Recently I've been engaged in a new exercise routine: CrossFit. This routine doesn't map well with the normal health club with their use of machines--in CrossFit machines are evil--or to any other "routine" for fitness.
Since CrossFit doesn't map well with what most Rolfers would consider appropriate exercise I've been re-thinking some of these Rolfing myths as I gain more benefit from the CrossFit. For instance most Rolfers don't think that weight lifting, using free weights, is good for us. Yet when we use free weights to exercise we have to learn to balance the weight or get injured. The learning to balance weight is as important, in my mind, as the lifting of the weight. Learning to balance free weights--groceries, bags of grain, dog food, hay...--requires that we use more of our joint surface which "wakes" up the musculature.
Squatting is a big component of CrossFit, yet this is almost completely missing from our western culture of overly tight hip flexors. We bend from the hips to pick something up and strain our back in doing so. Recently my son--the one who got me involved with CrossFit 2 years after he started--and I were repairing fence on our place. We had to replace a wooden post that the horses--part beaver--had eaten down to almost nothing. I tried to pull the post out of the ground and it broke, I couldn't get it to budge. When I told my son to go get the tractor and a chain to pull it out with he asked if he could try. He squatted over the post and used his legs--that same move that is used in deadlifting--and pulled the post out. Proper mechanics!
As I use the mechanics of the squat to get myself out of chairs, lift hay, do anything with weight I started to notice that my knees don't hurt. This got me thinking about how many myths we have about body mechanics and especially conformation and how these thoughts may not be working since we continue to see injuries or should I say breakdowns in bodies that utilize these mechanics.
Through CrossFit I have come into contact with Pose running. (you can Google it) One of the concepts in Pose running is that the point of contact of the runners foot with the ground shouldn't be the heel but the ball of the foot. How many people where very expensive running shoes and still break down? Try 83% of all runners!
Think about the implications for the horse. We normally shoe, trim our horses so the land heel first. Toe first is a fault--I always suspect heel pain in horses that land this way--flat footed is barely acceptable but may actually represent the equine equivalent of the "ball" of the foot. (Let's not go all anthropromorphic with this!)
What do you think?
Thursday, January 7, 2010
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3 comments:
Just saw your demo yesterday at Horse Expo in Denver - really liked what we saw of your work, especially the part about how you expect to see changes that may actually be permanent instead of just a few days or weeks as we see with massage or chiropractic.
Re. the last paragraph in this post (about how horses land) - I'm a bit confused - are you saying that you think horses should or should not land heel first? All the information I've found on the subject says heel first, which always made sense, since that is where all the cushioning of the heel bulbs and frog as well as shock absorption of joints would be most effective.
I'm happy you found the talk beneficial. I did two more today and two more tomorrow.
About the heels, you are correct I'm suggesting that it may be better for the horse to land mid-foot rather than heel first.
The experiments on heel first landing do not necessarily support that the heel first landing--there's a good chapter on this in the book "Equine Podiatry".
My interest in opening this can of worms comes from the results humans are getting in the barefoot running "movement". Humans running barefoot land more on the arch of the foot rather than the heel, and show a remarkable reduction in shock forces on the foot!
The data on horses landing mid-foot is almost identical to the barefoot human runners.
So, let's postulate something. What if the horses digital cushion isn't there because the "shod" horse should land on it's heel, but rather to protect the sensitive tissue--especially nerves--that are there. Could it be that landing heel first is the cause of much of the horse's foot problems?
I've been taking the opportunity to look at the growth of the "wild" horses that I've been working with at the expo. They have a very pronounced growth mid-foot.
So, what do you think?
Being as I am not a farrier,or orthopedist, I should probably keep quiet about my thoughts on the subject, but I do a little thorizing about such subjects, and have some experience from self education, mechanical background, barefoot trimming experience and Equine massage training.
only recently have I actually seen a pair of ponies which was pretty clearly landing heel first. by all appearnces they seemed to be the most sound of the horses in the show. I do not have any other relevant info regarding them other than observation.
Personal barefoot trimming exp. has been only on horses I own, (with oversight from a farrier and barefoot specialist) which came to me with long toe/low heel conformation. Observation of them: they appeared to land flat footed but I think it would require either an extremely acute vision or a close up video camera, to really see impact or touch sensors to measure point of impact as heel first and flat can be extremely close to toe first can be a matter of only a couple of degrees.
Which means I need to look closer, make more notes, and keep better records, as there are some animals in which toe first landing is easy to see, and others which are only a few degrees from level.
Question then becomes how many degrees cause long term damage, to an otherwise healthy horse. One needs to also consider the conformation of the lower leg and how the pastern/fetlock/ cannonbone angles affect the compression and impact pressure on the hoof structures along with the pressures that transfer up the leg.
Now for your postlation: personal experience with a horse we owned which had medial sidebone, was vet examined for navicular damage by xray, finding negative navicular damage. Level 4 lameness both front feet. Sidebone is the ossification of cartilage attached to the coffin bone in the caudal portion of the hoof capsule.
Followed presribed directions of vet to ease caudal heel pain.
prescribed bute and Isoxuprine with no result for improvement in lameness. Farrier attempted use of bar shoes, angled pads, vettec products and a variety of other farrier solutions, with only temporaray improvement lasting only 2-3 days.
In the end we retired the horse and returned him to barefoot. Using principals of barefoot trimming recommended by Pete Ramey. main goal was to rebalance the hoof to proper hoof angles laterally and along with proper heel/toe angles.Over the folowing six months he grew new hoof wall and has returned to a healthy sound horse with no apparent lameness. This has held true for the last 1 1/2 year although he has rarely been ridden since he was retired. He has had significant visual reduction of sidebone
conclusions: His sidebone appears to have been reduced by returning the lateral balance to its appropriate angles along with correcting the long toe/low heel condition heel.
I would theorize that the improper lateral angles contributed significantly to the ossification process, due to the hoof impact initially on the medial aspect on solarhoof. Implying that true heel first landing could contribute to caudal heel pain and navicular issues.
I will leave this as simply my theory and leave the reality to those who know more than I do.
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