4DimensionDressage international

27/10/2023

🥳Finally it's here: the training insight checklist, to evaluate how your training is impacting your horse's body!

For the Dutchies it has been available for some time already, but I'm happy to announce it's now available in English as well.

📄In this checklist you’ll discover ten key checks to assess your horse’s physical well-being. You’ll learn exactly how to interpret the body posture of your horse and in what way it’s being influenced by your training. It has text, illustrative photos and instructive videos to help you with this.

After completing the checklist you’ll know if your training is truly beneficial for your horse. And if improvements are needed, you’ll have gained insights on where to focus your efforts.

😄The best thing is: it's FREE! I hope to help as many riders and horses as possible by providing this checklist. So don't hesitate to share this post with other horse owners.

👉 Get your free copy of the checklist here: https://horseinmind.eu/checklist-optimal-training/

Please let me know what you think! :)

08/09/2023

❤️Want to learn how to train your horse in a biomechanically healthy and sustainable way? You're in the right place! The course start Monday, including live Q&A's 🤩

💻 The online course 'Prevent Injuries Through Sustainable Horse Training' is created by Karin Leibbrandt and Tessa Roos to help horse owners become the best trainer for their horse. It offers specific steps towards a healthy forward, down and out posture, with great explanations in text, photos and videos.

👀Develop your observational skills and senses and improve your training techniques. It helps you prevent overload and injuries, by using the most recent insights in biomechanics and sustainable horse training. Our goal is to help you understand how different factors, like balance, energy or the rider, influence your horse's movement, so you know what to do, when to do it and why it's the right aid/exercise to get what you want.

👤Karin is a veterinarian, an experienced rehabilitation trainer, instructor, myofascial release therapist, author and international speaker. 👤Tessa is an experienced riding instructor, Feldenkrais Practitioner, biologist and she's specialised in horse and rider biomechanics. Together they will be your instructors in this course!

This is what out'll get out of the course:

✅ You learn how to recognise (dis)balance
✅ Find out what factors play important roles in minimising risk of injury
✅ Learn how to lunge and ride your horse in vertical and horizontal balance (no side-reins!)
✅ Learn to train towards a correct FDO and activation of the thoracic sling
✅ Become a better rider with an independent seat
✅ How to ‘read’ your horse to know if you’re doing well.. and more

❓The most asked question is: 'will there be the opportunity to ask Karin and Tessa my questions?' Absolutely. As a bonus🎁 there will be THREE live Q&A's, so you can send in your questions or training video for personalised feedback. This really helps you put the course into practise and improve your training.

🎁And one of the other bonuses is a LIVE online rider workshop about core stability, taught by Tessa Roos, to help you with an independent rider seat!

👉You can check out the course AND the free bonuses here: https://horseinmind.eu/online-training-prevent-injuries-sustainable-horse-training/

Registration closes Sunday midnight CET/CEST, so don't wait too long ;-)

Let us know if you have any questions!

06/09/2023

❗️Last chance to sign up for this live & free webinar: Healthy Horse Biomechanics: Activating The Thoracic Sling❗️

The activation of the thoracic sling is important and part of the posture of the horse when it moves in a biomechanically healthy way. It’s not something you simply teach your horse, but rather something that happens when the horse is fully balanced in its movement. This sounds simple, but in reality, it’s not always as easy.

⭐️Today, my colleague Tessa Roos and I (Karin Leibbrandt) will share all about this topic.

In this webinar, you’ll learn:
✅ The anatomical essence of the activation of the thoracic sling
✅ WHY you would want to train a horse with an activated thoracic sling
✅ What ingredients you need for an activated thoracic sling
✅ How to recognise the activation (or absence of it) from the ground or while riding
✅ What will occur within the body when you train (for an extended period of time) without the activation of the thoracic sling
✅ The major adversaries to a proper activation

🗓 The webinar is free and starts today (Wednesday September 6th) at 8pm CET/CEST (GMT+2). It will be held in English.

👉 You can still sign up here: https://horseinmind.eu/webinar-healthy-horse-biomechanics-activating-the-thoracic-sling/ There will be a replay available for just a few days after the webinar ends, but make sure you sign up beforehand if you wish to receive it.

