Looking For An Anatomical Cheatsheet? Here's Yours!
The ultimate cheat sheet I wish I had—plus surprising horse stats that will blow your mind!
Here is an interesting paradox to ponder:
Equine BodyWork is about so much more than the body.
AND it also has EVERYTHING to do with the body.
If you’ve been in my world for long, you know I am always talking about principles beyond techniques and methods.
It’s keeps things interesting… right?!
The Classics: mindfulness, intention, breathwork, developing feel, and relational attunement.
That’s because often these less ‘tangible’ principles are the foundation for the 3 pillars of equine communication (Energy-Intention-Body Language).
Why does this matter?
Equine communication is the key to success with horses, any situation, every level.
But for this article, we are going to do things a little different and focus less on the intangible essential principles and talk about the horse's body, how it works and how amazing it is!
Let’s go on a little adventure and explore the marvels of the equine body!
Before we go, let’s tip our hats to holism, aka the integration of the mind, body, & soul—compounded between you, and the horses you get to partner with.
I LOVE talking about the body.
I have studied anatomy, biomechanics, and kinesiology my whole life, because I think it’s incredibly interesting.
My passion for the body started with human athletes (I would be working for the NBA in an alternate universe), then massage therapy licensing and professional bodywork in 2001 (which dates me a bit, doesn’t it?)….
Then I got my degree in Exercise Science & Kinesiology, worked in biomechanics and exercise physiology labs, now I’m working on my doctorate-neuroanatomy and the likes.
I’m obsessed.
The body is a miraculous thing to study!
That was all before I met Victoria and started learning about the equine body.
I was astonished at the carry over from human body science to equine body science!
Not only is everything basically made out of the same stuff, and works in essentially the same way, after all, physics, biology, biomechanics, chemistry, and biomechanics are universal—the thing that stood out to me about equines is they are essentially super athletes, scientifically speaking.
All the things I was learning, studying, and practicing professionally with humans was directly applicable to horses!
The big difference between us and horses is how our brains process information, a few key sensory perception differences, including the neat fact that horses have exponentially more sensory and athletic potential than humans across all domains.
Super impressive right? I’m going to outline some way more interesting physiological facts later on that explain exactly why horses have such impressive athletic potential, and compare top level equine athletes with top level human athletes for comparison.
But first, I promised you an anatomical cheat sheet, so let’s get to that.
I have put plenty of time into serious anatomy study, probably more than most. I just completed a doctoral level Applied Anatomy and Kinesiology and Applied Neuroanatomy class (I still need spell check for kinesiology, lol). To get my degrees I had memorize hundreds of names of bones and muscles, where each muscle attaches to bones, and even exact motions those muscles create across joints.
Lot’s of flashcards, lots of studying, and lots of test anxiety.
In spite of this, I have ALWAYS struggled with remembering the names of the main landmarks of the horses legs.
I STILL struggle to this day.
I don’t want you to struggle like me, so I’m going to do you a solid.
Below is a surprisingly simple but powerful cheat sheet.
If I could have this cheat sheet tattooed to my forearm, it would be SO helpful. I’ve gone 46 years without a tattoo, maybe it's time?
I like to relate horse body parts to human body parts, it helps me make sense of it all.
Maybe it can help you too? This little chart is awesome in that case.
The first word is the horse body part, and the word after the = sign, is the equivalent on our human bodies, here goes:
REAR LEGS OF HORSE:
Horse = Human
Hock = ankle
Stifle = knee
FRONT LEGS OF HORSE:
Horse = Human
Knee/Carpus = wrist
Elbow = elbow
What really throws me off is the horse knee, anyone else?
Why not call it the front hock, anterior hock, arm hock, even ‘wrist’ would make sense, basically anything besides the knee makes more sense.
We call the horse elbow an elbow after all, who decides these things??
Here is another reason this is so confusing.
In my work as a professional bodyworker, we look at things from TWO perspectives:
Form
Function
Form means location and structural design basically.
The horse knee is designed much more like a human wrist than knee, with several bones in two rows…(carpals anyone??)
Function means ‘what the structure does’, or how it moves.
The horse knee functions like a human wrist, only humans are not optimized for weight bearing and locomotion (we only walk on our legs after all).
The equine knee does has no circumduction or rotation like the human wrist either.
Carpus is a great term for the knee, and more anatomically correct.
Let’s address the elephant in the room, the equine carpus LOOKS a lot like a human knee at first glance.
Is that why the term is used more often?
What are your thoughts on this? Am I the only one who thinks this way?? Please tell me I’m not alone.
