05/09/2025
Massage is one of those things that everyone knows about, which makes my job of explaining it easy. However, do you actually know why it works? How the series of manual massage strokes are affecting your horse (or yourself)?
Massage consists of multiple different techniques each with its own specialty, but each causing to some degree the same response in the horse. Put simply, the goal of massage is to increase circulation and aid the skeletal muscles in finding their release. Sounds pretty simple right? I’ve mentioned the effects of circulation several times before so I’m not going to go into it much in this post. Just know that the Bible refers to the “life blood” in multiple instances 😉
However, guiding the muscles into release is a little more complex… Let's start with the mechanics of muscle contraction. Buckle your seatbelts because this is bound to get very sciency though I will try my best to keep it simple and interesting…
To start, let's get a grasp of the structure of a skeletal muscle. Every muscle is made up of bundles of fascicles, each fascicle is made up of muscle fibers, which can be broken down further into myofibrils.
Skeletal muscle > fascicle > muscle fiber > myofibril
Well, I’ve slowly been picking away at writing this post for almost a week now so I’m going to make this as quick and easy as possible. Let's focus on the myofibril. Now there is a whole bunch of mind-bending stuff we could talk about-- a lot of letters and tongue twisting names and such that the average horse owner should not have to worry about, so let’s just skip to the interesting part.
The myofibril is pretty much the essence of what creates muscle contraction. This is a bit difficult to describe in words… So let’s use our imaginations a bit. Try and think of the two horizontal strands of myofibrils parallel to each other. Each strand has a bunch of little vertical(ish) “hooks” coming off of it. When the neurons receive the signal to create muscle contraction the hooks reach forward, wrap around the myofibril beside it and pull together; therefore shortening the muscle and creating movement. When the muscle is relaxed the hooks will release, returning the muscle neutral. Super cool right?!
However, we do live in a fallen world and not everything always goes perfectly by design. The “hooks” don’t always release. They can get stuck, leaving the muscle in a prolonged state of contraction leading to what we refer to as tension. Which brings us back to what we started with, one of the main goals for massage is to aid muscle to find its release! How many of you made it all the way to the end? Have you ever heard this before? Let me know in the comments and as always if you have ANY questions at all I’d be happy to answer them the best I can 🙂
And thank you to Kacey Garfinkel for the great sketch! She always does such an amazing job!!
-Jessie Garfinkel, EEBW
