DIRT Physio

🚨 “I tweaked my back getting my purse out of the truck… and now I can’t ride any of my horses.” 🚨

I got an emergency call from a patient today, so naturally, I asked:

“What did you do before you lifted the purse?”

Well… she had driven 4 hours to pick up a horse, turned around and driven 4 hours home, jumped out of the truck at 3:00 a.m., unhooked the trailer… and then grabbed her purse.

Small tweak. Big consequence.

As a physio, there is almost always a story behind an injury—and it usually isn’t the final movement that is truly to blame.

The purse wasn’t necessarily the culprit. It was everything that led to the purse becoming the straw that broke the camel’s back:

🐴 Hours of driving
🐴 Fatigue
🐴 Long periods of sitting
🐴 Unhooking a trailer in the middle of the night
🐴 Then one small, ordinary movement

This is why context matters.

Being intentional about how you unhook a trailer—based on your strength, mobility, fatigue, and movement habits—may help reduce injury risk.

And here’s the other important part:

You should be practicing awkward, real-life loading.

Gone are the days of teaching people there is only one correct way to lift. Because life—and especially life with horses and dogs—isn’t one-dimensional.

We twist. We reach. We lift from awkward angles. We carry things unevenly. We work when we’re tired. We grab purses after eight hours on the road. 😅

The goal isn’t to avoid every “bad” position.

The goal is to build a body that is prepared for the positions life asks of you.

Train for real life. Train for the barn. Train for the unexpected. 💪🐴🐕

Western dressage is just as beautiful as English dressage—because beauty isn’t defined by the saddle. 🤎

It’s found in harmony.
In balance.
In softness.
In trust.
In the quiet conversation between horse and rider. ✨

Different tack. Different traditions. Different expression.

But the same goal: a strong, supple, willing horse moving in connection with their rider.

And - I can do it with my $2500 middle of no where - Sask girl.

7 Days Until Show Day? Do Less. Ride Better.

The final week before competition isn’t about getting fitter—it’s about getting fresher.

Sport science calls this tapering: reducing your training volume while maintaining quality, allowing fatigue to fade without losing fitness.

Instead of squeezing in one more hard ride:
✅ Keep the quality.
✅ Reduce the repetitions.
✅ Prioritize recovery.

The work is already done.

Now your goal is to arrive at the show feeling fresh, confident, and ready to perform—not tired from overtraining.

Sometimes, the best training before competition is knowing when to do less.

And in all of my posts - this isn’t just for the horse, this is for the equestrian athlete as well!

Your diaphragm is 1 part of your “core”, and this has to be broken down into parts. My first check is always the diaphragm.

The diaphragm works together with the:
* Pelvic floor
* Deep abdominal muscles (transversus abdominis)
* Multifidus muscles (back muscles)
* Thoracolumbar fascia
Holding your breath often causes riders to have:
* Increased rib cage stiffness
* Increased lumbar extension
* Tight hip flexors
* Clenched thighs
* A less following seat
A diaphragmatic exhale tends to:
* Soften the rib cage
* Allow the pelvis to move with the horse
* Reduce unnecessary tension
* Improve the horse’s willingness to relax
Horses are incredibly sensitive to changes in muscle tone. Many riders unknowingly ask the horse to tense simply because they’re tense themselves. What does the research suggest?
* Improve trunk stability through regulation of intra-abdominal pressure.
* Enhance postural control and balance.
* Reduce unnecessary muscle activation.
* Improve movement efficiency.
* Increase heart rate variability, a marker of better autonomic regulation.

Although equestrian-specific studies on diaphragmatic breathing are still limited, research consistently shows that rider symmetry, trunk control, and relaxation improve horse movement and rider effectiveness. The known role of the diaphragm in posture and motor control provides a strong physiological basis for incorporating breath awareness into riding.

