Exercises for Horses with Back Pain
In this blog post, I’m going to give you two options for exercises to help your horse if your horse has back pain.
But first… Why does your horse have back pain?
Fascia, fascia, fascia.. and sore backs.
Fascia is always a piece of the answer as to why your horse has back pain. We can’t stop talking about it.
I would say about 98% of horses I work with have a sore back to some degree. Some crawl out from under my hands, and some just flinch.
3 basic and general priorities for me in addressing back soreness are:
Make sure your horse’s feet are well-balanced and maintained
Make sure your saddle fits correctly
Make sure you’re doing your due diligence to be a balanced rider on top of that animal
If your horse is a performing athlete, there’s a good chance you have those 3 things in check and your horse still has some back soreness. They’re an athlete!
So let’s look at the soft tissue and the fascia.
Like humans, horses have fascial chains that are dense, rope-like bands of fascia that run the length of their body in different patterns.
The superficial dorsal fascial chain spans from the medial aspect of the hind feet, up the hind quarters, along the top line, to the head of the horse.
If there is tension at any single point on this chain, it affects every other part of the chain.
Hence the importance of feet, and saddle fit and how they affect one another.
Maintaining glide and mobility along the entire length of the chain will help prevent poor compensation patterns that can lead to bigger problems.
Exercises you can do at home to help your horse with its back pain
There are two simple exercises YOU can do at home to help relax and lengthen that fascial chain - and give them some pain relief in their back.
Spinal traction by pulling the tail
Thoracic spinal traction by “pulling” the hands apart while on the withers and the sacrum
If you have ever been on an inversion table or had any manual spinal traction done on yourself, you know it feels amazing!
How to do these exercises with your horse
Pull the tail straight out with about 10 pounds of pressure for 15-30 seconds. Then pull at a 45 degree angle in both directions.
For the thoracic stretch, stand on a step stool and place one hand on the withers and one hand on the lower back. Gently push down and pull your hands apart for 15-30 seconds.
Voilà!
I will link an article that was just published last October that measured the effect of spinal traction in 32 horses, as well as the amount of relief they received along different areas in the spine. You can check that out here:https://www.sciencedirect.com/.../pii/S0737080620302884
With a tail pull, the most significant spinal relief was found in the thoracic region, which is where the saddle sits.
They hypothesize that this is because of the mechanical transfer of forces due to - you guessed it, the fascia.
“A significant difference (P ≤ .05) was identified between mean before and after caudal traction algometry measurements in all described sites. The percentage of MNT increase was highest in the thoracic region (83%) compared with the lumbar (50%) and the pelvic (52.4%) regions. These results support an effect of caudal traction in increasing MNTs in the thoracolumbar and pelvic regions in horses.”
Effect of Caudal Traction on Mechanical Nociceptive Thresholds of Epaxial and Pelvic Musculature on a Group of Horses With Signs of Back Pain
Kathryn Long, Catherine M. McGowan, Heli K. Hyytiäinen
Published in Journal of Equine Veterinary Science in October 2020
Want to learn more about how you can help your horse alleviate aches and pains?
Check out my foundational and advanced equine kinesiology taping courses as well as this blog post about taping your horse for back pain.
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