By Tuulia Luomala, PT and Paul Thornley, ANMT
In July 2024, Veterinary Compendium published a blog and hosted an online Community Gathering about the risks involved when we put our horses into an exercise program before having a qualified practitioner collect their history and perform a full-body assessment, including body condition score, muscle tone and development, flexibility and range of motion, and cardiovascular fitness. The blog described the potential dangers of skipping those important steps:
- Assignment of inappropriate exercises with respect to the horse’s condition
- Aggravation of undiagnosed or subclinical issues
- Misalignment with the horse’s needs and goals
- No benchmark for progress monitoring
Why shouldn’t the physical fitness of equestrians and animal practitioners deserve the same thoughtful attention?
But first, let’s look at how human ‘physical fitness’ is defined.
Human ‘physical fitness’
Before the Industrial Revolution, fitness was defined as the capacity to carry out the day’s activities without undue fatigue or lethargy. But with automation and changes in lifestyles, physical fitness is now considered a measure of the body’s ability to function efficiently and effectively in work and leisure activities, to be healthy, to resist hypokinetic diseases, to improve immune system function, and to meet emergency situations. Physical fitness is a state of health and well-being and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of sports, occupations, and daily activities. It is generally achieved through proper nutrition, moderate-to-vigorous physical exercise, and sufficient rest along with a formal recovery plan. (Wikipedia)
One AI-generated definition lists five components – cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength, muscular endurance, flexibility, and body composition – and concludes that a well-rounded fitness program should address all five areas to improve overall health and physical ability. Another definition lists six components: balance, co-ordination, agility, speed, power, and reaction time.
We will be offering a different perspective.
Why care about personal fitness?
Both equestrians and animal practitioners are athletes. And many equine practitioners are also equestrians.
We all know how physically challenging and potentially dangerous our work is – we often accumulate injuries while riding or working with our equine clients.
Why should we care about our personal fitness? Because we – especially those of us who work with horses – need to be sufficiently strong and agile to accomplish our work with these powerful, unpredictable animals, while avoiding injuries that lead to painful and needless setbacks: missed income, client relationships put on hold, long-term consequences of our injuries. Most of all, we want to be able to enjoy a long career doing what we love.
Unfortunately, some – riders and practitioners alike – do not give their own body the attention it needs and deserves.
The problem with traditional exercise approaches
Because we need to stay fit, most of us work out regularly at a gym – sometimes with a private trainer – or do group classes such as Zumba, Pilates, yoga, or simply exercises that we have been taught and do at home, including stretching.
So where’s the problem?
Fascia, tensegrity, and contemporary movement specialists Paul Thornley and Tuulia Luomala claim that traditional approaches to exercise are outdated, counter-productive, and can be harmful. Thornley often states that these approaches are “wrecking people’s lives”.
Why is that?
- Before embarking on an exercise program at the gym, or before starting a Pilates or yoga class, clients are not asked for their medical history and are not subjected to a full-body assessment to reveal any physical limitations, including conformation issues… which means that some clients may end up doing exercises that are contraindicated in their case. After years of this misguided movement, things can catch up with them and they end up dealing with long-term pain and dysfunction.
- Gyms rely a great deal on machines that force our bodies to move in a repetitive and linear fashion. Our bodies are not made for this kind of exercise.
- Many of us still think there’s no gain without pain.
- Most of us still think stretching is a good idea.
According to Thornley, “Biomechanics is an outdated, 400-year-old concept. Contrary to common belief, humans are not biomechanical beings. There is nothing linear about the body. No levers. Fascia has no biomechanical properties. Every living organism is asymmetrical, round, and unique.”
Luomala agrees, but thinks that we can embrace the latest findings about fascia and tensegrity without totally disregarding the precepts of biomechanics. “While it’s important for fascia-focused practitioners and others in the scientific world to agree on new, more accurate language – words matter –, we can still evolve without throwing out earlier concepts and language.”
That being said, Thornley and Luomala agree that the majority of actors in the current health and fitness industry have not caught up with this new knowledge. The industry is, overall, very conformist, pushing clients through standard linear exercise routines and focussing on attaining symmetry. Working out on gym equipment (linear concept) and doing exercises involving too many repetitive movements are not only counter-productive efforts but often lead to long-term damage.
