Kine Equine

11/08/2024

How do I bandage?

With Equi-Tape of course! 🌀

Using underneath my bandages helps ensure the lymph and blood is circulated helping aid wound healing! I also tape the opposite leg to help support it. With Royal her LH hock takes some strain so that got some Equitape TLC too🫶🌀

02/03/2024

Suspensory and fetlock support taping 🌀

02/03/2024

Lower leg swelling 🌀

17/11/2023

Taping of the deep digital flexor muscle group, lateral digital extensor and the long digital extensor muscles 🌀

My mare had gastrocnemius bursitis in May and this is one of the applications I did during her rehab. This support helped to activate the digital flexor muscle group, lateral digital extensor and the long digital extensor muscles as well as a small bit of the gastrocnemius. I taped these muscles to help in the flexion of her hock ❤️

Equi-Tape

17/11/2023

Taping for a capped hock 🌀

Two days with the application on and his hock was back to normal 🐴

Equi-Tape

29/08/2023

27/08/2023

27/08/2023

I've talked alot about staying below the horse's bracing response, and working below threshold. But what does that look like in the horse?

1.Braced. In the Sympathetic Nervous System mode. Alert, ready to protect itself or flee from danger. Senses are high.
2.Threshold. Still. Softer, less concern, yet ready to turn back to Flight/Fight if needed.
3. Below Threshold. Parasympathetic Nervous System. Healing and resting mode. Inner Stillness. This is where the magic happens.

Learn to read your horse's behaviors, especially while training to see what level your horse's Nervous System is at.

15/08/2023

K-tape on scars improves height, pliability, thickness, color, and itch according to a paper published in 2021 by Sarah O’Reilly for scars during wound remodeling AND for mature scars. That’s incredible.

My favorite plan of treatment for scars is blading followed by taping. Scar tissue should always be worked on. Scars create changes in tissue far far away from the scar.

If you snag a sweater, you don’t just fix the snag you also have to massage all of the threads that were compromised around the snag. Addressing scar tissue is the same concept. That’s the purpose of the blue tape in the video.

Loving the lymph tape by Christa Veinotte, International Equine Massage Therapist for addressing scar tissue right now!

18/07/2023

05/07/2023

Cloud 9 was taped and ready to head home after a very good Youth Champs 🫶

It was so lovely to have a great chat with Jana while we worked 🌻

29/05/2023

L’Amore 💕

This beautiful girl is all taped and ready to travel back to PE. Starting my week off with her was such a serotonin boost🥹💕🫶

15/05/2023

Absolutely love this post🩵

There are quite a few bodywork videos going around currently that showcase the “wow factor” of a particular maneuver or technique.

In my opinion, these videos are more about the featured person’s salesmanship skills and less about their horsemanship or bodywork skills. In fact, I’m concerned about how those horses’ bodies feel in the days and weeks that follow.
Read the full article here-
https://koperequine.com/bodywork-is-not-a-spectator-sport/

Benefits of massage with myofascial release include improved muscle function, improved joint alignment, improved self-awareness, mobilized fascia, an increase in stride length and range of motion, enhanced relaxation and improved overall performance and recovery.

Massage helps the body relax, release, and re-align itself mentally and physically for a more supple and athletic performance and is an important part of keeping your horse fit, healthy, happy and performing at its best.

Helping horses of all disciplines improve performance and stay sounder and happier longer.

*Contact me today to schedule a Massage for your horse.

Koper Equine, LLC
Equine Massage and Bodywork
Happy, healthy horses.

7 Simple Exercises to Help Keep Your Horses’ Topline Healthy
https://youtu.be/ucUXW5u1NLE

*Ask your Vet if Massage could help your horse.

17/04/2023

31/03/2023

Lateral and Medial stifle joint support and stabilisation 🌀

It was such an honour to tape this sweet boy and to help him on his journey to recovery. I will be posting about him soon🐴

Equi-Tape Equi-Tape
Delmari Grobler

28/03/2023

Tape research that shows
✨less is more ✨

👉🏻 This study revealed that tape applied at 25% of tension significantly reduced pain ratings in muscles while tape applied at 75% tension had no change on pain levels.

