Peglo
Well-Known Member
Thank you for the explanation.
So if you had a perfectly healthy, strong, in balance horse it would be an ok exercise to do in hand? But for the sake of rehabbing/fittening it wouldn’t be beneficial?
Slow Walk Work (FB group)
- Thread starter Landcruiser
- Start date
Thank you for the explanation.
So if you had a perfectly healthy, strong, in balance horse it would be an ok exercise to do in hand? But for the sake of rehabbing/fittening it wouldn’t be beneficial?
sbloom
Well-Known Member
I think the answer is that it always depends, and I think there are still better ways of achieving the same thing. It's easy to understand, just get your horse's legs either side of this pole, and we do it slowly and gently hopefully...but how many of us truly know the difference between a relaxed horse that is processing something, and one that's shutting down. I like these groundwork programmes that are rooted in connection, observation and careful assessment as to how each exercise is going, and from what we see happening, what should we be doing next, or instead. I'm learning a ton having to help my customers find their way with this stuff
It's definitely not a strengthening exercise - strengthening is repetition, or extra loading, on something that is already functional. Sadly we're so often strengthening the dysfunctional, but this sort of exercise, or intent, is about activation, posture, articulation of joints etc.
Rowreach
Adjusting my sails
Polework is mostly for the benefit of riders who, for whatever reasons, don't want to leave the ground, or for those who think that it relieves boredom, which could be addressed by not working horses in arenas ad nauseum.
TPO
Fly paper for freaks 🍀
I personally think what is ok, what isn't ok and what is sometimes OK is a really hard discussion to have on a forum.
The people posting (usually) have no accreditations and there are plenty on here who at best exaggerate, and worse outright lie, about their experience and knowledge.
Coupled with all that it's a vast audience of "known" posters never mind the audience if unregistered readers. All withe different levels of knowledge and understanding.
There are lots of gadgets that I think are outright bad. Pessoas and their copies, chambons and degouges (@scarletequinetherapy has some good images for this). There are probably some situations where they would help but only if used by someone very experienced and a lot of people can't be that critical of themselves.
Poles (ideally square or with blocks/bricks) can be extremely helpful for rehab and general fitness work but, like all things, they have to be used correctly.
As previously pointed out, using them incorrectly can cause more harm. However using them correctly and knowing how to use them and what exercises can be hugely beneficial to some horses.
It's so hard to define an answer. Paraphrasing but only a week or so ago "advice" was given to lunge a horse something stupid like 100x over 10 poles in each direction. Unqualified that is gorribly bad advice and I'm struggling to understand how that can ever be good to do 1000 poles in a session.
To me there's a huge gap in most owners knowledge when it comes to anatomy and function. Gillian Higgins books ate a good place to start for anyone interested.
Correctly working over poles while balanced and with an engaged core are hard work. Doing it without an engaged core is at best pointless and worst harmful.
So then people need to know what an engaged core is and how to spot the correct, and incorrect, muscles being activated.
Back to my hatred of Pessoas. I'm sure it was h&h that had an article showing gadgets being used on horses. Over rotation of the pelvis was very common when using the pessoa and unless you knew you're stuff it's so easy to miss. It's only because of that article thst I became so aware of it. How many owners really know to look for that stuff?
Then you have the self proclaimed experts who spot everything and post a load of nonsense to look like they know what they're talking about. Verbosity gets mistaken for knowledge a lot on here.
The onus really falls on the individual to know as much as they can and educate themselves with a hefty dollop of common sense.
Straddling a pole shouldn't cause huge abduction because a pole is so narrow. You can even do it with something like a (secured) weight tape. Asking a prey animal to stand over a "snake" and not step over the pole they've been taught to always go over can take a bit of time and the process can need broken down into very small chunks.
Going smaller (& shorter) is often the better approach. You don't have to look hard to find the person who thinks if dome raised poles are good then a lot must be better. Sometimes something simple like putting yourself in the hprses shoes can help. For example walk a box ie step over your left leg with your right and feel the stretch in left hamstring and gut and right quads, step back on left and right follow then step over right leg with left. If you concentrate on engaging your core, staying level through your shoulders and stepping over cleaning you can feel it in your muscles. So think of thr horse when doing (beneficial) exercises like turns on the forehand, turn on the quarters, shoulder in, shoulders/quarters fore etc then same with stepping over something.
