Activate: Mobilization exercises

Mobilization exercises from the dvd Activate your Horses’ Core by Dr. Hilary Clayton and Dr. Narelle Stubbs. This is one in a series of notes for my blog I’ve written to record my horses’ progress.

Disclaimer: I highly recommend you consult your vet and chirporactor first, and read and research if these exercises are appropriate for your horse due to his training, health, age, and past medical history. I am posting this information primarily for my own benefit and posts do not go into detail.

Mobilization exercises are the easiest to begin… Stability exercises using motion that are Horse Led (letting the horse determine the amount and duration of stretch). Exercises are started 3x working up to 5x, held 3-5 seconds, done 3-5x a week, post regular exercise (so muscles are warmed up prior). It is preferred that the horses’ body remains straight and square, with no backing up.

These exercises, often known as “carrot stretches” (as a carrot is used for the horse to follow i.e. “bait”, and perform the stretch) have been around for some time, however, this section of the dvd goes into more detail on how to perform it correctly.

Rounding, Longitudinal: neck remains straight when viewed from the front. If the horse moves backward, use a corner, fence or gait to prevent the backward evasion. The horse may bend one foreleg, to aid the bend – this may be used as an evasion from feeling the deepness of the stretch, though I personally allow the horse to show me what he is comfortable with doing, and so do allow a bit of knee bending.

1. Chin to chest flexion - stretches the upper to middle of neck’s spine
2. Chin to knees or between knees – stretches middle and base of the neck, lifts back
3. Chin to fetlock or between fetlocks – stretches base of the neck, lifts back

 

Nose to Chest

 Thought: the “behind the bit” horse will perform this exercise easily so this does not mean this method of going horse is athletic but just flexible in this direction. Be sure to encourage the “behind the bit’ horse to stretch forward with the neck extension (see below).

Nose between legs

Thought: Horses can be trained to follow a target to perform these stretches. My preference would be to use clicker training so the horse follows a target, receives a click once the stretch if held fully, then reward.

Going lower, still square in front

too low and he compensates with bent foreleg

Lateral Bending, Rotation and Flexion: Done on both sides. In her video. Dr. Stubbs stands at the shoulder, then flank, and horse wraps around here, in order to prevent a cheating strategy where the horse does a sharp bend. Bending should be low, not high to the hip as this, in some horses, causes an inverted back.

Bends to shoulder

Horse should not move legs, back, forth or sideways; if they do, a wall, fenceline or corner can help.

1. Chin to girth
2. Chin to flank
3. Chin to hock or hind fetlock – activates pelvic stabilizers and abdominal muscles.

 

Bends to girth, nose coming down

 

Thought: Generally, this exercise shows you that a horse is stiffer to one side then the other. What does this mean for your riding? Let’s say the horse has a harder time reaching to the left side. This means his right side muscles are more contracted – he probably takes the clockwise circle easier then the counter-clockwise circle. On the counter-clockwise circle he may push his nose to the outside, and has a stiff inner shoulder (left).

Neck Extension: Use a low barrier, such as a stall guard or, in my case, the hitching rack. Or ask a helper to put a hand across the chest to prevent forward movement. The stretch is performed low to the ground.

What’s interesting is to see the difference between my two horses. First, Big Guy, a senior who is used to doing carrot stretches and has had some training doing these bends, yet, is also still recovering from an injury on his right side (pelvis fracture – Jan. 09) is able to perform all of these movements relatively easily.

Now ZZ, who is totally ignorant to what I’m wanting her to do, yet is younger (age 3) and healthy, but is still stiff, especially on her bends. This has me thinking I will have the chiropractor do a few sessions with her starting in November.

Be sure to read the intro post here.

Activate your Horses’ Core

Dr. Hilary Clayton’s video Activate your Horses’ Core, features a series of stretching and mobilization exercises for the horse. With Big Guy’s pelvic fracture and rehabilitation, I was very interested in getting this dvd through my online, horse dvd rental group, and see what I could do to continue his improvement.

Dr. Clayton is the Dressage Chair for the McPhail Equine Sports Medicine Center at Michigan State Univeristy and has been studying Equine Biomechanics and lameness issues for decades. Her research is backed with scientific examination, which is of particular interest to me as I feel way too many recommendations or horse “advice” for training and care is based on heresay.

Okay the bad first: the sound on this dvd goes up and down because they used a mic on the woman’s collar (the speaker is Dr. Narelle Stubbs, an animal physical therapist). When she turns her head, the volume shoots way up, and then when she turns away you only hear a mumble. I feel there is too much repetitive information about the benefit of the exercises; this could have been condensed into the intro or as a summary.

