Basic Massage Techniques—Know Any?

28 October 2011 2 Comments

I learned some basic massage techniques and stretches when I owned the Super Saint. We’re not talking about full-on therapeutic massage here; we’re talking about just a light massage that I used before our rides to help warm up his muscles and after our rides to make sure there was no lingering tension. Feel good in the moment type massages.

Yesterday I decided to see what Ro would think of it. She’s not a huge fan of grooming, so I expected, at best, that she would be ambivalent. And indeed, her reaction was a great, big “meh.”

Just stroking along the muscle confused her. She kept turning her neck to see what I was doing; it didn’t seem like it was bothering her, but it also didn’t seem like she was getting anything out of it. Switching to my fingers instead of the flat of my hand had more of an effect on her—she did like that. Scratching across the muscle (instead of stroking along it) was only tolerable if there was actual tightness in the muscle. If the muscle felt pretty relaxed to start, she was irritated by the cross scratching. She liked percussion quite a bit (I like to use my fingertips again vs the flat or heel of the hand—I think you can get more of the muscle vibrating with less force).

Since she likes a little pressure and kept responding well when I used my finger tips, I think I’ll start using my curry comb more as a massage comb. It’s one of those big, heavy round rubber ones with lots of points all over it. I suppose I could go buy a special massage brush, but I think this will work just as well.

I was happy to see that her neck/shoulder/back were all pretty loose and relaxed. I felt a few knots but they all loosened up pretty easily. Her hindquarters are much more tense and I’m not sure how much difference I made there. She definitely liked having that area worked on, and she was not shy about taking a step forward or back so I could keep working on particular spots. We’ll see how this improves if I do a little bit on a consistent basis.

I think we’re also going to start adding in some stretches. I suspect she’ll be just fine with the typical carrot stretches and the one forearm stretch I know how to do—she tends to have pretty good range of motion up front. The hind end is what I’d like to work on, especially given that it’s where she’s carrying all her tension. I only know one stretch for that (stretching the leg forward), but I’m sure there must be more.

And in that spirit, I’ve love to know any particular massage or stretch techniques that you use and your horse loves, particularly if it’s something you can explain without feeling like you need to add 1,001 warnings about things that could go wrong.

I’m not interested in really deep-down, therapeutic stuff. I want the sort of thing that could be thrown into an average grooming session. Idiot-proof is good.

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