On top of all of that you need an assessment of the horse. Again it's been said already but lunging a stiff horse Iver poles isn't going to ease it's arthritic hocks etc.
I like thr Jec Aristotle Balu books. I got her newest 33 strength and fitness Workouts book for my birthday and I'm a big fan of that too. Gillian Highins are excellent books; how a horse moves and anatomy for performance are great.
So yeah, what was I saying about verbosity again?
Basically (imo) people have to put the work in to build their own understanding before believing everything that's written on the Internet. It's not a linear path and everyone makes mistakes. It's wasn't that long ago that the nutjob who lied about qualifications and claimed she could do nerve releases on horses was bei g heralded on here as some sort of earth shattering new way of doing things as if she'd discovered the thoracic sling. So I'd advise a double dose of common sense and tread slowly before fully launching into anyone's programme for horse training.
There's nothing new under the sun when it comes to horses, including the thoracic sling, and the information is out there. A bit of short term homework can help when it comes to understanding the whys
ETA there's too many typos and autocorrects for me to be bothered fixing so you might have to use your imagination! Oh, and it's scarlettsequinetherapy on instagram, not whatever I posted above.
The people posting (usually) have no accreditations and there are plenty on here who at best exaggerate, and worse outright lie, about their experience and knowledge.
Coupled with all that it's a vast audience of "known" posters never mind the audience if unregistered readers. All withe different levels of knowledge and understanding.
There are lots of gadgets that I think are outright bad. Pessoas and their copies, chambons and degouges (@scarletequinetherapy has some good images for this). There are probably some situations where they would help but only if used by someone very experienced and a lot of people can't be that critical of themselves.
Poles (ideally square or with blocks/bricks) can be extremely helpful for rehab and general fitness work but, like all things, they have to be used correctly.
As previously pointed out, using them incorrectly can cause more harm. However using them correctly and knowing how to use them and what exercises can be hugely beneficial to some horses.
It's so hard to define an answer. Paraphrasing but only a week or so ago "advice" was given to lunge a horse something stupid like 100x over 10 poles in each direction. Unqualified that is gorribly bad advice and I'm struggling to understand how that can ever be good to do 1000 poles in a session.
To me there's a huge gap in most owners knowledge when it comes to anatomy and function. Gillian Higgins books ate a good place to start for anyone interested.
Correctly working over poles while balanced and with an engaged core are hard work. Doing it without an engaged core is at best pointless and worst harmful.
So then people need to know what an engaged core is and how to spot the correct, and incorrect, muscles being activated.
Back to my hatred of Pessoas. I'm sure it was h&h that had an article showing gadgets being used on horses. Over rotation of the pelvis was very common when using the pessoa and unless you knew you're stuff it's so easy to miss. It's only because of that article thst I became so aware of it. How many owners really know to look for that stuff?
Then you have the self proclaimed experts who spot everything and post a load of nonsense to look like they know what they're talking about. Verbosity gets mistaken for knowledge a lot on here.
The onus really falls on the individual to know as much as they can and educate themselves with a hefty dollop of common sense.
Straddling a pole shouldn't cause huge abduction because a pole is so narrow. You can even do it with something like a (secured) weight tape. Asking a prey animal to stand over a "snake" and not step over the pole they've been taught to always go over can take a bit of time and the process can need broken down into very small chunks.
Going smaller (& shorter) is often the better approach. You don't have to look hard to find the person who thinks if dome raised poles are good then a lot must be better. Sometimes something simple like putting yourself in the hprses shoes can help. For example walk a box ie step over your left leg with your right and feel the stretch in left hamstring and gut and right quads, step back on left and right follow then step over right leg with left. If you concentrate on engaging your core, staying level through your shoulders and stepping over cleaning you can feel it in your muscles. So think of thr horse when doing (beneficial) exercises like turns on the forehand, turn on the quarters, shoulder in, shoulders/quarters fore etc then same with stepping over something.
