Grooming for Good Posture
Turn your grooming session into a pre-ride evaluation and warm-up by Patricia Bona-Kustra
F
or horses, grooming is a social event. Horses will regularly groom and scratch on each other, often
quite vigorously, for pleasure and relaxation. You can turn your pre-ride grooming into a meaningful dialog with your horse. The information you gain will empower communication with your farrier, chiropractor, acupuncturist, massage therapist, dentist, veterinarian and trainer.
The positive intent to change your grooming technique can translate into huge benefits for your horse’s posture, performance and health. Good posture will reduce wear and tear on your horse’s joints and soft tissues.
Connective tissue can be thin and flat like the fascia between the skin and the muscles or thick and dense like tendons and ligaments. Fascia should freely glide across corresponding tissues, other muscles, tendons and organs. Injury, chronic lameness, asymmetry and disuse can cause restriction, adhesions and scar tissue. Any superficial or deep restrictions can affect the range of motion to the horse’s joints, limbs and body, thereby distorting and compromising symmetry, balance and the posture of the horse.
The healthier the fascia is at the origin and insertion (as it attaches into the bone or other fascia), the better it can function. So an important part of the
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cross fiber grooming is to groom across the spine and bony prominences. Traditional grooming does not advocate grooming across joints or bony prominences.
CROSS FIBER GROOMING Try to groom your horse freely in a stall or on a ground tie so he can bend and stretch as you groom; he may offer to groom on you or tell you when it hurts by the pin of an ear or swish of a tail. As you tune into your horse he will tune into you!
Instead of using a curry in the traditional circular motion, cross fiber massage helps to break up adhesions and scar tissue, and stimulates circulation, lymphatic drainage, and acupuncture points, to relax the horse physically
The lengthwise orientation of
the muscle of the horse’s gaskin (our calf) influences the range of motion of the hock and stifle, therefore the entire hind limb.
Holistic Horse™ • April/May 2012 • Vol.19, Issue 78
©Dusty Perrin
Karen Tappenden
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