Rehabbing- building muscle back- suggestions?

[demidq]

I have posted in Off Course about my mare with an unusual intestinal infection (Lawsonia) causing protein loss from the gut, and subsequent severe weight loss. It has been a long 6 weeks but she is finally on the mend. She is eating well now, grazing and free choice hay as well as small feeds of a good hi protein feed. Appetite is good , and we are going to have to watch that she doesn’t get fat- we want muscle!

Mare is really lean, no top line, and obviously has NO stamina so we have been doing hand walks and some (no side rein) lunging, 10-15 min sessions. I have been now given the green light to start riding, and I’d like some help devising an exercise programme!

Mare is 11, Arab /WB cross, previously very healthy and fit. We were doing mainly low level dressage (showed level 2 last year) and a bit of everything else. I am planning on hacking out for increasingly longer walks for the next 2 weeks, as well as some short sessions of lunging with side reins before restarting ring work. Trainer will lunge 2 x week and I can ride 4 days, so we can give her some consistent work.

The plan is slow and steady, I know it will take time, but I would really appreciate suggestions for working on her top line!
Saddle fit is a WHOLE other issue!

[Personal_Champ]

Not Lawsonia, but I’ve rehabbed a few horses that were on the brink of starvation (ate alfalfa at first, then a good higher protein feed) and personally I didn’t ride them until their toplines were stronger. I found it counter-productive to sit on them when their back was weak; I would create bad habits that I’d have to undo later.

I did a ton of trail walks, in hand hill work and long lining until their topline was semi-decent, then I would add in some lunging, progressing to side rein work. Once they could lunge comfortably at a trot for 15 minutes in side reins, I’d consider riding - LOTS of trail walking, long and slow to build fitness.

Of course, make sure your saddle fits since she’s drastically changed shape.

[ThreeFigs]

PC gave excellent advice! You say you don’t want your mare to get “fat”, and I understand that, but you will need a little “fat” to create muscle. i rehabbed my gelding, but the final touch to help fill out his hind end was more groceries as we increased the work. You cannot build muscle on a skinny horse. There’s nothing for the body to work with. Slow and steady wins the race. Best wishes with the rehab!

[Scribbler]

I also would want to see more back muscle before riding. I would do lots of inhand lateral work at the walk, shoulder in and then Travers halfpass pirouette turn on the haunches and backing up. You can do in a halter. Even if you don’t have all these moves confirmed at trot under saddle, you can do them in hand at the walk and they really help muscle and balance. They help strengthen the abs in particular which hold up the back.

I would be careful about too much work in circles until.she is fit. Longing can be hard on a horse. I think longing might be harder than a forward walk on trails under saddle. I see far more arens horses sidelined with injuries than I ever saw whoop and run trail horses as a kid.

[Pocket_Pony]

Ditto walking. I’d start with hand walking a little bit every day, maybe 15 minutes of purposeful walking for a week, see how she does. Gradually increase as indicated. I would not be lunging this horse for a little while yet until her stamina for a long walk is built up to 45 minutes or so. Then I’d lunge or long line at the walk and add a little bit of trotting and see how she does (no side reins). When she’s put on more weight and can handle longer work without getting winded, then I’d up EITHER the length of time she works OR the difficulty, but not both at once.

So, when you’re ready to trot, just trot on the lunge but no side reins and let her build up stamina. If/when you want to add side reins, but back off the time of working. Once she builds some muscle and topline, then get on and start riding. BUT that counts as increasing difficulty (because she now has to carry you and balance), so back off the length of ride and start with just walking for 15 minutes a few times so you can gauge her strength and stamina. When you’re ready to trot, start with just straight lines and if you have to circle, keep it big. Give her a break before she tells you she needs it, that way you’re fair to her and will keep her eager to work.

So things to keep in mind: increase distance or difficulty but not at the same time; lots of walking is good no matter what. I’ve always tried to remember the saying that walking builds bone, trotting builds muscle, cantering builds wind.

[atr]

I’m inclined to disagree a bit. While obviously you don’t want to ride an emaciated horse, I’ve found that once they are comfortable wearing a saddle, gentle weight bearing exercise (mooching around on the trails type of exercise) helps them quite a bit. (With a lighter rather than heavier rider.)

