The Equine Back: Strengthen the back in schooling (Part 3 of 3)
Once you have completed the proper ground work to strengthen your horse’s back, (Part 2), then you may further condition with ridden exercise.
To complete the equine back biomechanics series, we’re going to look at ridden exercises and how to strengthen the back with your schooling.
There are plenty of popular ways to build your horse’s back, topline and core muscles while riding - keep him engaged, ride up hills, shoulder in, work on transitions, do cavaletti. When it comes to why, how or what they actually do though, things often get a little more patchy. I will cover what exactly these exercises do, which ones work, what muscles they target, how to get the most out of them, and how to design the exercises that suit you and your horse.
As discussed in Part 1, carrying a rider is a massive challenge to the equine spine, and muscle activation is required to lift the horse’s back into a position where it can support a rider comfortably. If the horse attempts to carry the rider with the spinal column rather than the muscles, this will hollow the back and cause pain, and potentially spinal impingement and damage. In Part 2, we discussed trying to activate core muscles and to rotate and flex the spine to increase range of motion (flexibility), reduce spinal impingement and to build muscle strength, making it easier for the horse to round and carry a rider correctly. Then, we looked at combining these exercises with challenges to the horse’s balance to make them more effective. In the ridden horse, we have the chance to again rotate and bend the spine, through less of its range of motion, but this time with the added challenge to balance and strength of supporting the weight of a rider.
Walk
Many people who have used a horse walker have been surprised by the amount of topline a horse can gain just in walk. In walk the horse’s spine is very mobile. It must bend in all three axes - flexing as it rounds and hollows, bending laterally to the side and axially, twisting along its length, and for all three types of bending its range of motion is dramatically higher at the walk than in the other gaits. This means that in walk the horse has an opportunity to address and increase his range of motion and flexibility, target and release the muscles that move the spine and by stretching the spine, hence opening up the spinous processes, you can prevent and minimize spinal impingement.
Walking actively, particularly up and down slopes tones the abdominal musculature and prepares the horse for increased engagement and more challenging work. Walk is also the ideal pace for exaggerated stretches, such as asking the horse to walk a five metre circle around a cone or imagined spot, with his nose very low on a long rein and an exaggerated bend, flexing to the inside and out, to target spinal flexion and mobility, helping to increase range of motion and loosen any tight spots.
Walking the circle. The spine twists along its length to allow the near hip to be raised and the near shoulder to be lowered, bends in flexion, and laterally to the inside.
Trot
In the trot, the horse’s spine is mobilized with less range of motion than in walk. The spinal muscles are activated and the ventral core muscles such as the abdominals are recruited to control the movement. This makes trotting with a rider on board an excellent work out for equine back health. If the horse carries a rider correctly in trot, the muscles and spine should continue to gain in strength and flexibility.
The addition of trotting poles or cavaletti increases the range of movement at the trot, so increases the intensity of the work out, balance challenge and stretching. Rotating the shoulder in trot, while bending on a circle.
Cavaletti
Cavaletti is often used just as another word for trotting poles or pole work. While it’s important for showjumpers, it’s also important for dressage horses, or any horse that’s planning to use its back to support a rider. Traditionally cavaletti were fixed poles suspended between cross-shaped wings, which could be rotated for variable height poles, but these days people mostly mean “getting the horse to step over things on the ground, in walk, trot or canter.” What it doesn’t mean is jumping, just literally stepping over poles, sometimes raised, usually in sets. Cavaletti/poles are great, they develop the paces, the rhythm, the balance, the cadence, whether you follow showjumpers like Scott Brash or dressage riders like Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester you’ll hear an exhortation to do cavaletti. However, pole work doesn’t just give you a big rhythmic trot because the horse gets in the habit of picking his feet up, it actually improves muscle tone, balance and flexibility.
Trotting poles or cavaletti in trot increase flexion in all the horse’s leg joints and increase the amount of movement through the horse’s back. This builds strength in the muscles and flexibility in all the joints, as well as aiding muscular control and coordination. Unlike using weighted boots, tactile stimulators or pastern weights, trotting poles also increase the amount of flexion at the hip, activating the horse’s hip flexors. Similarly horses do not have an ability to habituate to the poles, as no matter how many times they do them, they still need to clear the poles, whereas horses can learn to ignore pastern weights and other worn stimulators.
The height of the limb flexions shown and the amount of spinal bending is proportional to the height of the trotting poles, and so these can be increased as the horse becomes more advanced and more confident in his visual coordination and synchronization.
A single pole or single poles scattered all over the school are constructive, but you can also get a more sustained work out by asking your horse to walk and then trot over sets of four or more poles. For a walk distance you need to move the poles in to be about 0.9 metres (a yard) apart, in trot they should be 1.2 metres (4 foot) apart. After that there is no real wrong solution with trot poles, you can use your imagination to create interesting patterns. You might start by placing four poles out evenly and change the rein after trotting over them to approach from different directions, and build up to riding a figure of eight with trot poles along the diagonals, and then even a serpentine with trot poles along each short side. You can miss out a middle pole, leaving a gap of 2.4m so the horse trots a couple of steps between poles, or ask him to follow the line of a curved set of poles. As long as the horse is trotting actively forward, he will continue to improve his back strength and health while finding the work interesting and gaining confidence.
