Benefits & Contraindications

The first thing to understand and to set out, is to understand what you’re doing has a purpose.

If you massage your horse with no objective, then you’ll have you will probably have a lovely, relaxed horse, but you may miss the opportunity to have a real impact of the musculoskeletal system.

To get started you need to understand the benefits of massage, which when you assess your horse, you can decide which benefits you hope to achieve. You also need to understand that there are times when it’s not a good idea to massage. These are called contraindications.

Then finally you need to assess your horse. This assessment allows you to determine which muscles and physiological systems that you wish to influence. By doing this you should then see real results with your horse, both mentally and physically.

Benefits of Massage

• Loosen tight muscles
• Stretches the tissues
• Reduce muscle spasm
• Flushes the tissues
• Improves range of motion
• Improves joint flexibility
• Increase muscle strength
• Improves muscle suppleness
• Reduces muscle fatigue
• Calms the nervous system
• Relaxation
• Relieves stress
• Reduces anxiety and irritation
• Improves circulation
• Speeds up healing from
• injury and illness
• Improves lymphatic drainage
• Increases focus and concentration

Contraindications of Massage

Contraindications – This simply means, do not conduct a massage treatment if your horse has been diagnosed or exhibits any of the following:

• Cancer
• Acute Inflammation
• Dehydration
• Infection / Raised Temperature
• Skin infections
• Over an open wound
• Pregnancy
• In any situation where increases circulation poses a risk