How I discovered DNS Training and Found Pain-Free Riding
- Dr Sabina Holle
- Jul 17, 2025
- 6 min read
Introduction
If you have ever ridden through pain, you know how exhausting it makes you feel, and how discouraged you can become when nothing you do keeps the pain away.
I have been riding and training horses for decades and as so many horse riders, I experienced daily episodes of pain, that have made it hard to balance my passion for riding with my effectiveness in the saddle. Over the years, I tried various therapies (the list is very long!), yet the medicine cabinet with the pain medication grew ever larger. In my despair, about two years ago, I even had ultrasound guided steroid injections into areas around my worst affected hip. However, nothing gave me lasting relief.
By chance, I came across DNS training, started researching and immediately was hooked. Maybe it made immediate sense to me, so much of its underlying principles being similar to the way I approach and teach horse training. Since I had nothing to loose but everything to gain, I immediatly signed up for some more involved training and immersed myself fully into this modality, both to learn and practice the exercises for myself and to be able to help others. DNS helped me understand how my body moves, restore proper stability, and enabled me to ride without pain. Now, I am even more passionate about bringing this approach to New Zealand and sharing with other riders, athletes of other sporting codes, people recovering from various injuries or those simply wanting to move better and with more ease.
Me on my stallion Paseo II
What Is DNS Training?
Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) is a rehabilitation and movement method developed by the Prague School of Rehabilitation that focuses on restoring natural movement patterns based on how our bodies are designed to function from birth.
Instead of isolating muscles, stretching or strengthening endlessly, DNS works on posture, breathing, and core stability as an integrated system. The goal is to retrain your nervous system so your body moves efficiently and automatically with less strain on and off the horse.
DNS taught me to move from the "inside out". Through simple exercises, emphasising quality over quantity, I improved my alignment, my breathing (which I thought wasn't bad at all, considering I have been doing regular yoga for almost a decade), activated my core for better stability (which also wasn't all bad considering it is one of a rider's most important tools) and freed up my lower back and hip areas.
What I learnt from my first DNS Sessions?
My first DNS session was something of an eye opener. Since my introduction to DNS was via an educational event, rather than an assessment through a therapist or exercise trainer, I was introduced to the exercises without a personalized initial assessment. As happens so often if you are pushed outside your comfort zone and have to learn something different, your brain tries to find similarities to feel comfortable. My brain immediately went into "oh this is like XYZ yoga pose" or "ok, I got this" remembering something I had done in Pilates or at the gym and muscling myself through a few sets of repetitions of some similar movements and positions, or trying to show the best yoga stretch I could muster to show my flexibility.
However, DNS sessions focus on movement quality, posture and breathing, rather than isolating muscle work or repetitive exercises. So instead, we evaluated the quality of the whole body stability strategy and scanned your own body looking for compensations or dysfunctional patterns that cause pain or limit movement or performance. Instead of heavy weights or high reps, we practised slow, controlled movements with precise alignment. A lot of emphasis is put on awarness and ease of movement, to retrain your nervous sytem for efficieny and ultimately creating LONG LASTING SUBCONSCIOUS changes.
A more challenging DNS practice
Comments