My Greatest Massage Teachers Have Been Horses. Lesson 1 - Muscles Talk

I was nine years into my massage career when I decided to expand my practice and study equine massage.  I was looking to relocate to Colorado to be closer to my family and I was growing tired of missing summer days spent in a dark room lit with only a dim candle.  I was ready for a change, but I didn’t want to steer too far away from one of my true passions – massage therapy.

An idea that had been suggested to me years earlier suddenly seemed to hold the answer: equine massage.  The more I thought about it, the more the idea of studying equine massage was exhilarating!  It had the potential to offer so many avenues to enhance my personal and professional life.  It was an opportunity to reunite with my family, it would provide me the luxury to work outside, listen to the birds sing, and breathe in the fresh country air.  More importantly, it would expand my knowledge and career – to a level unbenounced to me at the time.

Studying the muscular and skeletal system of the horse was not that far off from the anatomy of humans (just get down on all fours).  The strokes and techniques were the same.  Walk in a park.  I knew all of this stuff.  How much different could it be working on a horse?  A muscle is a muscle right?

My first practice session was on an older gelding.  He made for the perfect client: refined, kind, and a gentleman.  (However, through the eyes of a massage therapist, gazing upon a 1,200 lb. animal comprised of 60% muscle was a little overwhelming!) Suddenly, the “know it all” had all kinds of questions.  “How will I know where he is sore?  How will I know if it is not enough or too much pressure?  Will I be able to find the trigger points easily?  What if he kicks me?”  My teacher assured me not only would he let me know about the proper pressure, but I would be able to “see” where he was sore through his “reactive tissue,” and for the kicking, well, never any guarantees.  Just practice safety. 

My teacher demonstrated a palpatory assessment of the horse’s top line (the top of the head to the tail), up the spinalias groove of the shoulder, and at the point of hip.  She told me to observe the tissue she was palpating as well as keeping an eye on the entire body.  She mentioned, you may see reactive tissue – including skin crawling, spastic muscles in surrounding areas or anywhere else on the body.  This seemed vague and I wasn’t really sure what she meant, but I went along with it.

To my utter amazement, the tissue she was palpating over began to tremble and appeared to be in spasm “reactive” in the location where he seemed to be experiencing muscular tension.  I had never experienced this kind of reaction with a human before.  It has never happened that while palpating down the erector spinae muscles, an entire muscle would tremble uncontrollably.  The “trembling” muscle was not the only tell-tell sign of the implication of spasm, neighboring muscles were exhibiting reactions.  Spasms could be observed from the origin to the insertion.  Transference was visible to eye in the surrounding muscles, trigger points and the lines of compensation almost jumped out in neon.   It became obvious that a horse tight in a right shoulder more than likely would exhibit tightness in the left hip. 

Compensation is something that we often visualize in our minds eye, and relate back to a diagram in an anatomical text book.  In humans, suppleness can often be overlooked, but in horses, there is an honesty and clarity that is spoken through the muscles.  It was clear through palpation that injury and tightness never stays isolated, nor does it only impact just the neighboring muscles.  It can in fact impact the entire muscular structure as well as one’s gait and performance from shifting weight, balance, walking, to engaging in athleticism. 

I learned during this session that muscles do have a language of their own.  Listening takes places in the tips of our fingers, through visible observation and seeing through our minds eye.  Muscles only speak the truth.  It takes some training to understand how they communicate, and a deeper understanding to know what they are saying.  Often, they exhibit a very, loud concise tone with horses, and humans often speak in whispers.  Trigger points can shout, fight and be angry; and sometimes, there is no more fighting and tissue just softens into a hush. 

As massage therapists, it is our goal to understand how muscles are trying to communicate to us.  Are they obvious?  Are trying show us the line of compensation in an elevated shoulder?  Each body has it own story to tell.  We just have to listen.