When Instability Changes Strategy, Not Effort with Ané Lloyd

In this episode, we're unpacking a recent study by Ramos et al. (2025) exploring how progressively unstable surfaces influence postural control and muscle activation in dogs. While the findings confirm that instability increases spinal movement, what's more interesting is how muscle activation changes - not simply increases. Instead, we see a redistribution of effort, with greater abdominal activation and reduced contribution from some larger, more superficial muscles.

Clinically, this raises important questions. These exercises were all static, meaning they primarily challenge stabilisers - not the muscles responsible for movement. So how often are we matching our exercise selection to the actual function of the muscles we want to target? And how can we better integrate instability with dynamic tasks to make our rehab more functionally relevant?

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