I'm in the Pre-Nursing (RN) program at the local college here, and in my
Anatomy & Phys. class we are studying aerobic and anaerobic muscle
metabolism right now. During the lecture my professor was showing slides
of horses running, jumping, etc, and I was wondering why. Then he said
that humans have a built in "oxygen debt" sensor and when we reach this
point, the point at which we can no longer replenish our oxygen
debt, we will fall down exhausted and lay there panting until we have recovered
from our oxygen debt. Then we can get up and go on. The reason for
the slides of horses, he said, is that horses do not have this "oxygen debt"
sensor and can and will literally run themselves to death.
WHAT?!!! Does anyone know if this is true? Any veterinarians
out there ? Anyone? Being new to endurance, this scared me to
death!! I always thought that if my horse was very tired, he would slow
down or stop just as I would until I could catch my breath. If this oxygen
debt thing is true, I will have to rethink my whole conditioning
program........help!
