This is one of the most common issues I hear from women, whether they are currently pregnant, returning to the saddle soon after birth, or even after a long period of time off. We touched on this in our last blog post but will delve deeper into here.

Our 'seat,' or our connection to the horse through the saddle, is a really important aspect of riding. We can feel how we are sitting on the horse and also how the horse is moving and feeling under us. Our ability to know where we are and feel the horse's movement comes from our 'pelvic proprioception.' Proprioception is the ability to perceive the position and movement of the parts of your body within space, allowing you to interact with the environment around you without having to completely rely on visual feedback.

Why does this change happen during pregnancy?
During pregnancy, your joint mobility increases. Tendons and ligaments become more relaxed because of hormonal changes to prepare for the delivery of the baby. This changes the way joint positions are interpreted by the brain and thus how your body feels. After birth, impaired proprioceptive awareness doesn't automatically improve without proper training. (1,2).

How might you tell if this is a problem you’re having?
If this is a problem for you, you may feel 'disconnected' with your horse. This may feel like:

• Being unable to smoothly follow the motion of their back in any or all of their paces.
• Feeling 'bouncier' in sitting trot and canter (because your pelvis is unable to move fluently with the horse's movement)
  
  

You may also find your coach keeps telling you that you’re sitting crooked, but you can’t feel it! This could result in:

• Your horse struggles to move in a straight line or bend without falling in or out of their shoulders.
• Having an uneven feeling in the horse's lateral work. For example, your horse being able to do a beautiful shoulder in one way but struggling to get enough angle the other way.
  
  

How can you improve this?
In this situation, more riding may not necessarily be the solution. The more we ride with your brain telling our body to be crooked, the more ingrained it will become. These issues will only begin to resolve as you 'reprogram' your pelvic proprioception.nA tailored exercise program that you can complete both on and off the horse will be instrumental in this change.

At Equimotion, your physio session will take into consideration the discipline-specific requirements for riding as well as your individual body needs. For postpartum women this particularly includes:

• Strength and control in your pelvis and abdominals
• Training in front of a mirror to help 'retrain your brain'
• Postpartum considerations such as your pelvic floor control and diastasis recti.

Our team offers consultation both face to face in Sydney and the Central Coast, along with online consultations. To book an appointment or to simple have a chat with our physio, click here.

Abdominal strength and your pelvic floor 
The abdominal musculature is stretched to 115% of its resting length by 38 weeks of pregnancy. During labour and delivery, pelvic floor musculature is stretched to 250% of its resting length during delivery. So it’s no wonder that pelvic floor dysfunction such as pain and stress urinary incontinence is very common postpartum. This is especially the case in horse riders as our pelvic floor acts as part of a shock absorbing system.
​
How to improve this?
Beginning your pelvic floor exercises and gentle abdominal exercises as early as advised by your doctor and physiotherapist will ensure you are as comfortable as possible when getting back in the saddle. Diaphragmatic breathing is a simple yet effective way to begin activating these muscles again.
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Regardless of whether you are a para or able-bodied rider, our job on the horse is the same.

A rider needs to:

• Maintain their own balance and position on the horse
• Absorb the movements of the horse
• Not restrict the horse’s movement
• Provide aids that influence how the horse moves

 
For an able-bodied rider, the use of their legs plays an important role in helping to maintain their own balance and position on the horse. When this is affected, such as for para riders who are paraplegic, amputees or have another neurological disorder with limited use of their legs, you need to learn to keep your balance and position using different strategies.
 
One of the most important of these is learning to improve your trunk control. To maintain their own balance a rider must keep their centre of mass over the top of their base of support. A rider's centre of mass is located in the middle of their chest. If this centre of mass moves outside of their base (seat), the rider will become unbalanced, negatively impacting how the horse moves. 

Riders also need to move in time with and absorb the movements of the horse. Some riders may brace through their trunk to help keep themselves stable, but this can affect their ability to move in harmony with their horse or maintain a steady rein contact. Your horse may have to stiffen his own body to try to keep the rider stable or move to the direction the rider is collapsing to keep themself balanced. 

