Trigger point treatment

This is a technique that you can use on your own horse to help release muscle spasm. Muscle spasm causes soreness and tightness, leading to reduced performance, bad behaviour, and an increased risk of injury. This technique is technically known as 'ischemic compression' and is used to treat 'trigger points'. 

Press your fingers into your horses back muscle, above the rib cage, and slowly move your fingers towards the spine, maintaining the pressure at all times. Ideally, you'll be applying about as much pressure as you would to dent a football, but that will depend on your horse (and how well blown up your footballs are!). The muscle should feel soft under your fingers and your horse should not react in any adverse way - if you have any concerns then please contact your vet or local Chartered Veterinary Physiotherapist (www.acpat.co.uk) for assessment from a qualified professional. 

If and when you get to a point where the muscle suddenly feels hard under your fingers, you'll see the area of the horses back that is in front of your fingers contract / go tight.  At this point stay still, maintain the same level of pressure, and after a short period of time (between a few seconds and a minute) you'll see the muscles in front of your hand start to ripple (fasciculation). 

Wait until the rippling stops, and you'll feel the muscle under your fingers suddenly go soft, so that your fingers sink gently and comfortably into your horses back (you can see this happening on the video here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=496117673925834&id=297037173833886&ref=bookmarks). At this point, remove your hand, and either repeat in another place, move on to another treatment technique, or finish your treatment there.

Please note that some (by no means all) horses will feel sore after this treatment, so please use your judgement as to when you should next ride.

A description of ischemic compression is given here (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ischemic_compression), and of trigger points here (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myofascial_trigger_point).

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