Even Rodeo Cowboys Get Massage

Some cowboys prepared for their first performances while others walked cautiously towards a small, trailer with bold red and blue letters that spelled out Canadian Pro Rodeo Association Sport Medicine Team. Inside this trailer massage therapists, athletic therapists, chiropractors, and medical doctors were preparing for a busy day of treating rodeo athletes.

Even Horses Get Massaged

David Reid, a horse bucking rider from British Columbia, explained that horses also get massaged. "Not the bucking horses. A lot of horse injuries are treated with massage and it works very well." Special equestrian techniques are involved in applying massage therapy to a horse. Wahl interjected, "There are some people here who do equestrian work, [but] not everybody. I think you probably find it more with the barrel racers, steer wrestlers, and calf ropers, the guys and girls that have their horses traveling with them all the time. If you get sore and tired and stiff from driving and going on the road all the time, your partner--the horse--does too." While veterinarians treat and check the animals and watch them all the time, there is no sport medicine horse team or bull team that travels around with them. One thing is certain, the four-legged contenders are taken care of, too.

Jason Kawiecki, executive director of the Canadian Pro Rodeo Sport Medicine Team, described its organization. "In terms of who treats what, it's really a collective approach of a multidisciplinary team. And we're one of the few groups that really have that on-site. Most professional sports will have a physician, an athletic therapist, or other specialist. I don't know of a lot of organizations that have three different disciplines at one event and it's really a collective process in terms of what's the best way to treat the athlete, and that's the most important part of this because each of the caregivers has a different field of expertise. That's the biggest benefit to the professional cowboy that we offer."

1984 Beginnings

Professional rodeo sport medicine began in Canada in 1984 when Don Johansen, former Canadian bull-riding champion and Canadian Professional Rodeo Association board member, approached Dexter Nelson, a certified athletic therapist, to provide assistance to rodeo contestants. Nelson provided taping, stretching, and advice to contestants prior to the rodeo, tended to injured contestants in the arena during the rodeo, and gave advice on injuries and rehabilitation as the rodeo ended. During the initial season, treatment was administered out of the trunk of Nelson's car, at his own expense. In 1985, Dale Butterwick, an athletic therapist and Dr. George Kinnear, an exercise physiologist, joined Nelson to create Pro Rodeo Sport Medicine, which became the official sports medicine provider to the Canadian Pro Rodeo Association.

The Canadian Pro Sport Medicine team travels
15 rodeos each season. (Photo by Attila Estok)

Over the course of the next 14 years, the Pro Rodeo Sport Medicine Team attended approximately fifteen rodeos per season and offered assistance to an average of five hundred rodeo contestants. It became apparent, as Pro Rodeo Sport Medicine provided increased levels of care, that other professional healthcare practitioners were needed to assist injured rodeo contestants.

In 1986, the addition of physicians and orthopedic surgeons from the University of Calgary Sport Medicine Centre became an important addition to the team, providing medical and surgical care for seriously injured rodeo contestants. Three years later, chiropractors were added and in 1994, Mavis Wahl, a massage therapist, joined the team.

Rodeo Massage Pioneer

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of Calgary in 1990, Wahl became a registered massage therapist. After that, she took the athletic therapy program at Mount Royal College in Alberta. It was Dexter Nelson, her instructor, who approached her to join the team. Her experience in both fields set a precedent for other massage therapists who seek to be part of Canadian Pro Rodeo Sport Medicine.

All massage therapists have to be certified and most of them have some type of kinesiology or sports background. The reason is simple: the assortment of injuries that rodeo riders get are not normally seen.

Continued...