Week 5: Performing Assessment and Massage!
Emily H -
Welcome back to my blog!
This week I was finally able to get back into the field! To say I was excited would be an understatement, continuous study can get a bit repetitive. Even so, I do have to study every week. This week Melinda Harllee, my advisor, tasked me with studying muscle placements and OIAs along with my field work.
For muscle placements I continued to use my Horse Anatomy book to study. Along with studying from the book and diagrams, I’ve started to create flashcards to test my knowledge and advance my memorization. The purpose of this study is to not only learn about the anatomy of a horse, but to learn where muscles sit on the horse I’m massaging. Many muscles are layered over each other and intertwined, making it important for me to know which muscles I am massaging and releasing in order to have the intended result. This week I have also been studying OIAs. OIA stands for: origin, insertion, and action. OIAs concern the interaction between bones and muscles. Origin describes the attachment of a muscle on the more stable bone. Insertion describes the attachment of a muscle on the more mobile bone. And lastly action describes what happens when the more mobile bone is brought towards the more stable bone during muscle movement.
For my fieldwork this week, I shadowed Melinda on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, Melinda and I worked on her horses together. We worked on Rolondo, a young gelding in training, and Anna, Melinda’s star barrel racer. Melinda allowed me to perform the assessment and massage portion of treatment on Rolondo myself, while checking my work as we went along of course. This experience allowed me to practice my technique and assessment skills. The main points of focus were his sternum and limited left hind movement. Melinda adjusted his sternum and I was able to release some tension in his hind and neck. For Anna, I used a red light all over her body and Melinda massaged and adjusted. Since Melinda needed to make sure Anna was ready for a barrel race this weekend. I found it very interesting to see the differences in Melinda’s sport horses in comparison to other clients’ horses. I found this difference in their muscle composition to be very interesting as different disciplines utilize specific muscles more than others. For example, barrel horses typically have an extremely well-muscled hind that they utilize around the sharp barrel turns. On Wednesday I got to see Drifter! I’m happy to report that he is doing well and is making a slow recovery. It’s important for Melinda to do the majority of the work on Drifter as he is one of Melinda’s regulars. So I assisted her by red lighting his entire body.
Thank you for joining me this week as I got back into the field! Next week I’m hoping to have some new interesting information on anatomy or massage techniques. I’ve been looking into some online courses that Melinda has suggested for me that way I can have a more regulated learning schedule and clear end goal in the anatomy study. See you next week!