04/07/2025
The gastrocnemius the name that you need to put your teeth back in to say 😃
I wanted to not draw a picture including the lower part of the horses limb because often to put yourself in the horses mind we need to visualise where a part of the anatomical structure is to visualise how it would feel to have something wrong in that area
Now if I said how many of you have suffered with heel or calf pain you will recognise that we are talking about the gastrocnemius and the tendon that runs down hugging your heel (achilles) because to have an understanding we first have to have recognition.
Again I am not just doing insertion, origin etc because there are many posts about structure but I always want you to think connection and whole horse.🫡
This muscle can often lose out to the bigger hind end muscles because as always bigger is better yet the tendons of the Biceps femoris, Semitendinosus, Soleus and the Gastrocnemius all have a connection that lead down to cover the Calcaneus (the bone you can feel at the back of your horses hock) known as the Calcaneous tendon or Achilles.
Remember see dysfunction in one muscle it always means a group are involved and how many horses have bulging hamstrings and a non existent gluteal, the gastrocnemius is a muscle of propulsion and how many horses shuffle, drag their toes, or just cant get that stride length in the hind end and if there is no propulsion there is no energy being fed to move and while most think bucking or rearing or rushing is the most common reason for pain on of the top reasons is lack of propulsion and the most common and probably one of the top three problematic areas in the horse is the hocks.
We all have had calf pain and linked in heel pain a lack of a proper range of motion through the hips, stifle or hocks will often compromise the function of muscles, tendons and joints, ligaments formed to support bone connection and strenthen joints can become lax creating instability, fascial connections into the lumbar will create pain or restriction that is often viewed as a primary and treated as such when often what we see is the result not the cause
We often only look at muscle tears to document issues in an area yet muscle strain is always a result of dysfunction wether it is overworked or underworked its not doing the job it was designed to do, and if we think of the job of a tendon yet the hock may not be utilising its full function then what is the ripple affect further up and down as the gastrocnemius has a connection with the Superficial flexor muscle and tendon.
If you tried the hock hold video I put out you can understand why your horse liked it so much for shortening an area can offer relief, turn on the forehand is another great exercise to get the whole area working.
So next time you think of hocks think of all the connections and the power they hold, do we still want to be working them before they are fully developed???
Hope the picture helps you recognise and maybe sympathise with the horse that maybe just isn't right behind ☺️
Ps I did do a post yesterday but was messing with the picture and deleted the post and didnt have the energy to rewrite it 😃😃😃