Comments are welcomed (plus this is a new substack so I’ll definitely see it cause you may be the first one?!).
If you haven’t studied human anatomy maybe this isn’t so confusing, either way, moving on now.
I hope that chart is helpful for you!
Fascinating, Awe Inspiring Horse Facts:
Let’s continue to see how horses are similar and different then us, both as a learning tool to not only understand them better, but to fully appreciate their physical potential.
Because our primary aim is Equine Attunement, I want to offer this reminder that you can get really GOOD at bodywork by knowing the body, but you can get GREAT by also knowing the language and culture of horses.
Practically speaking, this means having a working holistic knowledge of a few key things:
Anatomy
Biomechanics
BodyWork Techniques
Mindfulness
Groundwork
You don’t have to know everything there is to know about these, but if you just absorb a few critical things from each and integrate them, you will be able to help horses in ways that are life changing not only for horses, but for yourself as well.
Our programs are dedicated to putting these elements together in practical ways, for example:
Imagine knowing exactly when, how, and where to integrate groundwork and bodywork?
Look, I am biased, but there is a lot of evidence that this might be the most important skill you can learn to help horses.
Back to the equine body.
Horses basically have the same skeleton that WE do.
In fact, it’s virtually a bone for bone likeness.
Same story with the muscles. Mostly similar names and they basically do a lot of the same things. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that fact.
Our heart and lungs are built the same, and situated in a similar way, and basically work the same way.
Areas we are a weaker (sensory prowess, speed, strength, non judgemental awareness…) horses are stronger, areas they are weaker (designing complex machinery….that’s about it) we are stronger.
Our bodies are congruent, our brains are congruent, they thrive on our strengths and we thrive with theirs.
It’s really fascinating, horses and humans, we are such a natural partnership.
We bolster their weaknesses, as they bolster ours. We really are a good pair!
Of course there are also major differences, we have evolved differently and horses use four legs instead of two for locomotion, here are the big differences.
Horses have vastly different skulls, bigger, eyes on the side, and huge nasal passages.
They have 6 more ribs and thoracic vertebrae, and extra lumbar vertebrae, and the tailes bones have 14-19 more than ours (yes, we technically have tails anatomically, it is called the coccygeal bones aka tailbone!).
The biomechanics of the spine are different too, considering the uprightness of our compared to the relative horizontal form of a horses spine.
Horses have a bigger relative chest cavity, leading to superior endurance and speed potential. More on that soon.
There are more anatomy differences, but lets pivot to biomechanics and gravity for a moment:
Gravity works differently through our bodies because we are ‘bipedal’ (walk on two legs) and horses are quadrupedal (4-legged).
It’s easy to think of gravity as pushing down on us, or more accurately sucking us toward the middle of the earth. (Gravity SUCKS!) This is only half the picture however.
As we contact the earth, either through gravity or motion, (walking, running, dancing, jump roping - you get the idea) the ground produces forces that goes BACK UP through our body. This is called ‘ground reaction forces’ in biomechanics.
A really interesting way of talking about this is to examine how ground reaction forces move through a horse, and how those balance against the forces of gravity.
In equitation, we like to work towards a feeling of ‘lightness’. Lightness is also healthy for the horse, less force through the joints equals less pain.
If you look at the picture, you can imagine how when a horse is balanced, and a rider are balanced, there can be a point of ‘weightlessness’, where the forces of gravity balance with the ground reaction forces, creating a literal point of weightless just above the horses center of gravity, where the rider sits!
Isn’t it amazing how ancient classical equitation principles, like ‘lightness’, can be scientifically explained through the balance of gravity and ground reaction forces?
THIS is why biomechanics is so dynamic and interesting!
Biomechanics informs so much of our more sophisticated bodywork, groundwork, and equitation principles.
These are the concepts that will inform your physical assessment too, so don’t sleep on it.
Back to anatomical differences now.
Horses actually walk around on the equivalent of our middle fingers. The horse is walking around on a downward pointing ‘bird finger’!
Another, perhaps more mature way to think about it is they are constantly doing 1 finger pushups. (so mature of me!)
They don’t have a clavicle like we do.
The clavicle helps our shoulders have a ridiculous range of motion, horses arms and shoulders are are built for stability, rather than mobility in this way.
The other difference is SIZE.
For example, a horse's heart weighs 8-10 lb’s, while ours is less than one pound. The horse heart pumps 10,000-14,000 gallons of blood a day!