Go for a quick ride out of the arena today,
Take your dog to a shaded tree area and lay with them,
Let some grass touch your feet! I went for a trail ride where the grass was taller than me and saw some deer with a big spook 😂 😂. Park Prescriptions began as a grassroots movement in the United States more than a decade ago and have since spread worldwide. PaRx is proud to be Canada’s national, evidence-based nature prescription program, connecting healthcare and nature to support healthier people and a healthier planet. Healthy By Nature | PaRx, Learning by Nature, Nature at Work

Here are 10 equestrian disciplines where one-handed riding demands exceptional skill 👇

🏆 1. Reining
🐂 2. Working Cow Horse
🇪🇸 3. Working Equitation (upper levels)
💃 4. Doma Vaquera
🇵🇹 5. Classical Portuguese Equitation
🐄 6. Cutting
🌾 7. Ranch Riding
➡️ 8. Western Riding
🌉 9. Polo/Polocrosse
💥 10. Mounted Shooting
But here’s the physiotherapy perspective…

These athletes spend thousands of hours riding with one hand, which means they repeatedly load their bodies asymmetrically.

That doesn’t automatically mean they’ll develop pain or dysfunction—but it does mean their bodies become incredibly adapted to one-sided demands.

As an equestrian physiotherapist, I often ask:
➡️ Is that asymmetry a problem? Will it cause a problem in the horse?
➡️ Or is it simply a sport-specific adaptation?

The goal isn’t to make every rider perfectly symmetrical.

The goal is to understand which asymmetries are helpful for performance, which are normal adaptations to the sport, and which have crossed the line into overload or injury risk.

Sometimes the body is compensating.
Sometimes it’s performing exactly as it needs to.

The skill is knowing the difference.

💬 If you ride one-handed, have you ever noticed one hip, shoulder, or side of your body feeling stronger, tighter, or more coordinated than the other?

I’d love to hear which discipline you ride!

By old horseman…I mean cutting horse trainer (and my grandfather) - George Oxtoby in this one. He always told me to ride around a new arena on the right rein, so my horse could see everything scary to the outside on the left and they would settle faster. Dang, he was before his time! Now we know why, the left and right sides of the brain process information differently.

🧠 The left hemisphere is often linked with:
✅ familiar situations
✅ routine
✅ problem-solving
✅ processing neutral or new objects

👁️ Horses often use their right eye (which feeds more strongly into the left side of the brain) when investigating something new that isn’t scary.

🧠 The right hemisphere is more involved with:
🚨 threat detection
😳 fear responses
👀 vigilance and emotional reactions

👁️ Horses often use their left eye when evaluating something they perceive as potentially concerning.

So yes… the same object can literally be processed differently depending on which eye your horse sees it with. Of note, only 90% of the information crosses and 10% stays to the same side, so that their mainly monocular eyes can talk to each other.

Think about that scary-looking garbage can, a new jump filler, or a plastic bag blowing in the wind. 🌬️

Your horse isn’t “being silly” when they react differently from one side versus the other — they may genuinely be processing that information through a different pathway. Many researchers to quote on this one, but mainly Baragli et al. 2021, Plos 1.

For a few months of the year, I get to treat equestrian athletes outside, and it’s the best to be ringside! For some vitamin D, fresh air and there actually is moderate evidence that watching your sport while you exercise can increase motivation and, in some situations, improve training quality. The effect is largely psychological rather than physiological. However, the benefits are generally greatest when:

* The athlete enjoys watching the sport.
* There is little distraction.
* The workout doesn’t require intense concentration on new or complex exercises.

Helmets - a very polarized topic across the horse world. My personal journey has been slow to commit to it, but I can’t go back to not wearing one.
1) I have too much to lose. My life is vibrant and fulfilling, I am not risking any of that.
2) If one other person who doesn’t wear a helmet, sees me rock it or have these conversations; then it was worth it.
3) When your job as a physiotherapist is to help people manage their new reality, you feel the very real impact - across all parts of someone’s life - the choice to ride a horse without, changed everything.
🧠 About 1 in 5 horseback riding injuries involve the head.
📉 A properly certified riding helmet can reduce head injuries by ~30% and serious head injuries by ~50%.
🐴 In one study of riders who fell, 70% sustained a head injury—and 91% of those were concussions.

Helmets can’t prevent everything, but they can dramatically reduce the risk of life-changing brain injuries.