Hand Massage Is 'Very Beneficial' in All Cases of Muscular Discomfort ; Exmoor's Chartered and Veterinary Physiotherapist Mary Bromiley Continues Her Question and Answer Series and This Week Looks at How Massage Can Help an Injury

Summary

---

Q: My horse slipped in the mud when I turned him out. He does not feel right, but he is not lame and my vet says he has pulled some muscles in his shoulder. Will massage help? A: Muscles can become mildly restrained and therefore uncomfortable after the type of incident you describe. Should this occur the horse instinctively changes stride length to avoid discomfort and it is this slight hesitancy of stride you are feeling.

The minute the horse's foot meets the ground during movement, the shoulder muscles expect to contract or shorten as they are required to convert the bones of the limb into a stable, weight-bearing unit. If the foot slips, the contracting muscle fibres are unexpectedly, with no warning and before they have time to relax, stretched in the opposite direction to that they had anticipated. This leads to tiny areas of micro trauma within the affected muscle causing local spasm and sub clinical discomfort.

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Hand Massage Is 'Very Beneficial' in All Cases of Muscular Discomfort ; Exmoor's Chartered and Veterinary Physiotherapist Mary Bromiley Continues Her Question and Answer Series and This Week Looks at How Massage Can Help an Injury

Massage is very useful in this situation.

To understand why, an appreciation of muscle tissue is helpful. Muscle is composed of thousands of tiny cells clumped together to...

See the full content of this document

---