In regards to the danger of feeding treats (she recommends gloves to prevent nipping) wouldn’t it be easier to clicker train your horse and insist he take the treat with manners? And you could use clicker training to shape the duration of the hold in the stretch which should be 3-5 seconds instead of feeding more treats to keep the horses’ attention.

Lastly, in the beginning we are told about some safety concerns, and then Dr. Stubbs (the animal physio-therapist) immediately does what she told us not to do! (places herself between the horse and a wall).

This dvd would also have benefited from a color graphic of skeleton and muscle structures of the horse… however, I do think the information contained within is so good and pertinent that I would buy it – it also comes with an accompanying book (that didn’t come with the dvd) which might have resolved some of my concerns about the dvd.

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These exercises are grouped into three areas, and are progressive in nature (meaning the first set is the easiest, on to the third set being hardest):

Mobilization – works the intervertebral joints, the space that is located between any two adjacent vertebrae, such as along the neck and spine.

Core – strengthens the muscles (i.e. the admoninals) responsible for posture and spine and pelvic stabilization. 

Balancing – shifting weight from side to side or front to back. Personally, I found these to be somewhat advanced, and was glad to read (as the dvd didn’t discuss it) that Dr. Clayton would recommend you work with your horse for six months with the other exercises before proceeding to these.

I will be examining these three areas in a separate post for each and hopefully have some video also of what Big Guy can do as compared to ZZ (who has much less flexibility and training).

Other articles you might want to check out:

Dr. Claytons’ books and dvd available for purchase online. Actually, despite the problems I mentioned, I feel so strongly that these exercises are good that I will be buying the dvd with the book.

The Horse – has a comprehensive review of what you would use these for, what is appropriate for the horse, and more from Dr. Clayton. It also discusses some of the research Dr. Clayton and her animal physical therapist Dr. Narelle Stubbs have conducted.

Big Guy’s horse massage

Luckily, the weather was great yesterday as I had scheduled Big Guy for a massage. I am concerned about what effect the injury and the stall rest may have had on his body so the first step was to get some ideas on how to relax his muscles and check for any knots or tension.

Big Guy has never really liked a lot of touch so I was concerned on how he would handle it, especially has he has been off his InflammaSaver this last month. He is especially touchey about his shoulders and withers. I think his body structure with his straight shoulder puts a lot of pounding on his front end.

In the beginning, he was a bit concerned. Here his eye (slightly wrinkled above) and ears (opposite directions)  tell that he’s a bit worried about it all. Will it hurt?

A bit worried about it all

You can see here (below) that his shoulders are a bit of concern. His eye has an indrawn expression, listening to his body, while his ears show he is listening but also conflicted – as they can pin easily if he feels too much pain.

Before a knot can be worked out, sometimes you feel pain before the release; it really takes an experience person who can listen to the horse as to how much is truly acceptable and not to take it too far in intensity, direction and/or pressure.

Shoulders can be ouchy

I was pleasantly surprised at how accepting he was to having his back worked. Obviously, not big concerns there for me to worry about other then the tenderness he often has at his withers. His eye shows he is still listening to touch of the massage therapist but his ears forward and slightly turned head to watch her, shows he is more comfortable now.

back is painfree

As usual he is relaxed and happy to have his butt worked…

Hindquarter work

Wow! I was very surprised at how well he did and his acceptance. I’m not ready for him to have chiropractic work again for another few months, but I do feel it’s time to start thinking about putting him into some structured – but gentle – exercise.

TTouch – Clouded Leopard

Note: While I discuss Linda Tellington-Jones TTeam and TTouch methods with horses, I am expressing only my opinion and experiences related to her public materials – such as her books, DVD’s, online YouTube videos, her public blog,  etc…  Although I have taken a TTeam training, I am not yet certified by Linda Tellington-Jones. 

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One of the Boarder’s horses is sore on the left of his withers. This is probably due to a poor fitting saddle that she has finally seen the light and is replacing. He is recovering with the massage and chiro work by Chiron but she showed me a lump that she was still concerned about.

He doesn’t like the large roller, The Stick, so I showed her my small roller, the Trigger Wheel, that I use on small muscle groups that are tight. I also gave him some Clouded Leopard TTouches over the area.

The next day she commented on how much smaller she thought the lump was – I checked it out and she was right. I think the roller helped but also the TTouch. That’s the first time I’ve done it where I’ve seen such a big response in such a short period of time.

It felt good to help.