I’d rather do that than lunging at this point.

Saddle fit is important. As a quick and dirty for filling in the spaces until she’s got a bit more weight on her, try a piece of egg-create mattress (you can buy in Walmart.) It looks totally hillbilly but is a really good shock absorber and filler for light work.

I’ve had a couple of rescue horses that I’ve brought back from very skinny and totally lacking in muscle. It’s a process. I suspect that she will bounce back pretty fast if she has been in good shape in the recent past, however.

If you can do it, turnout on good grass is really an excellent thing too.

I’ve been following your story and I am so glad for you that she is doing well!

[GraceLikeRain]

Slightly OT but I really love Uckele’s Tri Amino. My understanding is that if their body does not need it they will excrete it in their urine. However, it made a massive difference in supporting muscle development on my mare many years ago when I was bringing her back from sudden weight loss. It alone won’t rehab fitness but I really like it as a resource to support muscle development.

Can you access trails or a pasture with rolling hills?

[Dressage_Strider]

I would agree to start riding as soon as you can. Hand walk as you get some meat on her bones, and then go straight into riding. Lots of walking with purpose and light lateral work, and then instead of 15 minutes of trotting, do walk 5 seconds, trot 5 seconds for just a couple of minutes. It is harder work, but at the same time assures you are using the correct muscles.

I wouldn’t lunge, especially with side reins, until you can ride with the back lifted.

[demidq]

Thank you all- we have been doing good, purposeful hand walks on the trails for the last 10 days, around 15 -20 minutes up and down hills, and she is enjoying this, ears up and even a bit snorty and prance-y! It’s good for me as well! The trails are around the hay fields, so we stop for a snack when she starts to get out of breath or less enthusiastic. We have a big round pen, trainer is using that the 2 days she works her, mainly good brisk walk, with some up and down transitions, again around 15 minutes.

I’ll do more in hand work for the next week or so, increase the length of walks as well as doing some lateral work and see how she feels. I had forgotten about long-lining, we haven’t done that for years!

Re diet- she has really good quality hay, tested 13% protein, as much as she’ll eat, and a small amount of concentrate, 14% protein plus beet pulp and a bit of flax. Pasture isn’t great, but she is out moving around for 8+ hours nibbling.Giving a larger amount of hi protein concentrate is hard on the kidneys as they pee out the extra nitrogen.

I am so thrilled to be able to plan now, I wasn’t sure we’d have a future, I am happy to make slow progress and just enjoy having her.

[CFFarm]

If you could pony her also…

[demidq]

Thanks everyone above. We did a bit of long lining today, she hasn’t forgotten tho I was a bit fumble fingered. Definitely using herself better than with lunging, we had fun- why haven’t I been using this all along?

[mvp]

@CFFarm

If you could pony her also…

Yup. That would be the thing I’d do next after our in-hand trail walks got too long for me to be interested.

It it were my horse and I were into building correct muscle (but wasn’t worried about ligaments, per se), I’d mix up the ring work done in a frame and ponying, preferably on hills and trails for longer sessions. I’m not a fan of lunging in side reins, so I’d ride those “in a frame” work outs. Maybe I’d use a Chambon if I wanted some device. But whatever you and your horse have been trained to do such that she’s encouraged to lift her rib cage in front and push from behind is A-OK. I think the ponying mixes things up mentally and physically; the physical variety is especially good for a horse who lost muscle all over.

[demidq]

Thanks all - ponying is not an option, unfortunately, so we are mixing it up with some long lining, work in hand (doing some lateral work as Scribbler suggested), good brisk walks up and down the gentle hills and trainer is doing 15 minutes of walk and trot in the round pen. She seems keen to be having a job again, just no stamina so we rest frequently and finish before she gets tired.
I’ll start riding out in the fields this week, 15 minutes of walking briskly and build from there.
She’s gaining weight really fast now her appetite is back, can’t see her ribs anymore- back to the hay net, cut out the third meal.

[NSC_Los_Angeles]

This subject has been an obsession for me for months, so I apologize for how long this is probably going to be. I have a massive 16.3HH tank of a 12yo TB dressage horse who crashed into a concrete seating area with me in a lesson, tiling his pelvis, requiring almost a year off on light feed to waste the topline muscles down, allowing the pelvis to slowly realign. It was touch and go, I thought he might need a retirement.