Shoulder in, shoulder fore and lateral work
In shoulder in the horse is asked to bend to the inside while continuing to travel forwards with impulsion, leaving the horse traveling “on three tracks” when viewed from behind. Shoulder fore is a similar exercise but with around half the amount of bend to the inside, making it a useful building block both in terms of muscle development and the horse’s education, confidence and understanding. These exercises are normally initially performed along a wall or rail, by maintaining the bend as you come out of a turn. The lumbo-abdominal flexion involved in shoulder in and shoulder-fore shorten and challenge the abdominal muscles, particularly the internal oblique and hence this is another exercise which is very effective in strengthening and rehabilitating the back. The horse builds his muscles as he uses them to stay in balance, and so it is better to achieve a small amount of bend in a balanced way than to push the horse beyond what he can achieve correctly.
Once shoulder in is established, further lateral work like haunches in, leg yielding and half passes can continue to challenge these muscles. As lateral work targets one side at a time (and should therefore always be done in both directions) it is particularly effective in muscle development. Lateral work targets lumbosacral mobility and hindlimb engagement (iliopsoas), the ability to lift the forehand (pectoral muscles), and the difficult to activate spinal control (multifidus muscles), and so it is often seen as a form of rehabilitation for the back, in both a preventative and curative sense. It does, however, put a lot of strain on the collateral ligaments around the pastern and hoof, so should not be overdone.
Hill work increases the challenge by making the horse work against gravity. Hills can be incorporated not just into aerobic fitness, but into schooling and muscle building exercises. For example you can ride a slow 15m-20m circles in trot on the side of a hill, asking the horse to lower his nose and push up the hill using his extensors of the hip and back (gluteal and paravertebral) and then control his balance against the slope when going back downhill using eccentric muscle contractions of the abdominal and hip flexors. For an advanced horse you might even put a pole or very small jump on the hill, and incorporate it into the slow 20m trot circle, and trotting poles on the lowest part of the circle to increase flexion and rhythm.
While this type of hill work comes highly recommended as a rehabilitation exercise for the equine back and core, and can greatly improve muscle strength and coordination, you shouldn’t underestimate how challenging it is for the horse and initially it should not be continued for more than fifteen minutes. I find this a nice exercise, without the poles, to incorporate into my hacks, just throwing in a quick trot circle or two on a slope, trying to keep the topline extended, before I charge off up the hill.
Canter
Canter involves the flexion and extension of the back (in the hollowing and rounding direction), but not the lateral bending or axial twisting seen in trot or walk. Work at canter therefore does not have the same level of benefit of stimulating the deep multifidus muscles or increasing the flexibility of the spine or strength of the spine stabilizers as some of the walk and trot exercises. This doesn’t mean that you don’t need the same spinal strength to canter, just that canter alone is not the most effective way to build total back health. Canter does have a large amount of active lumbo-sacral flexion and so is useful in building strength in the abdominal and sub-lumbar muscles, which in turn support the back.
In canter, the abdominal muscles contract concentrically, shortening the rib cage and rounding the back. Depending on the leading leg either one oblique abdominal muscle or the other is the main support. As well as maintaining the flexion in the spine the abdominal wall muscles (rectus and oblique) cause the pelvis to tilt downwards, tucking the hind end under. The sub-lumber muscles (iliopsoas) flex the hip joint lending impulsion and further flexing the pelvis and back. Finally, the thoracic sling works to lift the forehand. This means that while it does not involve the same range of motion as trot and walk, a correct canter with the additional weight of the rider, requires a lot of strength and effort from the horse.
In counter canter, the abdominal and sub-lumbar (rectus and iliopsoas) muscles maintain the position and flexion of the hip, while the abdominal (oblique) muscles shorten the trunk, and so this requires a lot of strength and coordination from the abdominal girdle. Counter canter is a great exercise for continuing to build strength once the horse is sufficiently advanced, but if attempted too early it can cause tensions and rigidity which is counter-productive.
Jumping is a very different movement from that of trotting over cavaletti, involving a flight phase, so while canter poles can be an important part of the horse’s education and muscle development, they are very different as muscle training exercises from trot poles. Canter poles are more similar to small bounce fences causing flexion of the spine and putting great demands on the muscles without requiring too much impact. Bounce jumps or canter poles selectively increase the strength of the thoracic sling and upper neck muscles through the abrupt loading and lifting of the forehand between the jumps. During the flight phase, spinal flexion comes primarily from the thoracic spine and lumbosacral joint, due to contraction of the abdominal and iliopsoas muscles, and induces stretching of the supraspinous ligament and erector spinae muscle which run along the top of the spine. This makes it an effective exercise in opening up the spine in this direction, but also means that the horse must be very well warmed up before bounces are attempted to avoid muscle or ligament strains. The hip flexors and abdominal muscles also work to provide propulsion for the poles or jumps, but these are most challenged by the increased engagement at landing in the bounce, required so the horse can begin to lift his front end before the hind end has landed, rather than the effort of take off itself.
In general, if a horse is carrying a rider, his back is already working, and great progress can be made merely from hacking out in an active walk, and occasionally asking your horse to stretch down, and to flex left or right, to open up his spine. By including a variety of the exercises mentioned here, you should have a happy, healthy horse that continues to increase his ability to carry a rider.
The great majority of the muscles that attach to bony elements of neck or back run from one part of this skeleton to the other, not attaching to the limbs, prioritizing active, internal stabilization to compliment the passive, internal stabilization provided by the ligaments. The back will try to compensate abnormal or one-sided loading of it (e.g. by lameness or rider) by increased muscle tension. As a result, painful muscle spasms are common and early clinical signs of back problems even though they are generally secondary in nature.
Source: Sian Townson
Please note that this site constitutes discussion of athletic development and performance, and does not give clinical advice.