The typical fitness trainer does not do a history and medical intake or a full-body assessment with their clients, other than perhaps asking a few questions. Nor do they typically develop a customized exercise program for the individual, taking into account physical limitations and lifestyle goals.
This can be a problem. A client came to Thornley two years after a debilitating injury suffered during a private Pilates session on a transformer machine. The injury caused pain and dysfunction, the client had trouble walking, things escalated to involve the whole body, and the situation took two years to resolve. After much investigation by the client, and with Thornley’s helpful insights, they were able to figure out that the particular exercises the client had been asked to, as well as other exercises performed in gyms over the years, are contraindicated in her case due to her personal medical history and conformation.
Thornley strongly recommends “avoiding any modality and any trainer who doesn’t do a patient intake and assessment and whose work focusses on seeking symmetry and linearity”.
Also, because we, as riders, understand that our poor riding habits, asymmetries, and past injuries force the horse to compensate in order to accommodate our deficiencies, often causing the horse pain and dysfunction, many of us regularly visit different manual therapists to address our imbalances and insults to our bodies.
Most of us assume that these manual therapists, and our fitness trainers, have kept up with their continuing education – that they have updated their knowledge and training to include the latest findings about fascia, tensegrity, and contemporary approaches to healthy movement. Most of us tend to not ask questions – we trust.
The problem with stretching
Most riders and equine practitioners stretch their horse’s limbs. And they stretch their own limbs, backs, necks. Many of us are still firm believers in the merits of stretching. But what if stretching is not such a good idea?
Clinical anatomist, fascia expert, and exercise physiologist John Sharkey – one of Thornley’s mentors – laments that multiple definitions of the term ‘stretching’ cause confusion. (We remind readers that pandiculation is not stretching – pandiculation is a natural, spontaneous, healthy reflex.) In his latest book, Sharkey says he is a ‘critical friend’ of stretching, as long as by stretching we mean “taking tissues through their normal anatomical range of motion”.
According to Sharkey (and Thornley), living tissue is not designed to stretch. Sharkey views statically held stretches (performed by any but well-trained therapists) as “inappropriate in most cases, and harmful and out of tune with the reality of our soft-matter, fluidic, electromagnetically vibrant matrix”. If not carefully performed, says Sharkey, stretching has the potential to induce architectural damage and compromise the structural integrity of connective tissue. Subjecting muscles to prolonged static stretches may contribute to elevated muscle tension, diminished neuromuscular efficacy, and a decline in relative strength.
Using the example of human hamstring stiffness, Sharkey proposes that rather than ‘stretching’ those muscles, one should address the interconnected fascial components by, for instance, releasing tension in the plantar fascia of the feet or tensor latae and cervical fascia. And he stresses the importance of warmups, cooldowns, and gradual, controlled increases in range of motion.
Consult YouTube podcasts for more Sharkey explanations about stretching.
Thornley explains it here: The Stretching Myth: Why Living Tissue Was Never Designed to Stretch with Paul Thornley
The paradigm shift in the health & fitness industry
A paradigm shift began in the health & fitness world just under 20 years ago. But many in the industry – including clients – have not yet caught on.
Here are four key elements of this new paradigm:
1. An up-to-date research-based understanding of fascia and living tensegrity – fasciategrity in motion
Over the past two decades, fascia and tensegrity experts from different fields have joined forces to conduct multiple human fascia-based dissections and publish research papers, books and articles. They have participated in ground-breaking discussions and debates at conferences and have advanced their knowledge through their fascia-based manual therapy work. They recommend revisiting the way we view anatomy and the 400-year-old concept of biomechanics. Many of these experts publish fascinating content on their Facebook pages.
Thornley and Luomala are part of this movement.
Thornley thinks “it’s time that we recognize that we have been using terms and an explanation of convenience for hundreds of years. Biomechanics, for example, is a dead term, period – it is not even useful any more as an introduction, as the map doesn’t match the territory”.
