Well, the clinic with Narelle Stubbs from the Mary Anne McPhail Equine Performance Center was a huge success! Narelle and her colleague, Nicole Rombach, were an outstanding team and brought a much-needed perspective to us horse owners on how to keep our horses strong and capable of taking on the demands of training. And for me, they provided a whole new approach on helping Elvis maximize the recovery from his injury.
They started the day with a talk on the work they are doing at the McPhail Center on gait analysis. Boy, do they have some fun toys! They are doing some amazing work there on sorting out how our equine partners are using their bodies to perform the tasks that we ask of them.
Narelle co-authored the book "Activate Your Horse's Core" with Dr. Hilary Clayton. She showed us how, in only once-a-day, five days a week sessions, one can improve the horse's strength, stability, and flexibility. If you don't have this book, you definitely should have it in your book collection. It comes with a DVD, too, that shows how to set up the exercises properly. I am doing many of them now with Elvis and am already seeing a difference. This sort of active rest, as she called it, is so important to help the horse get his whole body strong again (in my case) or improve the strength to take on the demands of training.
One of the most important facts I learned was that once a horse has injured himself, no matter how insignificantly, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments around that area are changed forever. So, even if the pain is gone (no more outward signs of lameness), there is still underlying damage that needs to be corrected. And, in Elvis' case, since the injury was so traumatic, many of the actions of the muscle groups involved have been significantly inhibited and need to be "re-awakened" to get maximum recovery.
In order to do this re-awakening, Narelle and Nicole used several approaches. We did many of the stretching and core strengthening exercises that are explained in her book. I had already been doing some of these and so Elvis was more than happy to perform. She showed me some more exercises that are designed to strengthen his pelvis and all of those muscle groups. They are all fairly easy to do and not just for injured horses. She told us that they did studies at the McPhail Center to show that these exercises (if done correctly) can really help in developing core strength and stability to help our horses manage to rigors of training, just as it helps human athletes. Definitely get her book if you want to try these with your horse. The DVD is very helpful!
The most interesting approach for me was the use of kinesiology tape. This tape is what made me contact Narelle in the first place. When I broke my arm last year, my physical therapist used it on my incision to help get rid of the adhesions. And you may have seen it in the 2008 Summer Olympics because many athletes were sporting it, like Kerri Walsh of the US women's beach volleyball team.
I hadn't thought of it since last year but saw a big display of it in Sports Authority one day and made me wonder if it might help with Elvis. A couple of Google searches and some emails led me to Narelle and to her coming to Maryland to give the clinic.
After each application of the tape; some on his croup, some on his injured hock, and some following the muscle groups that connect the two, we all saw a noticeable difference in his gait. To refresh your memory, it's his left hock that has been injured. And there has been noticeable atrophy up on his croup because of the injury. The placement of the tape was designed to engage his proprioception of all of the tissues in his damaged leg, from the biceps femoris muscle in his croup all the way down to his hock. And it clearly did! To say that I was thrilled doesn't begin to describe how I felt as I watched him walk after each application.
I wish I could post the pictures but she has asked me not to since this is the sort of technique where you need experienced hands to get started. But, I can post some video of him walking without the tape so you can see how he's doing now. And, I will post more video as we progress with these new exercises and rehab techniques. I do have to mention that my husband, Rick, was wonderful and came to help so I could watch - I'm very lucky!
Any of you who have been through physical therapy to recover from an injury know that it is a progression of exercises designed to encourage the correct healing of the injured area. Now I feel that I have a whole new set of tools and exercises to help Elvis get as strong and as sound as he can. This opens up a whole new chapter on his recovery and I can't wait to see how it works out!
They started the day with a talk on the work they are doing at the McPhail Center on gait analysis. Boy, do they have some fun toys! They are doing some amazing work there on sorting out how our equine partners are using their bodies to perform the tasks that we ask of them.
Narelle co-authored the book "Activate Your Horse's Core" with Dr. Hilary Clayton. She showed us how, in only once-a-day, five days a week sessions, one can improve the horse's strength, stability, and flexibility. If you don't have this book, you definitely should have it in your book collection. It comes with a DVD, too, that shows how to set up the exercises properly. I am doing many of them now with Elvis and am already seeing a difference. This sort of active rest, as she called it, is so important to help the horse get his whole body strong again (in my case) or improve the strength to take on the demands of training.
One of the most important facts I learned was that once a horse has injured himself, no matter how insignificantly, the muscles, tendons, and ligaments around that area are changed forever. So, even if the pain is gone (no more outward signs of lameness), there is still underlying damage that needs to be corrected. And, in Elvis' case, since the injury was so traumatic, many of the actions of the muscle groups involved have been significantly inhibited and need to be "re-awakened" to get maximum recovery.
In order to do this re-awakening, Narelle and Nicole used several approaches. We did many of the stretching and core strengthening exercises that are explained in her book. I had already been doing some of these and so Elvis was more than happy to perform. She showed me some more exercises that are designed to strengthen his pelvis and all of those muscle groups. They are all fairly easy to do and not just for injured horses. She told us that they did studies at the McPhail Center to show that these exercises (if done correctly) can really help in developing core strength and stability to help our horses manage to rigors of training, just as it helps human athletes. Definitely get her book if you want to try these with your horse. The DVD is very helpful!
The most interesting approach for me was the use of kinesiology tape. This tape is what made me contact Narelle in the first place. When I broke my arm last year, my physical therapist used it on my incision to help get rid of the adhesions. And you may have seen it in the 2008 Summer Olympics because many athletes were sporting it, like Kerri Walsh of the US women's beach volleyball team.
I hadn't thought of it since last year but saw a big display of it in Sports Authority one day and made me wonder if it might help with Elvis. A couple of Google searches and some emails led me to Narelle and to her coming to Maryland to give the clinic.
After each application of the tape; some on his croup, some on his injured hock, and some following the muscle groups that connect the two, we all saw a noticeable difference in his gait. To refresh your memory, it's his left hock that has been injured. And there has been noticeable atrophy up on his croup because of the injury. The placement of the tape was designed to engage his proprioception of all of the tissues in his damaged leg, from the biceps femoris muscle in his croup all the way down to his hock. And it clearly did! To say that I was thrilled doesn't begin to describe how I felt as I watched him walk after each application.
I wish I could post the pictures but she has asked me not to since this is the sort of technique where you need experienced hands to get started. But, I can post some video of him walking without the tape so you can see how he's doing now. And, I will post more video as we progress with these new exercises and rehab techniques. I do have to mention that my husband, Rick, was wonderful and came to help so I could watch - I'm very lucky!
Any of you who have been through physical therapy to recover from an injury know that it is a progression of exercises designed to encourage the correct healing of the injured area. Now I feel that I have a whole new set of tools and exercises to help Elvis get as strong and as sound as he can. This opens up a whole new chapter on his recovery and I can't wait to see how it works out!
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