Take for example your problem of your horse not performing leg yield well to the left. If you are collapsing over to the right, it is likely that your horse will also have to shift their centre of mass over to the right to compensate to keep you both over the top of the horse’s centre. It is then going to be really difficult for them to move sideways to the left while they’re trying to balance both of you over on the right!

Consequently, the horse’s ability to maintain a steady rhythm or to remain straight in lateral movements will likely only be resolved by first addressing how you are riding. Examples that may be impacting the horse in this way can include:

• Collapsing through one side of the body, as your coach has picked up
• Struggling to follow the horse’s movement in trot and/or canter
• Unsteady hands that struggle to stay independent from the rest of your body

 
Essentially the goal of physiotherapy and rider biomechanics is to help you both learn how to balance your own self on the horse and improve your symmetry, or evenness from side to side, as much as is physically possible.
 
While some of this will come with time and practice, working on specific strength, balance, coordination and breathing exercises will be essential to help improve your riding. It is essential to develop these skills off-horse as well as applying them to your riding technique.

At Equimotion, our rider physiotherapist has a strong background in neurological physiotherapy and understands the that for many para riders we need to also consider training techniques that align with fatigue management, timing training with medication peaks, neuroplasticity training principles, along with managing issues such as contractures, spasticity, dystonia and pain.

In addition to the exercises that you will be prescribed to do on and off the horse, your physiotherapist will provide you with ongoing support and guidance. Ultimately our aim is to help improve the partnership that you have with your horse.

Have an obligation free chat today with Hannah to discuss how we can help!
​Email us at info@equimotion.com.au

In a 2020 study investigating the warm-up routines of European dressage riders and show-jumpers for their horses, the proposed benefits sited by the riders included:

• getting the horse ready for work
• increasing responsiveness to the aids
• enhancing suppleness and relaxation
• reducing injury risk

It has been well documented in humans that an appropriate warm-up (typically that is specific to the sport, at a lower intensity than the activity you are about to perform and of an adequate time before the event) can both reduce the risk of injury and improve performance in activities such as running and jumping, and sports such as soccer, basketball, baseball and cycling, to name just a few.

So if we know the benefits for our horses, and it's been proven in other sports, should we be considering the benefits for the equestrian also?

We can't say conclusively that it is necessary, as we don't have the evidence to back that up. Anecdotally many riders report that a brief off-horse warm-up does seem to improve their riding performance. 73% of responders to our poll said that warming up made a big difference to their ride, with 18% saying the difference was negligible and 9% saying it made no difference.

Ways a warm-up may help riders can include:

• Improving the effectiveness of your seat and aids
• Preparing your body for riding in regards to:
  • co-ordination
  • force absorption
  • strength & control
  • mobility & position​

Meet Mr P. He is a 5 year old thoroughbred gelding who has just recently come off the track due to an injury to his right front superficial digital flexor tendon. He is the newest member of the Equimotion team, working with us for his rehab and is graciously letting us share his journey with you all.

​Head over here to follow along.

1. Is the research question clear and informs us of its aims?

2. Is the study a systematic review or meta-analysis?
These will provide the highest level of evidence as they evaluate the results of all available studies on the same subject. Ten or more studies with the same conclusion provides much better evidence than just one. While a randomised controlled trial that has been well conducted with a large sample size is good, the more studies showing a positive effect, the more we can trust in the research.

3. How many participants are included in the study?
Studies with a high number of subjects are always better than those with less subjects, as it’s more likely to be a better representative of the general population. For instance, a trial with 500 participants is much more likely to have a statistically valid conclusion than a trial with 20 participants. Unfortunately, in many horse studies this can be challenging, and there are many papers published that have less than 10 horses included. Be wary of basing too much emphasis on the results of small sample sizes.

