09/10/2023
🐎Training Aids - NOT a good substitute for Good Education!
🆘🐎While the equestrian market is still flooded and succeeding in persuading people with "quick fix" options that focus mostly on forcing a head and neck position, horses continue to suffer the consequences - physically, mentally and emotionally.
Here is an excerpt from a great piece from one of our newer educators, UK Based Helen Thornton, on this topic:
Q re: PESSOAS
NO I do not recommend these for rehabbing from a KISSING SPINE diagnosis.
Research so far hasn't proven them to be of any great help in some key areas (see links to research articles below)
The pessoa aims to encourage correct “rounding” while collecting the hindlimbs with the most popular placement leading between the front legs to adjoin to a ring on the girth of the roller, designed to “stretch the topline” while engaging the hocks.
Hmmmmm
Walker et al. found dorsoventral displacement (topline and core) increased with pessoa use when set at shoulder level, with greater lumbosacral joint extension during hindlimb retraction, suggesting greater back movement.
However, the highest point of the horse changed from the poll to the crest, suggesting a high degree of cervical ventral flexion, which is not ideal for horses with neck pain and, is not indicative of a more uphill, engaged, and collected frame.
Other research noted the pessoa on setting 1 on a treadmill did not increase core muscle use, which also supports previous research finding no increase in long back muscle use with a pessoa, it does not assist with spinal stabilisation, and a horse should already have good back and core musculature prior to use for collection.
Additionally, Mackenchnie-Guire et al. found high pressures below rollers with a training aid such as a pessoa, thus indicating use during kissing spine rehab may be counter-intuitive when pressures are highest at T11-T12 which are key kissing spine locations.
BIN THE GADGETS
Your best, most influential route is EDUCATION.
Learn more about training aids, good posture and whole horse/whole rider education on our platform.
AND, get a 25% discount for a limited time when you enter the code "horse" at checkout, making it less than the price of a cup of tea per month!
https://www.equitopiacenter.com/membership-plans/
Links:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0737080618301035
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231999944_The_effects_of_training_AIDS_on_the_longissimus_dorsi_in_the_equine_back
https://animaltherapymedia.co.uk/the-effect-of-the.../