If you have any friends that might find this webinar interesting, please tag them or share this post! 🙂 Thank you!

04/09/2023

🐎 Vertical balance: why is it so important?
(and scroll for a free webinar!)

The vertical balance is important voor many reasons, but these are the most important ones:

1) A horse out of vertical balance has more weight on one of his front legs. For a short period this is not such a big problem, but after training your horse for several years with too much weight on one of his front legs, this will cause injuries.

2) A horse out of vertical balance will lower and rotate the withers. If it's out of balance to the left, the right hind leg will push the left shoulder and withers forward and downward. This causes the horse to have more weight on the forehand and the thoracic spine (withers and part of the back where the rider is carried) will drop and hollow. The lumbar area needs to compensate and has to flex/round. This way the horse is overloading the back, the lower neck and the pelvis.

3) A horse out of vertical balance has a crooked spine and his body is not aligned with the line of travel. The horse needs to compensate for the imbalance and will tighten his muscles to do so. This will cause injuries in the long term and the horse will not move to its full potential since he is compensating and using a lot of energy for these compensations.

👉 Vertical balance is also one of the important ingredients in training if you want your horse to activate his thoracic sling properly.

💻 Upcoming Wednesday, Tessa Roos and Karin Leibbrandt will be teaching all about 'Healthy Horse Biomechanics: Activating The Thoracic Sling' in a FREE and live webinar. It will start 8 pm CET/CEST.

You can still sign up here: https://horseinmind.eu/webinar-healthy-horse-biomechanics-activating-the-thoracic-sling/ 👈

Can't make it to the live webinar? No worries, we'll make the replay available for a few days, to everyone who signed up.

🌟 Will we see you there?

01/09/2023

🔝Activating the thoracic sling: not a trick, but a result!

An activated thoracic sling, also known as the wither lift, is part of the horse's posture when he moves in a biomechanically healthy way. It's not something you simply teach your horse, but it's a result when the horse moves with the right balance and energy. It may seem simple, but in reality, it's not always easy. 🤔

📷 In this picture you see a horse that's ridden in a balanced and forward, down and out manner, with an activated thoracic sling. In the comments I will add a video in which you can see a horse without a rider, to show you what actually happens with the topline when the horse lifts his back and withers. Not in every horse the movement is that big, but it definitely can be!

🥗 You need a number of ingredients in your training, for your horse to be able to properly activate the thoracic sling. However, there's also several factors that make it impossible for the horse... and these are not only training related!

💻In a FREE webinar on Wednesday September 6th, 8pm CEST, you'll learn all about healthy horse biomechanics: activating the thoracic sling.

👉 In this webinar, you'll learn from Karin Leibbrandt and Tessa Roos:
✅The anatomical essence of the activation of the thoracic sling
✅WHY you would want to train a horse with an activated thoracic sling
✅What ingredients you need for an activated thoracic sling
✅How to recognise the activation (or absence of it) from the ground or while riding
✅What will occur within the body when you train (for an extended period of time) without the activation of the thoracic sling
✅The major adversaries to a proper activation

🙌 This webinar is completely free. There will be replay available for everyone who signed up, but only for a few days after the live webinar ends.

💚 Information and registration: https://horseinmind.eu/webinar-healthy-horse-biomechanics-activating-the-thoracic-sling/ 👈

If you know anyone who might be interested in this important topic, don't forget to tag them!

18/08/2023

🤔 How much do YOU know about the thoracic sling? And what about activating it?

The activation of the thoracic sling is part of the posture of the horse when it moves in a biomechanically healthy way. It’s not something you simply teach your horse, but rather something that happens when the horse is fully balanced in its movement. This sounds simple, but in reality, it’s not always as easy.

If you want your horse to properly activate their thoracic sling, you need a number of ingredients in your training. There are also various factors that make such activation difficult or impossible, and these are not solely related to training!

⭐️In a live and FREE webinar, hosted by Horse in Mind, my colleague Tessa Roos and I (Karin Leibbrandt) will share all about this topic.

