common questions

What is Equine Sports Therapy ?

When muscles are damaged or injured the fibres that contract and release to produce movement may be torn or bruised or at a minimum overstretched. Sports therapy aims to produce a recovery that stimulates a more efficient recovery and repair of soft tissue which makes it less susceptible to future injury. Another aspect of sports therapy is the design of a programme of rehabilitation involving specific work and stretches to maximise the use of the horses own natural structure The results can also mean an increase in stride length, improved range of motion of various joints and increased suppleness. Human athletes would not consider a training programme that did not include a specific regime of stretches training and conditioning. The performance horse is equally an athlete whose performance can be enhanced by the application of sports therapies in the same manner as the human athlete.

How does it work ?

Sports Therapy is routinely used on human athletes and forms an inherent component of the preparation of any athete for an event. It is also a key component in the recovery from performance and in the care and management of sports related injuries to soft tissues such as muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia. The equine athlete is treated using the same techniques and principles. These techniques include sports massage, therapeutic ultrasound, electrotherapy, laser, hot and cold treatments, passive stretching, gymnastic exercise and rehabilitative work In general, an equine athlete with soft tissue injury or dysfunction will be treated with a specific combination of any of the above techniques with the overall aim of to maximally return the soft tissue to normal function, mobility and strength in the shortest timeframe possible .

Tell me more about each of the above techniques.

The horse has a window of movement within which they can perform with maximum ease and efficiency without putting too much stress or strain on any of the structures. Outside that window, perhaps as a result of a fall or poor working outline - the horse begins to change movment patterns in an attempt to avoid pain, compensate for the injured area by placing more burden on the sound limbs, overuse specific parts of the body, favour a side or unfortunately over time - develop an incorrect muscular structure with resulting tissue damage and impaired performance. When such injury occurs, various muscle groups are subjected to pain and in turn - lose flexibility, suppleness and range of motion. This can manifest, for example, as a reduction in stride length, refusal to jump, change in behaviour or lameness. In designing an approach to return the horse to a pain-free state, improving flexibility, suppleness and range of motion - the following techniques are used :

Sports massage involves the manipulation of soft tissue structures such as muscles, tendons, ligaments and fascia to improve and sustain suppleness, flexibility and range of motion. It is also the cornerstone of Sports Therapy as palpation or the hands-on manipulation of the musculature readily identifies areas of tissue strain and stress. Sportsmassage itself involves deep tissue work which aims to stretch and mobilise tissue under stress.

Therapeutic Ultrasound has two main effects. In a heating mode, it is used to warm the affected area, thereby promoting improved local blood circulation and extensibility of the treated tissue. This facilitates stretching of the tissue which is generally carried out directly after treatment with ultrasound through a series of passive stretches (described below). In the non-heating mode, therapeutic ultrasound has a variety of uses during the tissue repair process from control of inflammation following injury to promotion of the actual tissue repair process itself. In order to be effective, the correct stage of the injury i.e. acute, chronic etc must be identified.

Electrotherapy involves the application of current to a muscle group with two main uses. The first is for the purposes of building muscle strength or controlling muscle wastage, by stimulating the muscle with current to both contract and release as it would in normal use. The second is for the purposes of pain relief particularly for muscles under spasm - an effective means of breaking the 'pain-spasm-pain' cycle that any athlete will experience when muscle protecting or splinting is occurring in an effort to reduce pain following injury. Electrotherapy is also successfully used in wound healing.

Laser is very similar to ultrasound in application and may be used during the tissue healing process to reduce inflammation, decrease pain and promote recovery and repair.

Hot and Cold Treatments involve the application cold and heat both independently or in a pre defined sequence to reduce inflammation and pain or control the amount of damage following an injury.

Passive stretches - importantly : done on pre-warmed tissue - are used to improve the extensibility and range of motion of various muscle groups. The regular use of stretching in the training regime has been shown to reduce the incidence of injuries in human athletes and experience to date would suggest that this result is directly applicable to the equine athlete.

Gymnastic exercises. Horses can develop muscle imbalance for a wide variety of reasons which result in the overdevelopment or underdevelopment of specific muscle groups. Based on the muscle groups affected specific exercises are defined for work both on the flat and under saddle which will help to address such imbalances.

Rehabilitation work is used for the development of an overall correct muscle structure particularly in the neck and back areas which are most susceptible to injury if the horse is exercised in a manner which places additional stress on these areas1. Lungeing is one of the most useful techniques for this purpose - but only if done correctly.