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Equine kinesiology, or the study of horses' muscular movement, reveals surprising similarities between horse and human muscle action as well as similar problems with muscular tension. Get a fascinating introduction to the subject in this video on equine kinesiology.
My name is Jennifer Oliver, and I'm an equine massage therapist. And the question is, what is kinesiology? Kinesiology is the study of muscles and how they move. I had a lot of fun with this major in college because I'm very interested in athletics, human, and in equine, and how muscles work together and how different sports make different muscles tense. Human muscles and equine muscles are actually very, very similar. Their uses are very similar. The only difference in, a lot of times, is the size of the muscles can vary. Obviously, the mechanics of their pectoral muscles works much differently then the mechanics of our pectoral muscles for instance, since we walk upright and animals you know walk on their four feet. So, when you know when they are extending or when they are, you know, trotting, you are going to really see those pectoral muscles get a lot more work than what humans are used to. Things like that, you know, you are going to see a lot of different spread and a majority of the muscles you are going to see a lot of the same mechanisms, the same you know tenseness in certain like the way people get tense. For instance, you know, people have a tendency to store a lot of tension in their rhomboids and traps, as do horses when they get tense. So it's very, very similar and a very interesting to have knowledge in both backgrounds and be able to kind of bring them together and really the comparisons.