Thornley also proposes to rename ‘biotensegrity’, a term branded by Dr. Stephen Levin and colleagues. He recommends that we “be brave and remove the prefix ‘bio’ from this term since it drags every concept that uses it into a swamp of confusion and unnecessary debate”. In his opinion, the term ‘living tensegrity’ better describes the invisible forces that allow us to manage and influence our ability to thrive. Fascia is the architectural fabric of all living entities, and fascia – in all its textures, variations and characteristics – brings living tensegral forces to life from the emergent properties they stimulate.
“Quite simply,” says Thornley, “we are fasciategrity in motion.” Luomala agrees.
2. Interoception and body awareness – fascia as a self-sensing network
Tuulia Luomala is fascinated by interoception, and fascia as a self-sensing network.
Interoception is the ability to perceive the internal state of the body. Previously considered to be a purely neural process related to visceral sensations such as heartbeat, hunger, or respiration, interoception is now recognized as a multidimensional phenomenon linking physiological regulation, emotional state, and self-awareness.
Interoception underlies much of what we interpret as body awareness, balance, and adaptation to movement. It plays a vital role in regulating stress, recovering from injury, and responding to communication and interplay. Both riders and equine practitioners rely on their own interoceptive sensitivity to perceive subtle shifts in muscular tone, breathing, and connection, both within themselves and in the animals with whom they work.
While models of interoception focus on neural pathways, a complementary view emerges from tensegrity and fascial research which says that interoception is not limited to sensory neurons but arises from the mechanical self-awareness of a continuous tension network, the fascial system, which links every cell and structure in the organism.
To learn more, read Loumala’s referenced article at: https://vetcompendium.org/rider-fitness-the-dynamic-integration-of-balance-sensitivity-and-adaptability-blog/
3. Exercise for the life we live
Exercise programs should be customized to the individual and aligned for the everyday life that they live. For example, equine bodyworkers and farriers need to have strong backs and arms, and be agile and have good balance. An individual with a sedentary job needs exercise that gets them moving and keeps their bones strong and joints mobile. Certain exercises – such as bodybuilding – have questionable value for the majority of people.
4. The value of micro-movement
Several popular modalities embrace micro-movement, including the well-known Feldenkrais and Hanna Somatics.
Once we understand fascia and the tensegrity of the body, says Thornley, we can stop being a victim of movement based on linearity and can start embracing the natural spiraling architecture of the body. We are each an animation of compression and tension forces through our myofascial tissues. Understanding how our bodies evolved from the embryonic state (consult work by Jaap van der Wal) helps us understand the value of micro-movement.
Thornley and Luomala both practice and teach micro-movement.
Paul Thornley and Joanne Avison have developed and teach a method based on principles they call the ‘5 Rs’:
- Rebound – when we spring off the ground print and leave the ground
- Recoil – when we stay within the ground print to build momentum
- Release – when we fold and unfold with appropriate constraint and ease
- Restore – when we replenish free energy storage capacity (elasticity)
- Refine – when we finesse the potential to store and use free energy
Tuulia Luomala and Mika Pihlman have developed and teach a fascia-based method for equestrians that is based on the following principles:
- Stability
- Adaptability
- Variability
- Harmony
- Sensibility
- Dynamic body
To learn more about these principles, consult Luomala’s and Thornley’s profiles: https://vetcompendium.org/courses/rider-fitness-practitioner-fitness-a-new-paradigm-for-exercise/
In closing…
It is essential that we give attention to our personal fitness so that we can remain strong and agile enough to ride horses safely and comfortably – for our sake and that of our horses – and to be able to do the work we love to do as animal practitioners, for as long as we can.
Before embarking on an exercise program – whether at the gym, in a Pilates, yoga or other exercise class, or at home, make sure to understand your physical limitations including those caused by your conformation, medical history, or past injuries.
Make sure that you choose fitness trainers, class instructors, and manual therapists who understand the importance of doing patient intakes and assessments. And who are up to date on the latest findings about fascia, tensegrity, and contemporary movement approaches – don’t blindly trust, ask questions.
And make sure that your own knowledge is current – this will help you direct your fitness training and therapies, and your body will thank you.