Proprioceptive Exercises

Beneficial to both human & equines, proprioceptive exercises are imperative for functional performance.

Proprioception describes the ability to sense movement, action, and where the body is in space.

• Can you to walk through a door, and not clip your shoulder on the way through?

• Do you trip when walking up stairs?

• Does your horse commonly knock rails?

Proprioception is diminished greatly when there is residual tension stored within the bodies tissues (i.e. bone, muscle, nerve, fascia, and/or visceral). This is one of the reasons why having you horse’ body balanced is so important. Another reason being that proprioceptive exercises have a rehabilitative effect - meaning they contribute toward optimising the healing time from injury for your horse.

Here are some exercises you can do with you horse which will improve their proprioception:

1. Poles

   • Arranged in different patterns on the ground

   • Put at different different spaces / lengths between each

   • Raise one end by sitting the end of the pole on something i.e. a bucket

   • Look for = you want your horse to step over the poles without touching them, but you also do not want them exaggerating the clearance, and ‘high-stepping’.

2. Different surfaces

   • Walk your horse over variable types of surfaces i.e. gravel, grass, sand, mud, stable mats

   • Different surfaces will send different sensory feedback from their feet to their central nervous system

3. Obstacle course

   • Set up an obstacle course of old tyres (easy to get from a tyre shop!) arranged closely together in a random pattern. You want your horse to be able to navigate through the arrangement without touching the tyres. Again, like the poles, it is their ability to not only not touch the tyres, but also to not exaggerate their steps.

   • It’s not recommended to get your horse to walk through the tyres unless they are at a high level of proprioception already.

4. Terrain: High grass / fallen trees etc.

   • Use what’s around you already when hacking out

   • Don’t miss the opportunity to step over manageable fallen trees (make sure it’s safe to do so).

   • Walk through the high grass

5. Moving backwards

   • Look for straightness (put two poles on the ground for extra help)

   • Look for the diagonal pairing of limbs

   • Look for a stable head and neck position

   • This is also great for achieving, or maintaining the correct firing pattern of the hind end, so that the gluteus muscles are working in conjunction with the back and hind leg muscles in the correct sequence

6. Stretching

   • If a joint is not taken through its full range of motion often, through neurological adaptation its sensory feedback and physiology will be diminished. This means the joint will neurologically ‘re-wire’ itself to a new baseline which will be a fraction of its potential!

   • ‘If you don't use it, you lose it’

There are obviously many more, but these are a great starting point. Be creative with what you already have available to you. Your horse will thank you dearly for it!

Invest in them, and then come time, they’ll perform for you!