For reference sake, when where living off grid with our herd of school horses, we had a 1 thousand gallon water tank that supplied our family of 5, plus 4 dogs, plus 5 full size horses, plus one mini donkey, with enough water for several days.
Imagine 14 of those 1000 gallon tanks, and imagine the massive amount of energy it would take to pump 14,000 gallons of fluid every 24 hours!
No wonder horses eat so much hay!
Speaking of hearts, you might have heard of the amazing research from the Heart Math Institute.
Magnetometers are used to measure a human heart energy field and show it is radiating 7-10 feet around us. By contrast, a horse radiates an astonishing 40-50 feet in all directions!
Even more incredible is that the strength of the electromagnetic field of horses is stronger than our own, and can influence ours as well. Here’s how.
Resonance: When two electromagnetic fields interact, they can influence each other through a process known as resonance. The stronger field (the horse's heart) can induce changes in the weaker field (the human heart).
Entrainment: Entrainment occurs when the rhythm of one system synchronizes with the rhythm of another. The coherent and stable field of a calm and relaxed horse can help entrain the human heart’s electromagnetic field, leading to increased coherence in the human heart rhythm.
See why we are so obsessed with relational equine attunement?
It is at the core of everything.
Resonance and Entrainment occur through three mechanisms of influence:
Heart Rate Variability
Emotional Synchrony
Physiological Coherence
This is just one aspect, and some really interesting science, that explains why horses are so healing for humans, and so conducive to mindfulness practice.
This begins to explain why performing equine bodywork is so particularly awesome!
Those of you that have worked with me for long, know I like refer to the heart coherence phenomenon as the Horsefield (kind of like ‘forcefield’, but equine specific).
It also blends will with my frequent reference to Jedi warrior yielding the ‘force’.
Jedi training references to wielding the Force are particularly accurate when doing Equine BodyWork.
The force is strong with Cailin, for example! This photo is an actual clinic photo from several years ago where I was teaching some equine bodywork moves. This move is called the Spinal Tension Release Timer with Spock fingers. (yes I toggle between Star Wars and Star Trek…)
I love this photo because it captures Cailin channeling the FORCE here. Just after this photo was taken, the horse had a huge release of tension, stretched her back, and an upper lumbar joint audibly popped into place!
Back to our anatomy and physiology adventure:
Another fun differentiator between humans and horses is the sheer athletic prowess of the horse compared to humans.
We have established they have giant hearts which influence human physiology, but now let's explore how that translates to performance.
In short, horses are power AND endurance machines.
For the exercise science nerds among us (anyone??) V02 max averages (V02 measurement shows how efficient the body is in creating energy for activity) at an astonishing 144-173 ml/kg/min while ours is a humble 27-40 ml/kg/min.
This means horses are over 5 times more efficient than humans, on average.
Part of the reason is that horses have 50 times more alveoli in the lungs than humans! (alveoli are the little microscopic bags that transfer oxygen and carbon dioxide into and out of the lungs).
Speaking of lungs, the capacity of a horse's lungs is staggering. Their capacity is a whopping 55-liter compared to our measly 5-liters!
However, human lungs can uptake 6-8 times more oxygen during maximum exertion compared to, say, chilling on the couch. Pretty impressive right?!
Not so much, says the horse. The average horse can uptake 40 times more oxygen during maximal exertion versus rest!
To summarize, that means they can uptake nearly 7 times as much oxygen that gets processed through 50 times as many alveoli resulting in a 5X increase in energy production.
My mind if fully blown at how physically capable horses actually are.
But we aren’t done!
Anyone remember Ussain Bolt's amazing world record sprint. It was amazing. Go check it out on YouTube, it really is an astonishing display of strength and speed.
However, for comparison, a world class endurance race horse can MATCH Bolt’s top speed (his race was under 10 seconds), for over 7 hours!
But maybe that’s not a great comparison considering it is a human sprinter versus an endurance race horse.
Secretariat is a timeless example of a great equine sprinter. His 1973 world record STILL STANDS.
Secretariats peak galloping speed was nearly DOUBLE Bolt’s 100 yard dash.
Even more impressive is is Secretariat held that speed for 1.5 miles.
If that was measured on a standard human 400 meter track, Secretariat ran nearly twice as fast as Bolt for just over 6 laps, while Bolt was at half the speed of secretariat for just one quarter of a single lap, for perspective.
The physical potential in horses is truly amazing!
Guess what is even more AMAZING:
They don’t have to let us work with them, pet them, hang out with them, do equine therapy with them, or ride them, but they DO!
That’s it for this Newsletter, I hope you enjoyed it!
PS—When You're Ready...
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