👉🏻 Tape at any level of tension (0%, 25% and 75%) is effective is prevention of muscle sensitivity.

We know the effectiveness of tape is because of its communication with the nervous system, not because of its mechanical force or power over the tissue.

We want our applications to communicate a specific message to the receptors in the nervous system.

If you are doing an application for pain, be sure not to over stretch.

Overstretching is very common for new tapers. If you’re questioning if you’re adding too much stretch, it’s likely you are.

Remind yourself regularly to back off of the tension for pain relief and voila - you can minimize your horse’s muscle pain. 🤌🏻

The tape applied at back-off stretch already has 10-15% stretch. You only need to add a bit more to meet 25%.

🛑 You do not want to see:
logos puckering on the surface
light coming through the tape
ends popping up and off immediately

“In conclusion, the current study revealed that KT applied at low tension is the optimal tension to reduce muscle pain. Additionally, the results suggested that KT applied at low, high, or no tension may acutely prevent increased muscle sensitivity with repeated pressure stimulation.”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34739522/

28/03/2023

*steps on to soapbox*

Equine Therapists often want to fill the role of what would be both massage therapists and occupational/physical therapists in the human world, but we don’t have realistic expectations for the time, education, and price that actually entails.

The average human massage therapy program is about $10,000 and 2 years.

The average physical or occupational therapy programs are about $60,000 and 3 years (AFTER completing 4 years of undergrad and however much money that was).

We collaborate with chiropractors, which are doctors.

We can’t expect that after spending $1000 and a weekend learning about horses that we would be qualified to fulfill those full scopes of practice.

Beyond that in the human side of things: after you graduate with your masters, or doctorate level degree, you THEN have to keep learning to maintain your license and get new certifications.

A weekend class that teaches you how to evaluate the wrist. Just the wrist. For a full weekend.

4000 clinical hours and sitting for a test with a 50% pass rate to get your “Certified Hand Therapy” certification.

135 course hours to become a LANA Certified Lymphedema Therapist.

An entire semester of biomechanics. 3 semesters of treatment. An entire semester of just anatomy. You see where I’m going here.

This equine therapy industry is poorly regulated so the integrity of it is dependent on our integrity for the horses.

We must better ourselves continually, and we must choose quality sources of education.

If you found quality education in a class - tell your friends.

We’ll pay somehow. Either with cash or with time.

Let’s be the most knowledgeable professionals we can be and hold ourselves to a higher standard than we are presenting to the public.

Knowledge also doesn’t require a certification. Don’t overlook great knowledge if it doesn’t come with a piece of paper at the end.

Books are full of knowledge. Shadowing skilled and experienced professionals can give you tons of knowledge, just not a certification.

Never stop learning.

Have realistic expectations for classes you’re paying for. No one class is going to give you the full picture.

Keep learning, keep qualifying yourself, and know we’ll never fully arrive.

Off topic of this post, and yet it’s never off topic: always be kind.

04/03/2023

Relationship over drills

We might have big goals, deadlines, and expectations for our horses, but don’t let those achievements make you forget about the connection your horse probably desires with you.

Little girls spend time braiding, brushing, and doting on their horses and have some of the purest relationships. In turn, those horses would run through fire for their little people.

Some of the biggest names in performance horses REALLY love their horses. You can usually tell which ones they are.

I have to wonder how many times these horses give us just a little more because of the relationship they have with their person and their desire to please.

What if we prioritized listening to our horses when they communicated with us over progress.

Listen when they’re having a bad day and need to skip a training session.

Listen when they’re performing poorly and trying to tell you something is wrong.

Listen when the timing is inconvenient and you want to just push through.

What if we had the kind of relationship with our horse, that we could look in their eye and know if today needs to be about rest and recovery rather than another day of drills.

I know when I’m begging life for a break, 3 days of working hard aren’t near as helpful as a single day of rest.

Maybe spend a day grooming, sit and eat breakfast together, or do some in hand strengthening, or massage them for a day.

A nurtured horse loves well and usually performs better.