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Welcome to the Deep Dive, where we extract the absolute best, most surprising insights from fascinating sources to help you become instantly well-informed.
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That's the goal.
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And today, we're doing something truly unique.
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Definitely different.
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We're going to unpack the secrets of body alignment and movement, okay? Not just from human experts, but from a former elite athlete who happens to be a horse.
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Yep. You heard that right. A horse.
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Seriously.
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It's certainly not every day you get to learn about biomechanics from a quadruped. So our core topic for this deep dive is the profound and often overlooked importance of foundational alignment. Particularly focusing on the lower limbs. Our source material today is this really exclusive interview with Gandor. Gandor. Yeah, a magnificent horse who was an athlete for nine years before transitioning to dressage and... Prog Perception work. He's actually the mascot of Studio Bio Palettes Paris now. Wow. And he was interviewed by Farid, who's a journalist specializing in equine biomechanics.
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Okay, so our mission today is to distill, you know, the crucial nuggets of knowledge from Gandour's genuinely unique perspective. Absolutely. We're going to draw some surprising and, I think, incredibly relevant parallels to human body mechanics. helping you gain a fresh, relevant perspective on how foundational alignment impacts everything. Performance, injury prevention, you name it, in your own life.
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It might make you rethink some things.
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Prepare to rethink some fundamental concepts you thought you knew, maybe, viewed through this truly unexpected lens that could transform your understanding of movement. Okay, let's get into this.
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Right, so Genduer sees alignment as being like tuning a musical instrument. That's his analogy. Okay. He says, as long as it's right. Everything resonates. What's particularly striking from his point of view, I think, is that for horses, there's simply no room for approximation.
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Zero tolerance.
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Exactly. Their very existence, their performance, it relies on a perfect transmission of forces from the foot up through the hip into the back. It's not just theory for them. It's immediate visceral feedback.
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That's such a critical point, isn't it? It makes you wonder how many of us, myself included, might be overlooking those fundamental steps in our own routines. Oh, for sure. We often jump straight to the complex exercises, you know, before checking the absolute basics. And Gander knows this firsthand. After his racing career, apparently his body was just utterly worn out, constantly compensating. Yeah. His farrier and coach quickly identified it as a global misalignment. I mean, a problem that threatened his entire career.
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Indeed. And they didn't just treat symptoms. they went right back to absolute zero. Ground up. Totally. Focusing on his foot position, how his weight distributed on his three points of support, his hip mobility. He calls it lace work, like really intricate. It's a powerful testament, really, to the necessity of starting from the ground up, no matter how complex the problem seems.
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It sounds like his own transformation really illustrates that principle of the lower kinetic chain. Yeah. That intricate connection of bones, muscles, joints from your feet, all the way up through your hips. It's a concept we talk about a lot in human biomechanics.
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Exactly. So when Gandor describes a horse's knee collapsing inward, which, you know, we'd call valgus in a human. Right,
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knee valgus.
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He highlights how it creates this catastrophic chain reaction that affects their entire body.
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You can just picture it.
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Precisely. Yeah. His direct visceral experience as a quadruped athlete, it highlights that this isn't just some theoretical chain for them. No. Every millisecond of imbalance means lost power or worse, potential injury. It forces us to consider the immediacy and frankly, the unforgiving nature of these connections. In a way, our human bodies with our diverse compensations often allow us to ignore for maybe too long.
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Too long. Yeah. And he points out that for us, the ultimate foundation is the foot. For them, it's the hoof. Makes sense. If a horse's herp is poorly shod or it's compensating somehow, everything else gets out of whack. The knee suffers. The back takes the hit. And it's the same for us, isn't it? If your plantar arch is collapsed, it's the same basic story. And here's where it gets really interesting, I thought. Gander observes that humans often lack awareness of their points of support.
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That feeling,
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yeah. That innate feeling of the ball of your big toe, the ball of your little toe and your heel creating that stable tripod. Horses, he says, literally live on the ground.
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It's their world.
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And their plantar tripod is innate. For us, it's often something we have to learn and consciously reconnect with.
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He actually goes on to explain the equine plantar tripod in detail. So the hoof rests on three points, the toe and the two heels. Okay. If any of these are overloaded, the shoe wears unevenly, the pastern that's part of their lower leg works incorrectly, and higher up, the pelvis compensates.
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Ah, the compensation again.
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Exactly. And this leads to muscular compensations, tendonitis, even lameness under effort. Which raises a really important question. How does this fundamental principle, so clearly visible in horses, translate to the often more subtle dysfunctions we see in human movement?
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Well, he makes the direct parallel. He says if a human has excessive pressure on the outside edge of their foot, it triggers a tibial rotation, compromising that knee-hip alignment.
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Same pattern.
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It's the exact same problem, just different anatomy. He also touches on the hip, which, okay. A horse's hip doesn't have the same spherical range of motion as ours.
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Right. No splits for Gandor.
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Huh. Jokes about that. But it's still crucial. If his hip is blocked, he loses propulsion. It really speaks to the universality of these core principles, even across species.
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And this is where his human coach, Caroline, comes in. She applies Pilates principles with him, emphasizing mobile stability and movement that originates from the center.
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Pilates for horses. Interesting. Yeah.
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And what's fascinating is she often tells him that a misaligned rider makes for a disorganized horse.
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Ah, that connection.
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It really underscores the interconnectedness, not just between horse and rider, but within any integrated system.
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Including our own bodies. Right. Absolutely. It makes you wonder how many times we've seen seemingly unrelated issues in our own bodies, only to find the root cause is way, way far from the symptoms. Right. Gendor observes that Carolyn uses the exact same cues with him as she does with her human students. Things like, Place your hips, anchor your feet, feel your weight on the inner arch.