I’ve been riding him about five months and have been obsessed with building correct, aligned muscle evenly developed on both sides, which has been interesting as he’s had two serious traumas to the SI on the left side. I’ve got a maniacally specific workout plan that (knock on wood) has worked very well. The program requires a ton of ground work, and honestly it’s a bit of a hassle but worth the effort.

Every engagement with this horse starts and ends with the same exercises on the ground, whether I’m hand walking him or giving him a full hour workout. Five reps of the hoof pick under the belly to get him to tilt his pelvis and two reps each side of the same exercise on each butt cheek for the same purpose. The whole objective is to get the horse to move his pelvis under his body before we even leave the grooming block. Then I’ll take each hind leg and give it a gentle lift upward and toward the body, hold for 10, let down slowly, 1 rep both sides. Then I’ll put the palm of my hand on the inside of each butt cheek, encouraging him to lean into my hand and release the other hip, one rep each side. Lots of praise and cookies after each stretch helps, my horse initially hated the stretching routine but now he’s quite keen to do it.

I do regular walking/trotting/cantering over poles both ridden and on the ground. I don’t think it’s wise to do too much pole work in one session, but I use poles almost every session. Same with lateral work, both ridden and on the ground, asking the horse to flex the hocks and engage the back, shoulder in to haunches in and back on the long side has been great.

This is going to be controversial, but I have to give some credit to Will Faerber’s videos. I did a lot of walking with my horse, in fact the first four weeks was just non-stop walking, no trotting until week five or six. I bought an extra long rein and then jerry rigged a pony rein to make it even longer and started doing that crazy walking in a grazing position that Faerber recommends. You start with the deep longitudinal stretch of the nuchal ligament and then eventually the horse will give you a deep lateral, also with the head extremely low, and then eventually the rib cage follows. I don’t do this at trot at all, but I have to say it was helpful in the walk and I have to credit this technique with loosening my horse through the body. After the first two months my horse got much stronger and he was like, “yeah I’m over that now” and stopped seeking the deep, low head position as he got strong enough to carry himself in a loose fashion with a loose nuchal ligament. Avoid small circles if you can, we have an arena the size of Nebraska with great footing and it was a blessing to be able to do huge 35 meter circles and super long straights so the stretch was able to be sustained without any bracing or instability

Another thing that helped a lot is being able to work the horse for a short amount each time, but two times per day. So I might do a morning ride and then and then come back and do a 10 minutes of hand walking over poles or a walk up and down a hill, very short intervals, doing the entire end-to-end stretching routine both times.

Given that you have a nicely blooded part Arab horse, your mare may have some back or croup tension as so many sensitive horses do. Managing back tension has been a full time job with my horse, but I don’t think he can build muscle correctly unless that back is relaxed before the work, during the work, and he’s put away with a really relaxed back after each engagement. On chilly mornings, I give my horse some cookies and run my hands in circles gently over his back to stimulate blood flow, then I’ll just throw a heavy saddle pad over his back while I groom him and put his boots on so he stays warm, so the back is warm and loose before we begin the stretch routine.

In terms of feed, I feed the hell out of my blooded horses, they seem to just need a ton of calories. We’re on three flakes of alfalfa, two bermuda, a fat scoop of TDI 16, one serving of Platinum CJ, a little Integrity rice bran for fats.

This routine has taken my horse from pathetic dud to total stud in a very short time. A lady last year asked me if he was a rescue case because he looked like shit, had no muscle tone. Now people stop me to ask what I’m feeding and how I’m conditioning, mares mistake him for a stallion. A woman I’ve known for years saw me riding him and said, “Oh good for you, you got a new horse finally!”

Good luck to you guys! I’m sure your mare will turn into a gorgeous beef castle in no time!

[demidq]

Thank you so much, NSC Los Angeles- really helpful ideas! I don’t have the horse at home, but one way or another she is getting worked 6 days/week, and is feeling GRRRREAT! in terms of energy. I love your ground work/hoofpick exercises- will definitely incorporate them into our routine. The pole work is also a great idea, just a few minutes each time sounds very do-able.