10/01/2026
Why do I spend so much time thinking about muscle? 🤔
🐎 Did you know that up to 45% of your horses body weight is muscle?
In the industry, we spend a LOT of time looking at the horses limbs. But in actual fact, the limbs are driven by the bodys muscle mass. From the knee down, they don’t have any muscle at all!
💪MUSCLE is the real engine in our horses. Limbs are, in simple terms, the stay apparatus.
🤔🤔🤔 In an interesting podcast by Audrey DeClue, Equine Sports Medicine Veterinarian, he outright stated
- ‘muscle tension is the enemy’.
Furthermore, muscle tension creates mental tension, and vice versa. A very interesting point!
🐎 If there is tension in a muscle, the whole system begins functioning in ‘survival mode’. You get gait abnormalities, weakness, and even lameness - all due to compensations. Other muscles, tendons, ligaments and bone will ‘pick up the slack’, which causes injuries.
Soft tissue manipulation helps to fight tension right at the source. Methods I use and exercises I prescribe can keep your horses moving freely and functioning correctly!
This is important not only in sport horses or happy hackers, but also in our newly backed youngsters (think of when you first started the gym or mucking out!) or retired oldies - they have years of exercise behind them and still require some maintenance!
Something as simple as poor posture could be causing discomfort and compensatory issues in your horses - fixing this early on helps them have a long, happy and comfortable career.
I have availability for new clients beginning 23rd February. Feel free to pop me a message to discuss how I can help your horse🐎🫶🏻 07484 703737.
