11/07/2025
Equine Bodyworks by Mary Sargeant Thanks
When it comes to pain in horses i want to Anthropomorphise, I think we could all do a little more of how would it feel its why I try to put the human and equine element in so we all stop a little and think how would we feel xx
Some asked about the iliopsoas and as one of the stabilizers so lets the the wheels on
Hopefully you may resonate when you see the connection in our own bodies and would we ask the horse to do some of things if we suspected lower back and groin pain, how many times has your horse had only its back worked on and the rest omitted, often the lower back like in us is a result not the cause.
I have done many posts about the Iliopsoas and the connection to the diaphragm and why it is important for the quality of control in the horses breath but sometimes we forget this group of muscles for humans and horses is crucial for the stability and mobility of the lumbar and hips, hind limbs and the rest of the horse, in movement they give flexibility and when still they give support
Stress can lead to all sorts of dysfunction yet often the quality of inspiration and expiration will affect more than just the air in the lungs, we often think of stress as just a situation occurrence when often stress can also be asking our horses to do something it physically finds hard and the copius amounts of stress hormones that will alter the internal well being of the horse
When we think of core muscles our brain often jumps to planks and I bet if I told you to activate your core now you would suck your belly in and while that may look good what do you do with your breathing (stop holding it lol) and more crucially how long can you last without causing pain, yet we ask horses to do this for a long time when working with them, and the same with horses what may look good may actually be doing the complete opposite of what you want to achieve which is core and breath not hindering each other
How many times do we see a horse held in a fixed frame, one lap, two laps or more round the school especially the tendency to control the frame wether on the ground or in the saddle by asking muscles to be held in one place by our hands restricting the desperate need for the muscle to work like it should lengthening and contracting
Often its why the psoas gets in trouble holding a contraction because the dysfunction needs to be supported by it adding stability and forgetting the flexibility if we think of ourselves and the tell tale lower back ache proceeding groin pain then do we do an isometric exercise day in day out or do we intersperse with other exercises that allow lengthening and contraction of the muscle allowing the joint to fully reach its range of motion think of the horse held in contraction often while unfit we have all seen the 6 weeks to piaffe classes 🤔
But horses are not humans and do not slouch over computers and often they are activating their core as they move around the field for if we only think horses mooch around on their forehand head down eating grass has probably never seen my horses out eating, they back up, they eat at three heights they are never stood still eating from one place they are working their whole body for that one blade of grass
They are not walking on two legs but four, their bodies are designed to eat on the go, their backs are designed to hold up their bellies, their bodies designed so they can move fast at any point their iliopsoas along with other muscles are designed to stabilise and add mobility to the hind end yet protect delicate organs below, yet often mobility and freedom to move is curtailed with one static feeding position in a confined space for long periods of the night, and often turn out consists of such a small area that to develop dexterity is often hard to do as horses need to achieve all gaits to be more stable in both body and mind, if your horse does not have room to gallop then are their joints reaching their full range of motion.
So why sore lumbar, well often if a gait changes then the action of the hips, lumbar and back will change we can often mistake psoas issues when a horse has gut issues so we are always working on the symptom and not the primary, think of hock pain will a horse want to place weight evenly on the foot or will they tip to relieve pressure on the back of the leg will this affect the way the action of the hip/lumbar/hind end functions, ever see a saddle impression on the horses back we often think of the more superficial muscles are in trouble when often we forget about the thoracolumbar fascia, think of horses in the wild that will naturally come to a halt as they decelerate, we have fences and humans hands that can bring a horse to a stop long before that deceleration has happened. We also have to remember that anatomically the one of the group of these muscles can attach further along than in textbooks so is saddle fit maybe hindering
Often the huge power more superficial muscles are trying to do the job of the deeper ones and while these muscles have power they are only designed for short bursts and as they tire the weakness in the more stabilising muscles begin to show (think of when you begin to over exert when you first exercise and get that tell tale ache in your lower back its often your deeper muscles saying ouch)
The body will always find a way to be normal and recruit other muscles to do a job if one is under strain, so we have to think of whole horse and always ask why not just do.
And that is only one small part i haven't even gone into things like the diaphragm connection and all the other connections in the body
Enjoy xx
