This is not to say that massage is magic and you can work your horse indiscriminately without worry of injury. Massage can provide a buffer and advantage to avoiding some injuries. First, injury prevention. Hopefully you have followed this series of articles and know that massage can provide a built in flexibility to developing muscles and that it can increase flexibility. The most common injuries to the muscle is either a pull within the muscle body or a tendon pull which is an extension of the muscle body.
Muscle pulls are often the result of knots within the muscle.
Knots are actually stuck muscle fibers that reduce flexibility within the muscle. A muscle with one or more knots is much more likely to be the source of an injury. The manual kneading of the muscle fibers helps breakup the knots, and increase the circulation. Increased blood supply to the area can prevent future knots by providing an adequate supply of nutrients and oxygen and the flushing away of toxins. Tendon pulls occur when the body of the muscle is knotted or shortened and the stresses on the tendon increase as during performance.