Do you know what is meant by terms such as : CORE TRAINING, CORE STABILITY, CORE STRENGTHENING?
I can guarantee that you might have heard of these statement
s if you are a regular at the gym or if you google lower back pain prevention in humans. There is a vast amount of human research showing the importance of having a strong core on spinal and pelvic alignment (Yu & Lee, 2012: Wilson et al, 2005) for the prevention of injury. Core strength training is common practise in health and fitness environments.
When we compare this to the veterinary industry, there is plenty of anecdotal reports that we need to be focusing on developing the core of our equine and canine companions through exercises (pole work, cones, stability balls etc..) and there appear to be plenty of training aids available online (equi-core, equi- ami, pessoa, side reins, wobble balls etc..) but my issue is with the lack of proof behind these training aids and more importantly the lack of education among animal owners and veterinarians.
My goals as an Animal Chiropractor are to :
* Educate animal owners into understanding WHAT and WHY core strength is so important for their animals
* Educate animal owners into HOW to identify core development in their animals
* Help animal owners UNDERSTAND the use of training aids in relation to their individual animal