Fig. 3. Examples of various core strengthening exercises. A, A lateral tail pull combined with lateral bending to the right. B, A lumbosacral tuck. C, Ventral cervical flexion.
flat surface; the difficulty can be increased by back- ing up an incline as the horse gets stronger. Another method to address core strength and bal-
ance are balance pads adapted from human physical therapy. While there are equine specific products, many human products work equally well. The horse is asked to stand on a dense foam block with both front, both hind, or all four limbs (Fig. 5). Firmer pads are more stable and thus less challeng-
ing than soft pads, yet many horses will have diffi- culty maintaining their center of balance on firm pads. Even 5 minutes a day on balance pads can result in noticeable improvement in core balance in
Fig. 4. Example of an elastic resistance band placed around the hindquarters. These systems can be used for a variety of rea- sons but in this case was prescribed to help increase core strength and encourage more hind-limb engagement.
Fig. 5. A horse standing on balance pads in order to increase core balance and stability. Here the horse stands on firmer (green) pads in front and softer (blue) pads behind to increase the level of difficulty of the exercise.
