There has been a current discussion on Ridecamp
re: Weight Lifting and a Comparative Endeavor for Horses In your
presentation at the
Cavalor equine info
center for Nutrition and Health
you wrote: (and I quote a portion of your lecture:
"Winning in Elite Jujmping by Tom Ivers
...... And that's where power training comes in.
In humans,
power training is resistance training-weight lifting or running against
resistance of some kind, including running up hills or stadium steps. All human
athletes use power training, including marathoners and Tour de France cyclists.
Unfortunately, horses can't lift weights, and many of the things that you can
thing of to offer resistance exercise to the horse-weighted boots, etc., will
hurt the horse. But there is one form of resistance exercise the horse can
do-one form that he loves to do-and that's galloping up hill.
With every
stride of an uphill gallop, FT muscle cells are preferentially recruited to do
the work. If each uphill gallop is short, with full recovery between, the same
muscle cells will be recruited time after time, and they will grow larger and
more powerful. At some point in a workout that consists of multiple gallops up a
hill, the fuels of the frontline troops of FT cells will run out, and additional
FT cells will be recruited. But the ideal workout will not be taken to fatigue
in the horse because fatigue injures the horse far more easily than it injures
the human athlete. When the horse starts to slow down during multiple
repetitions up a hill, the workout is over."
My question is, in view of your previously stated postulate about young
horses racing at younger ages, at which stage of their training do you propose
to incorporate the "Galloping Uphill"?
I'm thinking that you wouldn't do this with a horse who
biomechanics haven't finishing forming, however, you speak of the "plastic"
nature of young horses' musco-skeletal systems.