4. How were participants recruited and were they randomised to groups?
Participants should be randomly assigned to the experimental and control conditions (e.g., sealed envelope assignment or computer generated random assignment). Look also at how participants were recruited. The sample can be biased when researchers use volunteers, especially those targeted through social media or special interest groups. Those who volunteer to participate in studies do not necessarily represent the general population, as they will often be people who already have an interest or bias towards the study subject.
 
5. Is the study blinded?
Trials should involve blinding, meaning that researchers, experimenters, subjects, and assessors should not know which group subjects are in during the experiment. Say for example one of the measurements in a study was lameness of the horse. If the person assessing the lameness was aware of which horses had been in the treatment group and which horses were in the control group, there is an increased risk of bias in their assessment of that lameness (i.e. they may be more inclined to “see” an improvement in the horses they know had the treatment).
 
6. Is there a good description of the methods used?
It should clearly state in the methods if subjects were randomised to groups and whether the subjects and assessors were blinded. If the information is not included this can suggest that the trial’s methodology is unknown (or the researchers are purposefully leaving it out) and therefore may be questionable.
 
 7. Was there a control group?
Without one it’s very difficult to conclude that the results were due to the intervention applied.
 
8. Is there risk of bias?
This can include:

• Selection bias (for example researchers recruit only one breed of horse, one sex, one discipline etc)
• Citation bias (if researchers are unwilling to publish unfavourable or negative results)
• Confounding bias. This is when a third independent factor is not considered when examining two outcomes of interest (for example, a link found between training loads and lameness might later turn out to be confounded by training surface, if researchers did not initially account for this possibility).

 
9. Does the study have validity?
A study should have 3 different types of validity. These are:

• Internal : the researchers should rule out alternative explanations for the effects observed.
• External: the study’s findings in a certain population should be able to be generalised to the population at large.
• Construct: the study should have been designed in a way that means it has the capacity to measure what it sets out to measure. For example, any outcome measures used (i.e., surveys, objective gait analysis) or sham measures used (i.e., placebo electrotherapy or injections) should have been independently validated in prior studies.

 
10. Where was the study published?
A study published in a well-known and respected journal will always be preferable to one published in an unknown publication. A “study” that has only been published on the website of the manufacturer who developed the product being researched should always been viewed with scepticism.
 
An impact factor is a measurement that shows how often articles within a journal have been cited by other articles. A higher impact factor means that studies published within that journal are more likely to be seen as important within their field. While a study published in a low impact factor journal isn’t necessarily going to be a poor, chances are it won’t have had the same level of rigorous review that a study published in a high impact journal will have been through. 
 
11. Has the research been peer reviewed?
Peer reviewed research has been evaluated by external experts with experience in the subject matter. It is considered higher quality.
 
12. Are there appropriate statistical methods?
Statistics are complicated! Proper and accurate analysis of data requires appropriate statistical tests. The tests used to analyse the data  must be appropriate for the type of study and the research question they are trying to answer. Any tables and figures should be clearly labelled. Ideally, effect sizes should be included throughout giving a clear indication of the variables’ impact.
 
13. Are the findings statistically significant and/or clinically significant?
This can be confusing, but it’s important to understand the difference. Statistical significance indicates the reliability of the study results and quantifies the probability of the study’s results being due to chance. Clinical significance reflects the impact on clinical practice and refers to the magnitude of the actual treatment effect.

The “P” value is frequently used to measure statistical significance. It is the probability that the study results are due to chance rather than to a real treatment effect. A statistically significant “P” value is usually 0.05 (or 5%). What a P < 0.05 implies is that the possibility of the results in a study being due to chance is <5%, and therefore more likely to be due to treatment effect (i.e. the treatment very likely is what made a difference).

While there are established, traditionally accepted values for statistical significance testing, such as the P value, this is lacking for evaluating clinical significance. More often than not, it is the judgement of the clinician (and the patient/client/rider) which decides whether a result is clinically significant or not. This can include whether the change from having the treatment makes a real difference to the subject lives, how long the effects last, consumer acceptability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of implementation.
 
