| TRAINING |
Horses typically have an inverted back posture when working in a swimming lane. As a result, this method of hydrotherapy may not be appropriate for horses with weak backs or previous back injury.
• A look at the different equipment available Many commercial establishments now offer hydrotherapy sessions for equines with centres offering various services, including swimming pools, water walkers and treadmills. It is important for the therapist or trainer utilising these to correctly clinically reason their use and apply correct treatment protocol in order to benefit performance and rehabilitation. If the trainer wishes to have a high degree of control over the various parameters available, then a water treadmill would be a suitable choice—with speed, water depth and incline all manageable via a set of controls. This means that bespoke interval training programmes are easy to design for targeting specific aspects of each horse’s fitness. On the other hand, a swimming lane also provides a challenging workout for the horse where the trainer can still influence rest breaks between each length repetition without the need of fine tuning the controls; and horses will generally swim at their own pace. When considering if training on a circle or in straight lines is preferable, the trainer has several options. Water walkers will train the horse on a circle with the inside limb taking greater load, and the outside limb is required to complete greater ground coverage. On the contrary, both swimming lanes and water treadmills will train the horse in a straight line, which is often considered beneficial in a rehabilitation setting, especially for gait correction, rehabilitation of spinal pathology and straightness training. Training on a circle does have its benefits when applied at the correct time in a rehabilitation program, but as with most training, an adopted ethos of “little and often” is practical. Using a swimming lane for horses that are weak through the back or have previous back pathology would not be ideal given the fact that horses generally swim quite hollow through their backs, keeping their
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TRAINERMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 72
| HYDROTHERAPY FOR PERFORMANCE |
THE USE OF HYDROTHERAPY SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS AN ADJUNCT TO A HORSE’S TRAINING REGIMEN. IT IS NOT LIMITED TO USE IN TIMES OF INJURY BUT INSTEAD AS A POTENTIALLY INFLUENTIAL TRAINING METHOD TO ADD TO A TRAINER’S REPERTOIRE.” noses up out of the water to breathe. This posture is counterproductive for the horse with back pathology where a rounded, engaged and lengthened spinal posture is beneficial for long-term musculoskeletal health. When it comes to the utilisation of buoyancy and hydrostatic pressure, the swimming lane is the most effective method, given that it provides the greatest degree of body submission under water. It will provide the greatest degree of whole-body resistance when compared to the water treadmill, where water depths may not reach above hock height. In summary, having reviewed the physiological effects of exercise in a hydrotherapy application, the use of hydrotherapy should be considered as an adjunct to a horse’s training regimen. It is not limited to use in times of injury but instead as a potentially influential training method to add to a trainer’s repertoire.
Thanks to Dr. Jessica York for her assistance in the development of this article. Further research studies concerning hydrotherapy can be found below: • Kinematics of the equine axial skeleton during aqua-treadmill exercise, York, 2017 • Effect of water depth on amount of flexion and extension of joints of the distal aspects of the limbs in healthy horses walking on an underwater treadmill, Mendez-Angulo et al., 2013