I am Nina, a chartered human and veterinary physiotherapist, covering the South West of England and South Wales and welcome to my blog. I am very excited to have this opportunity and am looking forward to sharing interesting case studies, research and the latest from my profession.
A little about me…
I grew up in rural Wales, near to Abergavenny and have been lucky to have always had horses. Currently, I live in Bristol and keep my cheeky, 14.2hh pony “Gem” at a private yard nearby. We have had Gem since I was 11-years-old. He’s an old boy now but you’d never know it. He frequently likes to remind me of this by jogging down the lane like a four-year-old and is certainly not ready for retirement yet! So my plan for the next twelve months is to have some fun with him plus look into buying another horse to bring on and event (well, following some impromptu saving that is…).
I am very excited to say that as this goes out to the H&H website, I will be on my honeymoon having just got married! I am less excited to say that weddings don’t seem to come cheap and so new horse plans have been very much delayed.
Back to physio. I have been lucky enough to merge my passion for all things equestrian with my work and now specialise in physiotherapy for the horse and rider. This might include reducing pain and improving comfort, postural and biomechanical assessment, working on attaining individual goals and improving performance.
For the rider, it can be all too common to fall into a habitual way of riding and to focus on the horse without really thinking about the way in which we as riders affect the horse. The beauty of it is, we are adaptable creatures and we can change this.
Improving our own posture and positioning not only makes us perform better but can improve the horse’s comfort and way of going too. Physiotherapists have strong groundings in anatomy and biomechanics that gives us fantastic insight into ways in which the rider can improve their own posture and biomechanics, on and indeed off of the horse.
Physiotherapy for horses is not only around improving comfort and reducing pain but also around improving their posture and core stability in order to reduce risk of injury and indeed to improve performance. This can be of benefit to all horses from those used primarily for hacking to the competition horse working towards a certain dressage movement, or in improving speed in the racehorse for example.
I am hugely passionate about my work and through the course of my blog, I will bring lots of interesting physiotherapy discussion around the horse and rider as well as some ‘take home’ exercises for you to try. I am sure that Gem will also feature along the way too. I hope that you find my blog interesting and I welcome any questions.
I look forward to presenting my first topic. See you after my honeymoon!.
Nina
