Re: anerobic threshold
Gayle L Ecker (gecker@uoguelph.ca)
Sun, 17 Nov 1996 13:30:22 -0500 (EST)
Dear Riders,
The discussion on the anaerobic threshold for horses has been very
interesting. Just proves why I like the endurance people so much, they
rarely shy away from learning something that for many can be intimidating
with all the tech talk.
Just thought I would add some numbers on the
lactate levels that we have taken on about 300 endurance horses. I agree
with the discussions from Tom and Susan that lactates are rarely a
concern to the well-trained endurance horse. It is VERY rare to see high
lactates on these horses except for very short periods of time (such as
when they just came up a long steep incline, or a race to the finish) and
the levels go down very quickly. If you take a repeat sample in 5 or 10
minutes the horse is usually back down. Typically, the lactates do not
get above the 4 mmol/L level for any period of time during a ride for
the horses that have been in our studies over the last several years.
Occassionally, we have seen horses come into vet checks above that level
but usually the situation included an unfit horse and perhaps an
inexperienced rider. We have seen levels above 10, but below 20 when
there has been a sprint to the finish, and levels are back to resting
range in 30 minutes.
This is not to suggest that anaerobic training is not important for the
endurance horse.
As many of you have already pointed out, there is a shift between
aerobic and anaerobic and back to aerobic again, depending on speed,
terrain and other factors, and anaerobic training followed by aerobic
exercise in the recovery phase can be very beneficial to enhance the
ability of the horse to recover.
Keep up the great discussions and keep coming up with the questions, that is
what makes this list so good.
Gayle