Thanks so much. I am so glad I
asked, I thought what I put was conservative, to find that I can be going at a
slower rate and not only be doing some good but be doing better by my horse is
actually a relief in a way.
Thanks again,
Kathy
From:
ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Mike Sofen Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005
10:50 AM To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: [RC] back to HRM
discussion
Kathy,
You asked a really good and revealing
question. All of our HRM discussions were centered around older horses
that already had a complete base of LSD over 2 or more years. My personal
recommendation for a young horse would be that an HRM would be completely
unnecessary and in fact, counter-productive.
The reason is, the only thing you’d
want to be doing with an unseasoned horse is building up the soft tissues,
which is done at such low speeds that the HRM is meaningless, AND, as has been
promoted vigorously by other contributors to this list , may encourage you to
start riding faster than the infrastructure of the can handle. If I were
conditioning such a horse, I wouldn’t put on an HRM until sometime later
in their second year of training at the earliest.
To answer the specific questions, if I had
a horse that took 10 minutes to return to 60bpm or less, that would tell me I
had worked them WAY too hard. Example: my horse returns to 50 or
less after a hard workout (steep hillclimb trots and canters) within 2 minutes
of ending our ride, and usually it is already at 60 or less when we
finish. In the context of recoveries, 10 minutes, in my opinion is way
outside of a reasonable recovery period.
On the second question, 15 miles in 2
hours means 7.5 mph for the entire course – that’s pretty fast for
a young horse. Heck, that’s pretty fast for many horses, unless
you’re on a flat course. A better number would be an average of 5-6
mph max, which would consist of a lot of walking and some trotting.
Mike Sofen
In the endurance book I have it says, “… after a
10 minute rest…as a rule of thumb, if the heart rate reliabley returns to
60bpm or less it is safe to ask for slightly more intensity”
If using the above formula along with the “…..15
miles under 2 hours comfortably ready for a 50….” suggestion is
that a good basic ligament/tendon safe conditioning way to go for a first
season on a 4 year old?
No racing, just working towards getting a 50 done by second
or third season.