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Even without the human arch?
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Yeah, even without a human plantar arch, he gets the idea. She wants movement to be supported, not imposed. That's a key distinction.
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Supported, not imposed. I like that.
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Before any session, she checks his hind limb alignment hooves, hocks, symmetry. And for humans, she does the same. Knees, ankles, feet. He says it's not a luxury, it's the foundation. Essential. A human running with uncorrected pronation, for example, they'll get exhausted, injure themselves, get demotivated. A horse, he says, is exactly the same. It's just a universal truth.
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So true. He also shares the specific exercise that helped him regain his alignment, recular, which is backing up. Counts simple. Sounds simple, but it requires perfect alignment of the pelvis and hindquarters. Otherwise, he says, he deviates from a straight line. Okay. Transitions from walk to halt and back again are also key. Because the entire kinetic chain needs to stay connected and responsive through that. That's sense. And more recently, he's discovered exercises that activate the equine foot, like placing hooves on unstable surfaces. Kind of like those human proprioceptive cushions.
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Oh, those wobbly pads.
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Exactly. Those things. He feels it makes him more aware and symmetrical.
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That's a powerful illustration of proprioception, isn't it? The body's amazing ability to sense its position and movement in space without relying on sight.
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Totally.
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He says horses have highly developed proprioception naturally, but it can get disorganized, especially after something like intense racing. His body schema, his internal map was muddled, as he put it. Muddled, yeah. He was running with his front legs, pulling with his back, just disconnected. Now he's relearned to feel exactly where his feet are.
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That fine-tuned awareness.
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He gives this example. If he puts his left foot in the mud, he knows the exact angle of it instantly. And that, he says, changes everything. Wow. For humans, he believes it's maybe more mentalized sometimes. We often need visual cues or internal images.
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Yeah, we think about it more.
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But the principle is the same. If you don't feel your points of support, you compensate. And compensation, he says flat out, is falling out of alignment.
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Falling out of alignment. That's a great way to put it. He's also observed many pathologies, injuries in other horses due to poor alignment. Like what? Well. Well, common issues include injuries to the suspensory ligament, often caused by irregular support or maybe hyperextension of the knee from bad shoeing. Ah,
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the shoeing again.
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Yeah. Back problems often stem from a misaligned pelvis. In dressage horses, he sees overused adductors because the horse is compensating for poor hip orientation. And what's fascinating here is how directly he draws the parallel to humans. He mentions tendinitis of the gluteus medius or IT band issues.
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Common running injuries.
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Very common. And he says they often originate from a simple pelvic tilt or just poor ground anchoring. It really makes you consider how often we treat the symptom right rather than addressing that foundational imbalance.
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Absolutely. Chasing the pain instead of the cause. Right. So what does this all mean for placing the pelvis? That cue we hear a lot.
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Right.
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For a horse, Gander says it's not really a voluntary gesture like it might be for us. It's more of a muscular response to their overall balance.
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Ah, okay. So if his hind legs are too wide, his pelvis tilts forward. If his deep abdominal muscles aren't active, He hollows his back. So for him, placing the pelvis really means engaging his abs, slightly closing his ribcage, and distributing his weight properly over his hips.
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Interesting.
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It's an art, he says. And without it, a good dorkal line, a strong back, is impossible.
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It sounds remarkably similar to human Pilates cues, doesn't it? For core engagement, spinal health.
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It really does.
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No stable alignment without that deep core support. It's universal.
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And his message to humans doing Pilates without paying attention to their lower limb. alignment awareness is, well, it's pretty profound. He says, stop trying to do the exercise. Start by being in it.
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Ooh, I like that. Being in it.
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Yeah. He emphasizes that Pilates isn't about performance. It's an exploration of your deep alignment. Your feet speak to you. Your knees adjust. Your hips breathe.
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Listening to your body.
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Exactly. If you force it, you break the line. If you listen, you align. And he believes a horse truly feels this from the rider.
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You can tell.
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A rider with a locked hip is like dead weight, he says. But one with a lively, supple, anchored hip becomes a partner, not just a passenger. Partner,
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not passenger.
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It's about merging with the movement.
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That's such a powerful image, isn't it? Partnership over passenger, even with your own body. So, okay, let's bring it all together. What are the crucial takeaways from Gandor's truly grounded perspective on how we connect with the earth?
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Will, Gendor concludes by reminding us that alignment isn't some fixed posture we have to hold.
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Right, not rigid.
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No. Instead, he wisely describes it as a dynamic, invisible dance between your supports, your joints, and your breath. He really stresses that this dynamic alignment is truly the basis of all durable movement.
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The basis of all durable movement. And crucially, he tells us this knowledge isn't just for elite athletes or, you know, competition horses. It's essential for all bodies. By taking the time to feel and respect this alignment, Gander promises that you will move better, more durably and with joy.
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Better, more durably and with joy. What more could you ask for?
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Exactly.
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And here's his truly profound concluding thought for us to consider. A wisdom, really, that transcends species. Alignment is the freedom of movement. And freedom is the dignity of living. Wow.
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Alignment is the freedom of movement. And freedom is the dignity of living. That's powerful.
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Isn't it?
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And he leaves us with this final piece of wisdom that really lands with impact. Where your feet land, your journey begins.
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Simple but deep.
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Yeah. Think about that for a moment as you go about your day. How does your own body's foundation, where your feet land, connect to the journey you're on? Physically. And maybe even beyond. Something to ponder.