On top of all of that you need an assessment of the horse. Again it's been said already but lunging a stiff horse Iver poles isn't going to ease it's arthritic hocks etc.
I like thr Jec Aristotle Balu books. I got her newest 33 strength and fitness Workouts book for my birthday and I'm a big fan of that too. Gillian Highins are excellent books; how a horse moves and anatomy for performance are great.
So yeah, what was I saying about verbosity again?
Basically (imo) people have to put the work in to build their own understanding before believing everything that's written on the Internet. It's not a linear path and everyone makes mistakes. It's wasn't that long ago that the nutjob who lied about qualifications and claimed she could do nerve releases on horses was bei g heralded on here as some sort of earth shattering new way of doing things as if she'd discovered the thoracic sling. So I'd advise a double dose of common sense and tread slowly before fully launching into anyone's programme for horse training.
There's nothing new under the sun when it comes to horses, including the thoracic sling, and the information is out there. A bit of short term homework can help when it comes to understanding the whys
ETA there's too many typos and autocorrects for me to be bothered fixing so you might have to use your imagination! Oh, and it's scarlettsequinetherapy on instagram, not whatever I posted above.
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sbloom
Well-Known Member
Celeste's pillar one and two are still very useful work (the nerve release thing), whatever else any of us may think and feel about her (and therefore deciding where to spend their money!). Whatever the marketing says it's so often about how the work is communicated, do you "click" with it...as you say @TPO it's all there in history. The programme I like the most is from someone who's self taught to an extent, and a lot of her understanding comes from deep readings of Steinbrecht, Baucher et all...equally the old dead guys don't agree on everything, and don't always communicate it in ways that are helpful...AND our horses are different now. It's really complex.
I look at how the horses move in a programme, how their musculature looks, and I do find that some resources show horses in quite compromised movement patterns and with less than optimal musculature. Stefan Stammer and Jean-Marie Denoix would be my recommendations for biomechanics/anatomy and I shy away from using the word "core", I think it can lead to work where the back behind the saddle might feel lifted, or the heave line might even be up, but the horse is still on the forehand.
I love that there is so much more information around but it does make it hard. As a saddle fitter I'm not allowed to give exercises to horse or rider, and there are VERY few hands on instructors for people to get direct help. I often reference equitopiacenter.com as it's cheap, you can join for free for 7 days anyway, and there is a lot of good stuff on there in terms of assessing the posture and movement of your own horse, and quite a few webinars from people like Jec and Celeste so you can get a feel for how they approach the work.
And definitely research before spending money, or starting a programme.
And I agree, a pole is not that wide, but horses can really struggle with it, I've had a few customers experience this (and this wasn't flooding, the horse/owner just couldn't do it). And force probably feels like too strong a word, the horse can of course escape from the exercise, but if they're already in abduction and uncomfortable it may be quite difficult for them to do so and of course they want to comply...
I look at how the horses move in a programme, how their musculature looks, and I do find that some resources show horses in quite compromised movement patterns and with less than optimal musculature. Stefan Stammer and Jean-Marie Denoix would be my recommendations for biomechanics/anatomy and I shy away from using the word "core", I think it can lead to work where the back behind the saddle might feel lifted, or the heave line might even be up, but the horse is still on the forehand.
I love that there is so much more information around but it does make it hard. As a saddle fitter I'm not allowed to give exercises to horse or rider, and there are VERY few hands on instructors for people to get direct help. I often reference equitopiacenter.com as it's cheap, you can join for free for 7 days anyway, and there is a lot of good stuff on there in terms of assessing the posture and movement of your own horse, and quite a few webinars from people like Jec and Celeste so you can get a feel for how they approach the work.
And definitely research before spending money, or starting a programme.
And I agree, a pole is not that wide, but horses can really struggle with it, I've had a few customers experience this (and this wasn't flooding, the horse/owner just couldn't do it). And force probably feels like too strong a word, the horse can of course escape from the exercise, but if they're already in abduction and uncomfortable it may be quite difficult for them to do so and of course they want to comply...