For example, a study may show that an electrotherapy treatment demonstrated a statistically significant improvement in the appearance of a lesion in a tendon on ultrasound 3 weeks and 6 weeks post-treatment compared to a control group (who had the same type of tendon lesion but who did not receive the treatment). The clinical relevance of this study is the “treatment effect”, which looked at the time at which the horse returned to competition. The results showed that the treatment group returned to competition only 5 days earlier than the control group, which most researchers, clinicians and riders would agree is a clinically irrelevant “improvement” in outcomes.
 
While the study may have shown that initially the tendon appeared visually to have been healing faster (statistical significance), there was actually no real difference between groups in the time that the horses were able to get back to competition (clinical significance). In this instance the clinician and horse owner must decide if the time and financial investment is worth the horse having the treatment or not, which will differ from person to person depending on their goals and financial position.
 
14. Is the conclusion appropriate?
In the discussion and analysis of data, researchers should note whether findings are statistically significant and if they consider there is any clinical significance. They should be careful not to make the outcomes seem more relevant than they really are. It’s a common mistake to emphasise results that are in accordance with the researcher’s expectations while failing to focus on the ones that are not. Will it can be tempting to jump straight to the conclusion when reading a research paper, make sure you read the results carefully first to see if you draw the same conclusions yourself. Even in a well-designed trial, further research and affirmation of outcomes in equivalent studies are needed before trial outcomes can be accepted as factual. Limitations of the study should also be mentioned.
 
15. Last but not least, were the ethical standards met?
 

​1. Diagonal Advanced Limb Placement

This refers to the placement of diagonal forelimb and hindlimb in trot and canter. The USDF's Glossary of Judging Terms defines it as being when the “hooves of a diagonal pair of limbs (in trot or canter) do not contact the ground at the same moment."

We found that the:

• Left forelimb lands 30 m/s before the right hindlimb
• Right forelimb lands 10 m/s before the left hindlimb

 
This demonstrates a negative diagonal advanced placement (each forelimb lands before its diagonal hindlimb pair). In dressage horses we know from research that a positive diagonal advanced placement (hindlimb landing 20-30m/s before forelimb) is important for propulsion of the hindquarters. While this has not yet been studied in racehorses, we hypothesised that a similar limb placement pattern would be important for propulsion in the racehorse, and thus performance. This is something we hope to study further in racehorses to examine the effect on performance.

Upon performing a physiotherapy assessment, we found that this horse had some loss of muscle bulk in her hindquarters, particularly the right hindlimb, along with some pain response around the pelvic region. She had a tendency to overuse the muscles in the shoulder and lower neck region to pull herself along rather than really push from behind.

2. Stride Frequency
 
In a study of thoroughbred racehorses tested at maximal speed, the best performers were found to have a stride frequency of 2.81 strides/sec at the gallop. Stride frequency is positively correlated with performance – ie the best performers have higher stride frequencies. We found that this horse had a stride frequency of 1.9 strides/second. 


3. Ground Contact Duration
 
Ground contact duration is defined as the time elapsed between the non-lead hindlimb contact and the lift off of the lead forelimb, expressed as a percentage of the total stride duration.
 
In a study of thoroughbred racehorses tested at maximal speed, horses that won short distance races (<1400m) were found to have a longer relative ground contact duration (68%). Long distance winners had shorter ground contact durations (58%).  Sprinters tend to have higher stride frequencies but longer ground contact durations to give more time for propulsion.
This horse (a sprinter) had a ground contact duration of 69% which is similar to top performing sprinters.

Looking at parameters such as these were really useful for the trainer to know, as several studies have found that stride parameters such as frequency and duration can be influenced by training. Based on these findings, the trainer of this horse was able to make any adjustments to her training as he felt appropriate. We also put in place an exercise program which focused on improving her hindquarter strength and symmetry. Not long after this was put in place this horse had 2 great runs, placing a very close second in both races!

This type of analysis is not just beneficial to racehorses, but for horses of all disciplines. Please feel free to get in touch to discuss in more detail how we can use gait analysis to assess your horse's performance.