Stirrups for knee and ankle pain: what riders try

They overlap a lot, and one stirrup often combines several. The table below draws on Horse & Hound's technical stirrup guide, a Herm Sprenger article on joint-friendly stirrups, and the maker pages for Royal Rider and Flex Rider on our site. These are design intentions and maker claims. None of them is a treatment.

You can browse the whole range in our stirrups, leathers and fenders category. Everything named here is an example of an idea, not a recommendation.

They are different bets about what helps. The sources describe both, and sometimes both in one stirrup. Horse & Hound, for example, describes one design whose flexible arms are meant to be gentle on ligaments and joints and whose extra-wide pad sets it apart from a sibling model, and another design with a wide tread, a slight tilt and a shock-absorbing plate.

Makers are also frank that flex is not for everyone. Our Royal Rider and Flex Rider pages both say to look elsewhere if you want a stirrup that stays rigid under your foot, because their designs are built to move with it. If you know you like a firm platform, that is useful to know before you try a jointed design, and the other way round.

The claims above come from makers, magazine testers and riders. Herm Sprenger says its knee-friendly claims rest on rider feedback and independent product tests, but it does not name the tests. Horse & Hound's testers describe how stirrups felt to them, which is useful and is still one person's impression, not a measurement of a joint.

That does not mean the riders are wrong. It means the honest summary is mixed. Here is one rider's account of a design that worked for her, in her words.

A maker describes what a design is meant to do. A magazine tester describes how it felt over a short test. A rider describes her own legs over months. None of them is measuring the same thing, and none of them had the same knees. Riders also ask this question a lot. In our own list of questions riders ask about stirrups, this one is marked as having conflicting answers, which fits what you will find if you search.

It also helps to remember that pain has different causes and different locations. A rider whose ankle is stiff after an old injury is in a different position from one whose knee aches on the outside after an hour of posting trot. Neither is a diagnosis, and that is the job of the doctor or physio in the next section. It is a reason to be wary of anyone, including us, who says one design is the answer.

Makers describe the movement as taking strain off the joint. Some riders find exactly that. Others report the opposite, as in this account from a rider who tried jointed stirrups on a recommendation.

Wide, firmer footbeds and angled designs are the other route riders try, and the sources above describe them as aiming at the same comfort goal by a different method. Because most stirrups mix several features (flex, width, angle, an off-set eye), a pair that does not suit you tells you about that design, not about every design in the category.

Horse & Hound says stirrups can be used in any discipline as long as they comply with the rules if you compete, but that some designs are made with a particular discipline in mind. Its view is that dressage stirrups aim to help a longer leg position, while jumping stirrups aim to give security over a course plus additional shock absorption, and that the right stirrup for your discipline can help your leg position and can help alleviate pain. That is a tester's view, and it is a reason to tell your trainer what you ride.

On size, Horse & Hound says that where stirrups come in sizes, you should choose a pair one inch wider than the width of your boot at the ball of the foot, which leaves half an inch each side. It also warns that some sizes are set by rider weight, particularly for safety stirrups, so check the weight limits for the release even if a smaller size would fit your foot. Our Barn Talk page on stirrup leather length covers sizing the irons and the leathers together.

Pain that shows up in the saddle can come from an old injury, from how your leg is positioned, or from something that has nothing to do with riding. A doctor or physiotherapist, ideally one who works with riders, can look at the joint itself. Tell them what you ride in and how long you ride.

Your trainer can look at your leg position and your leather length, and our stirrup leathers page covers how to size them. If the pain is sharp, swells, or lingers after you get off, don't wait for a gear fix. Gear can change how the stirrup feels under your foot. It can't promise to fix pain.

Horse & Hound notes that many technical stirrups are shaped to let the foot slide out more easily in a fall, and some have a breakaway arm, so the comfort features and the safety features are often in the same stirrup. Whether a design is allowed where you compete is a separate question, and it depends on your discipline and your organization.

Our safety stirrups and USEF peacock stirrup ban page covers the USEF rule and the alternatives, and our Barn Talk page on whether safety stirrups are show legal goes through what to check before a show.

• Size: the iron should suit your boot. Our stirrup leathers page has the fit check.
• Rules: check the rule book for your division and the date of the rule.
• Release: ask the maker how the stirrup releases the foot in a fall.
• Your body: if you have a medical condition affecting a joint, ask your doctor or physio.

Ask your trainer or a barn friend whether you can use their pair in a lesson. Because each design mixes cushioning, width, angle and flex, it is hard to know which feature is helping or hurting. If you switch to a new stirrup, a new saddle pad and a new leather length in the same week, you won't know what changed.

Give a design more than one ride before you decide, keep notes on how your knees and ankles feel afterward, and take those notes to your physio or trainer. If a stirrup makes pain worse, stop using it.