I'm Judith, and this is the Starline Equine Bodywork podcast. This is a podcast about all of the things that I've learned and continue to learn in my career with horses. For the better part of a decade, I've been a full time equine bodywork practitioner, educator, and author. My obsession how horses really work and how to get the most from our relationship with them in training and in sport. My passion helping horse owners and body workers and aspiring body workers get going.
Unpack the latest science, research and experiences behind what we do with horses to support their potential and optimize their performance. Have you ever palpated a horse's back and seen an odd muscle twitch? Well, these are muscle for circulations now. This is an involuntary localized twitch of the skeletal muscle fibers that are visible under the skin as small sort of rapid contract contractions. Excuse me.
They occur when there is a spontaneous depolarize ation of motor neurons or muscle fibers, and they often originate at the motor unit level. So a motor neuron and the muscle fibers that it innervates. So a motor unit in a muscle is like a tiny little team that helps move the muscle. It consists of a single motor neuron or a nerve cell and the muscle fibers it connects to and controls.
Now when the brain sends a signal through the motor neuron, it tells those muscle fibers to contract, creating movement or force. And depending on the job, whether it's, in a human example, if you're going to lift, let's say, a feather versus something heavy, like, a weight or a dumbbell, your body recruits a different number of these motor units with small ones for precision and big ones for those more powerful thrusts that are required. So it's pretty cool how the body works together.
Now, in horses specifically these situations that occur really often when we are palpating, I see it a lot in, the long Decimus dorsi in the back muscles of horses. What, they often signal. Is something going on? A hyper excitability in the neuromuscular system. And it can often be linked to stress, fatigue of the muscle or underlying chronic tension in the muscle tissue itself. So why do they happen when we are palpating has a lot to do with the sensory input and the reflex loops that result.
So when we palpate a horse, we're stimulating mechanical receptors. And I talk about that a lot. They are nerve receptors that are in the skin and in the muscle, and they send signals via afferent nerves to the spinal cord. Now, this can trigger this exaggerated reflex, as a response in these muscles that are already sort of in a heightened state of irritability or already hyper excited.
Now, the role of calcium ions in, muscle contractions is really important for simulations may actually be happening because there are disruptions in calcium regulation within the muscle cells. So this gives sort of an overload or a sensitivity, often due to overuse, dehydration, or electrolyte imbalances that are common in equine athletes. Specifically. Now, stress and pain can also activate that sympathetic nervous system and body workers. We are all too familiar with that response.
What happens then is we're getting an increase in muscle tone, and it predisposes these fibers to twitch when they are mechanically stimulated during our palpation exam. So one of the things I think is really important is to put it into context of what they mean specifically to the horses. They are a really good indicator. And I think we all need to take a lot of notes when we see them, because they're an indicator of the health of the horse's muscles.
So for those of you who are science minded, I think of these four circulations as a clue. They might be relevant to, let's say, localized muscle fatigue or compensatory, compensatory tension from injuries elsewhere in the body or the early sign of a neuromuscular disorder. So while they're rare, it is important to take note of them and discuss them with the client's veterinarian when we see them sort of chronically.
Now, I don't want you to be, you know, fearful when you see them because the circulations are not always pathological. So, you know, it's very common and very normal to see them post exercise, but with persistent and widespread twitching. This is sort of what would warrant a deeper investigation.
So whether it's nerve irritation, a myofascial restriction, a hydration issue or one of those, you know, an equine motor neuron disease, a neuromuscular disorder, those things, you know, do require, looking into a little bit better.
Now, like I said, it's important for people who are bodywork practitioners to really note where in the horse's body this occurs and correlate it with the horse's workload, their posture, their history, their health, history, and where they've had traumas in their life, actual physical blows and traumas. Because it can be the answer to what is going on. Like I said, I commonly see this in the low back of horses.
Often when you go in and mechanically stimulate in the lumbar, you can see physical lesions actually going up into the thoracic region of the horse, and it is an indication of muscle fatigue, strain and chronic tension. In a lot of those cases and not pathology. So, there is a science, I'm going to say to putting touch based inputs into horses and restoring muscle tone, and that science is, you know, the basis of bodywork. That's the basis of what we do.
So controlled palpation, massage, all of these things that activate mechanical receptors in the body, they can send inhibitory signals to the spinal cord. And this reduces that motor neuron excitability and calms those for circulations. I've talked a lot about the gait control theory of pain when, I've spoken about kinesiology taping. If you're a long time listener of the show, you'll know that, I'm a big believer in that gait control theory. But the idea is that very gentle touch.
So not necessarily a deep tissue approach, but a very gentle light touch body work. Can actually gait pain or these hyperactive signals in the nervous system, and help to normalize muscle responses over time. I am the type of bodywork that I specialize in. I am, doing a type of bodywork that is bone based. It is, fascia sensitive. I will call it. And, what's interesting is the role of myofascial release in these cases in particular.
Now, when you have sustained pressure, very light touch pressure, as you do in a bone move or in a lot of myofascial release when you have to create that, relative tissue motion between the layers, what can happen is your improving blood flow, reducing lactic acid buildup, all of those things we know, but it actually resets muscle spindle sensitivity and all of that will help, to restore that healthy tone for our practitioner listeners.
It's important to have consistent, intentional touch with the horses, and this can help to actually retrain the horse's nervous system, reducing that chronic tension pattern and hypersensitivity that leads to the Ans in the first place. So I'm going to encourage all of our practitioners to map their physical locations. The patterns that you see during the sessions where they occur, how they change with pressure, and what might indicate, underlying issues during your session.
Ans and be able to adjust your techniques. So varying pressure or speed when you are doing a palpation exam. To differentiate between what seems to be a superficial twitch, like at a cutaneous level, that sly response when a fly lands on them and they twitch or a deeper muscular response like a true, motor unit response in that muscle, that we're seeing underneath the skin. And I want you to be able to tailor your manual inputs, your interventions, accordingly.
Now, it's really important that we collaborate with veterinarians if physical actions are persistent, as they could be a signal of electrolyte imbalances, nerve damages, or, underlying conditions. One of the things being exertional. PSM so all of these things need to be looked at by a veterinarian. The body is so connected.
And what I really love is how, when you think about it, this single motor unit in a horse can actually innervate hundreds of muscle fibers and amplify small neural signals, into these visible circulations. And yet there is so much as body workers we can do. It's important just to know exactly what's happening on that physiological level, so that we can adjust our techniques accordingly.