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our horse suffers an injury, and you don’t hesitate to write checks to his veterinarian, chiropractor, acupuncturist, and massage therapist. You don’t think twice about spending time cold-hosing, wrapping, stretching, and hand-walking during the rehab process. In the meantime, your shoulder still bothers you from that fall two years ago, your lower back has never been quite the same since that unfortunate incident with the “bombproof ” horse you tried for a student, and your left knee can forecast rain better than the National Weather Service. If this sounds like you (I know it sounds like me), you’ve had a few injuries and haven’t always taken the best care of them. Who needs physical therapy? Isn’t mucking 20 stalls physical enough? As for strength training, well, lugging water buckets builds plenty of muscle. You’ll do what it takes help an injured horse recover the strength and flexibility he needs for dressage, but the chances are good you’re not doing the same for yourself as a rider. Read on to learn how getting serious about your own rehab can produce some serious in-the-saddle benefits.
ISTOCK/ZORAN KOLUNDZIJA
It’s Not Your Sport That’s Hurting You USDF gold medalist and physical therapist Anne Howard, MPT, has a better understanding of equestrian-related injuries and rehab than most riders. Not only does she treat riders at her Bodies in Balance practice in Watsonville, CA, but she’s also been through the rehab process with her own injuries. After Howard ruptured her Achilles tendon going up a flight of stairs, her orthopedic surgeon told her she could ride—without stirrups—but wanted her to promise that she wouldn’t get bucked off. She offered the compromise that she would “avoid imprudent situations” and spent that year competing two horses without stirrups. To her surprise, her no-stirrup year produced unexpected benefits. “The asymmetry through my body that the stirrups always magnified went away,” Howard says, “and it was one of my most competitive seasons ever, which was interesting. Jogging the horse for a CDI was a bit of a challenge, though.” Howard knows how hard it can be for riders to rehab. “I’m the PT that people come to when they’ve failed five or six other therapies. Patients’ issues are almost always trauma-related, and often it’s the trauma of riding over previous traumas that they’ve continued riding through.” Example: “Maybe you have some scar tissue in your pelvic bowl from that fall you took when you were 18 that has continued to change your hip biomechanics for 20 years, and now you’re having hip pain when you try to ride your USDF CONNECTION
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September 2017
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