In this webinar, you’ll learn:

✅ The anatomical essence of the activation of the thoracic sling
✅ WHY you would want to train a horse with an activated thoracic sling
✅ What ingredients you need for an activated thoracic sling
✅ How to recognize the activation (or absence of it) from the ground or while riding
✅ What will occur within the body when you train (for an extended period of time) without the activation of the thoracic sling
✅ The major adversaries to a proper activation

🗓 The webinar will be held on Wednesday September 6th 8pm CET (GMT+2) and will be held in English.

👉 You can sign up here: https://horseinmind.eu/webinar-healthy-horse-biomechanics-activating-the-thoracic-sling/

If you have any friends that might find this webinar interesting, please tag them or share this post! :-) Thank you!

16/05/2023

Back home from the EEEPC eastern european equine practitionar's congress. It has been an absolutely wonderful weekend. The first day farriers, physiotherapists and veterinarians were together since they form an important healthcare team for the horses.

Great to see so many passionate speakers! On day 2 we split up and I had the honour to work with the physiotherapists. It was a delight to spent the afternoon with this group. So much knowledge and enthusiasm. The energy was so high and possitive!

thank you everyone and of course special thanks to Alina Palichleb. Alina, you did an amazing job! Unbelievable how you always how to connect everyone!

12/05/2023

Today I arrived in Poznan Poland. I have the honour to be one of the speakers at the EEEPC. A conference for Equine practitionars, farriers, bodyworkers and veterinarians. We started with a technical test in the conference hall. It looks really nice! The technical team is great! They fixed my laptop issues in a second 🙂.

05/05/2023

The 13th and 14th of May, this wonderful event will take place in Poland. I have the honour to be one of the speakers. Special is the combination of farriers, bodyworkers and veterinarians. Complex cases need a holistic approach and good teamwork!

Now it is possible to follow this event ONSITE or ONLINE!

🇬🇧 As a professional:

➡️ You need to know how to deal with complex cases where the horse's problem affects several areas,
➡️ You have the important role of being the horse's advocate. Your attitude can be crucial for the horse owner to take the right action,
➡️ Your work, based on high standards, will not only have an effect on this one patient, but will have a snowball effect in your environment, contributing to positive change.

Join us at the EEEPC Congress, 13-14 May 2023! Veterinarians, farriers, equine physiotherapists, get your onsite or online ticket today and we'll see you in Poznań!

🇵🇱 Jako profesjonalista:

➡️ musisz wiedzieć, jak postępować w złożonych przypadkach, gdzie problem konia dotyka kilku obszarów,
➡️ Pełnisz istotną rolę jaką jest bycie adwokatem konia. Twoja postawa może być kluczowa, aby właściciel konia podjął wlaściwe działania,
➡️ Twoja praca oparta na wysokich standardach przyniesie efekty nie tylko dla tego jednego pacjenta, ale będzie miała efekt kuli śnieżnej w Twoim środowisku, przyczyniając sie do pozytywnych zmian.

Zapraszamy na Kongress EEEPC, 13-14 maja 2023! Lekarzu weterynarii, podkuwaczu, fizjoterapeuto koni, kup dziś swój bilet onsite lub online i do zobaczenia na Kongresie!

01/04/2023

Accurate. 😅

06/03/2023

Awesome news! I can give away a €10 discount for the online community weekend of The Horse Inside Out on 24, 25 & 26 March. Enter the code Karin10eng at the checkout and the discount will be automatically deducted.

Although much is already known about how we can best prepare young horses for their future, many themes remain unexplored. And it is precisely in this first phase of their lives that it is so important that we immerse ourselves in both the physical and mental development of the young horse. The Horse Inside Out organizes a whole community weekend full of various experts from all over the world to dive into this theme.

What can you expect?
7 webinars from various international experts such as Sharon May-Davis, Bent Branderup, Carolien Munsters, Nina Lundgren, Tamara Dorrestein, Raquel Butler and Christina Fritz
In-depth knowledge of topics such as: training, developing teeth, the brain, stress, nutrition, rehabilitation and growth (spurts)
You’ll have access to all replays for six months afterwards as well as an online course, all conveniently bundled in an online platform
Webinars are in English with Dutch support via chat. A Dutch translation of the webinars will follow after the weekend.

Want to immerse yourself in the fascinating theme of 'The young horse'? Register now with the code Karin10eng and receive a € 10 discount via: https://equinestudies.e-quine.com/en/young-horse-inside-out/