horse back pain - The Horse Physio - Sue Palmer

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In hand core strength and postural stability exercises for your horse: Chapters 2-4

By Sue Palmer on October 3, 2024

A lot of core stability exercises are about moving the horse slightly off balance so that he needs to engage his muscles to maintain that balance. The tail pull works by using the tail as a lever to create the imbalance. As with the other exercises, it is subtle, using gentle pressure. There should be no discomfort involved, and you should find that your horse relaxes into the exercise after a minute or two. If he doesn't, perhaps this isn't the right exercise for him. A horse who is uptight will not be engaging his muscles effectively. He will be tensing those movement muscles getting ready to run, rather than using the stability muscles.

Brain, Pain or Training?’ Practical Exercises: Introduction

By Sue Palmer on May 11, 2023

This may be the most important chapter of this book.Here you’ll find a set of ten practical exercises that you can do with your horse to help assess whether he could be suffering some discomfort that might affect his behaviour or performance. The aim of these exercises is to assess balance, comfort, ease and freedom of movement, muscle tone, reaction to touch, soundness, symmetry of the musculoskeletal system, and symmetry of movement. Unexpected responses could flag up weakness, discomfort, stiffness, restriction in range of movement, muscle spasm, unsoundness, and asymmetry in either the horse’s musculoskeletal system or his movement.

Get your hands on our hands-on massage course!

By Sue Palmer on May 9, 2023

We all love a massage, and our horses are no different. Massage is an excellent skill to learn and a great gift to give our horses. If you love learning from a book, buy Sue Palmer’s book [Horse Massage for Horse Owners]. However, learning from a book is complex and problematic for many people. More and more people have been asking for Sue to run a hands-on massage course to give them a chance to learn some valuable techniques to help with their horses.

Core stability and strength exercises for the non-ridden horse: Introduction

By Sue Palmer on March 4, 2023

How can we help our horse to maintain core strength if he can't work? Perhaps he's on box rest following injury or surgery. Maybe it's as simple as the ground is frozen for several days and it's not safe to ride. There are plenty of reasons we might not be able to exercise our horse. This blog offers suggestions on how to keep some level of fitness, at least in terms of core strength

The ABC of Horse Massage (Horse Massage for Horse Owners with The Horse Physio)

By Sue Palmer on February 25, 2023

Think of the online course 'Horse Massage for Horse Owners' as a recipe. I’ve written it as an ‘ABC’ of Horse Massage. The ingredients of massage are explained and taught separately – anatomy and technique – and then mixed together in specific measures in a specific order with specific timing to create a simple, effective, enjoyable massage routine.