helps enormously at this time, as it gives riders the chance to experience what a following, consistent and forward-feeling contact can feel like.
For advanced riders
SteadyHands can be used to make subtle changes in the engagement of forearm and upperarm muscles, as well as wrist position, in order to refine the rein contact to its optimum.
At the highest levels, every single detail matters, and those small changes can make huge improvements to performance.
Can something so simple actually work?
Sometimes the simplest solutions are the most effective ones. In the past decade, our understanding of how athletes learn and develop muscles through kinesthetic and resistance aids has greatly improved.