There are few professions tougher mentally or physically than being a professional farrier. I believe the only job remotely close would be that of a professional athlete. The daily repetitive nature of the job and an awkward working posture definitely take their toll on the farrier’s and athlete’s body.

There is a big difference, however. There is no offseason for the farrier, whereas the professional athlete gets an off season of 6 months to recuperate, rest and rebuild his or her body. The athlete also has state of the art equipment for recuperation and rebuilding along with cutting edge nutrition. Other than a little vacation and a good ribeye steak, most farriers don’t have that privilege.

There are some things that we can do to offset some of the torture we put our bodies through. The host of remedies range from essential oil treatment, electro stimulation, infrared lights all the way through deep muscle massage, and a hot Epsom salt bath with a few beers to relax. Using my experience both as a farrier and certified personal trainer, I have easy alternatives that will definitely make a difference.

The purpose is to give you a starting point, and not overwhelm with health and fitness information. And you should consult with a physician before making any significant change to your diet or exercise regime.

Posture And Body Balance

On a daily basis, farriers do things that tear our bodies down while we take care of everyone else’s needs except our own. The selflessness and accommodation most farriers give never ceases to amaze me. I know I’ve driven 75 miles to a client and put a shoe back on at 9 p.m. only to get home at 11 p.m. and back up at 5 a.m. to do it again. Our service is our product and our body is our machine — yet we punish it daily without thought.

Let’s talk about posture for a minute. Webster’s Dictionary defines posture as “the way in which your body is positioned when you are sitting or standing.” Think about that and look at yourself in the mirror while standing up. Use Figure 1, the thoracic kyphosis/anterior pelvic tilt as a guide.

Does this look familiar? Our job puts us in the most inefficient posture possible for extended periods of time. As the day gets longer, it gets tougher to straighten up and correct our posture. Day in and day out, we’re humped over, shoulders forward, with a forward head tilt and an anterior pelvic alignment. Look at yourself on Monday morning vs. Friday morning. If you find a couple of days that allow you to rest and stand up straight, you will look different in the mirror. And if you measure and compare your height between those days, I’ll bet you see a slight difference.

So What Can You Do To Improve?

Let’s first look at how we breathe. It’s pretty hard to take deep chest expanding breaths when we spend most of our day bent over, but that’s the first step. Stand up straight and take deep chest expanding breaths. This seems pretty simple, but it will require a conscious effort to break the short breath, bent over habit we’ve all developed.

This opens up and relaxes the diaphragm, which in turn helps us keep our heads up, shoulders back, chest out and a neutral pelvic alignment.

This shows the lunge start and finish position. Shown with dumbbells for added resistance. It can be done without weights. The movement should be slow and controlled and try to go as deep as possible to facilitate the stretching of the psoas and hip flexor muscles. 

So now we’ve seen the good and the bad, what can we do to correct the bad? Most postural problems begin at the pelvis. What causes an anterior pelvic tilt? Staying hunched over for hours a day is a good start, but overly tight psoas and hip flexor muscles are the real problem. Couple this with weak glutes, weak hamstrings and weak abdominals and you’ve got yourself a good start on anterior pelvic tilt. So now we have a starting point! Let’s first look at how we can stretch our hip flexors. There are several videos on YouTube that show different ways of stretching your hip flexors that can help guide you. For this article, I want to focus on an exercise that stretches hip flexors and builds quadriceps and glute muscle strength. The lunge is a most efficient exercise for this goal. Figure 2a shows the starting stance, whereas Figure 2b demonstrates the down stance.

Start slow, keep your balance and try three sets of 10 per leg, two to three times per week. Again, this exercise will strengthen your knees, quads and glutes, all while stretching your hip flexors.

Let’s move on to weak hamstrings, which are devastating for a farrier. If you have access to a gym, there are a variety of machines that can help you strengthen your hamstrings, such as the leg curl. Not everyone has time or resources to invest in a gym, though.

Start with your feet positioned in line with or just outside of your shoulders. Maintain a strong back position with shoulders back and head up. Avoid rounding the back or bending at the hip. Your knees and hips should move at the same time. 

Again, focus on slow, controlled movement with or without added resistance. This is a great overall leg developing/stretching exercise. Note the leg position of the down leg. The leg should be slightly in front of the body rather than directly underneath the body.

I find there are two simple exercises that require little equipment: the body squat (Figures 3a and 3b) and Bulgarian split squats (Figure 4). Both work and strengthen quads, hamstrings and glutes. These exercises can be done with or without weights. Start without weights and perform three sets of 10 to 15, two to three times a week. At home, dumbbells can help add resistance to this exercise.

Onto The Core

Everybody wants a 6-pack, but there’s nothing fun about getting one unless you’re at your local adult beverage barn. Again, there are several ways to strengthen our core and improve our health as farriers, but let’s start with two simple, yet effective, exercises that require no equipment.

Elevate your feet to an angle that places the most abdominal contraction. If your legs are too high or too low, you lose the resistance you're needing. Leg heights will vary depending on body types.

This is an all over core exercise. Try to maintain your chest, hip and knee height all at the same distance from the ground.

Figure 5 shows the feet up in a leg lift. Hold this position for a controlled 10 to 30 seconds.

Figure 6 shows the plank in the up position. Keep in mind the world record plank is over 8 hours! Hold both positions for as long as possible. Rest 30 to 60 seconds and repeat three to four times. Time yourself and set a new time goal each week. The stopwatch on your phone will help keep you accountable and give you a time goal to shoot for.

Working The Upper Body

Now we’ll move our way up and see what helps our upper back, shoulders and head posture. Refer back to Figure 1, which indicates why we strengthen our upper back and head posture.

This is an excellent exercise for developing the rear deltoid while also involving the trapezius and rhomboid muscles of the upper back sometimes referred to as the rear shoulder girdle. Be sure to keep your weight on your legs and never round your back. Maintain a strong neutral back position from start to finish. 

>The important part of this move is maximum scapular retraction. Pull your elbows as far behind your midline as possible. Squeeze the shoulder blades together as you finish the movement. Again, no rounding of the back. 

We’ll start with exercises that strengthen our rear deltoid, rhomboid and trapezius muscles. Figures 7a, 7b and 7c show a rear lateral raise and Figures 8a and 8b show bent rows.

With these exercises, it is important to keep your back straight, knees bent and your weight on your thighs during these moves. This will strengthen all the muscles of the rear shoulder girdle. Choose a weight that you can complete three sets of 10 to 15 repetitions two to three times per week.

There are literally hundreds of exercises to strengthen these areas. These are simply some starting points. Invest time back into yourself and you won’t regret it.

Don’t Forget To Fuel Through Proper Nutrition

The next step sounds simple. I mean we all ate great today, didn’t we? Muscles require protein to recuperate. Farriers are on the go and tend to eat when we can. How much protein was in that burger or those chips and bean dip we ate between stops? Probably not enough.

Because we as farriers put our bodies through the day-in day-out rigors similar to that of professional athletes, then we must fuel our machines for recovery like they do. Most protein recommendations for physically stressed athletes are in the 0.5 to 1 gram per pound body weight range. Simply put, if you weigh 200 pounds, you need 100 to 200 grams of protein per day for fueling your body.

Get a food chart or phone app and track that for a week. Maybe this is your reason if work fatigue tends to be more difficult on Fridays vs. Mondays. We can break all this down to fats, carbohydrates, macro and micro nutrients, glycogen and so many other terms that will overwhelm most people.

For a simpler approach, remember that our muscles require amino acids to recover. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. So concentrate on (some) protein shakes, eggs, steak, chicken, fish and legumes (beans) just to reach that 1 gram per pound of body weight in every day for a week and see how you feel on Friday.

Another easy and tasty way to aid in our recuperation is by utilizing branch chain amino acids. You can visit health food stores for guidance on various products. You can also order what you like online. Find a product that has 30 to 60 calories per serving. Mind the sugar levels — you want something with considerably less sugar than Gatorade. The flavors actually are fairly tasty. Most companies add electrolytes to these products, which can provide an additional benefit.

This is just a brief summary of a few things that will help keep your machine running stronger and longer. In this profession, knowledge is sometimes hard to market without the physical act of performing the task. Many clients think they’re only paying for what we do, not what we know. Your body is your machine. Tune your body right and put the right fuel in it and it’ll take care of you longer.

2017 Getting Started In Hoof Care Contents