Re: RC: Re: ti's "article"

[Tivers@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/27/99 12:55:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
suendavid@worldnet.att.net writes:

<< >Nothing I hate worse than illicit muscle cell hypertrophy. Whatever you do
 >with the horse, it's body's first priority is going to be to repair weak
 >tissue, not to store fat.
 
 >Sure.  Repair---but not do much more than that.  Six months down the road,
 that horse isn't going to be able to do much more than stagger once around
 the arena before he's tired.>

On a carbohydrate diet? Give me a break. One of the differences between you
and I is that I've actually experienced what I'm talking about. The statement
above is clear evidence that you haven't.

>  At, under extreme circumstances, you can put
 body fat back on, but the protein stores are gone for good.  Have you ever
 seen a horse close to a starvation death?  Not only is the muscle mass gone,
 but the body has started to catabolize the cartilage in joints and soft
 tissue as well, and the pasterns are down to the ground, and no angle left
 to the hocks.  You could put fat back on these guys, but all of the
 associated tissues are pretty much gone for good.>

Not true. And we're not talking about a piece of leather lying on the ground,
we're talking about a horse that is 150 lbs light. A good example of protein
rebound can be found in folks who have come off chemotherapy weak and
emaciated--far beyond anything we're talking about here. In a year, these
people, especially with a good diet and exercise, are back looking and
behaving as they were prior to their catabolic experience. 
 
  >I can't agree more. Body scoring delivers almost no genuine information and
 >leads to false assumptions all around.
 
 Well, quantitative information, no.  I can't take a horse with a CS of 5 and
 give you any hard data about his aerobic capacity, stroke volume, etc---but
 as a comparative management took, it's pretty damn handy, especially since
 it doesn't require fancy equipment.>>

Kind of like driving "by ear". You can certainly stay out of the way of a
freight train driving by ear, but only fancy eyeball equipment will keep you
on the road. In general, equipment is invented to fill a need. Most people
don't recognize the need for most equipment until they've lost the equivalent
of twice the cost of that equipment. In the case of infrared thermography in
horse racing, the ratio approaches 1,000 to 1. 
 
 
 >However, there is going to be a
 >practical priority in gains in these areas and that priority goes to lean
 >tissue, always.
 
 Agreed.>

Egad!
 
 
 >Once there is excess energy, after all the rebuilding is done,
 >and the body score has changed dramatically, then there will be deposition
 of
 >fat in certain very specific areas.
 
 I think we disagree a bit about how much repair is going to occur
 independent of work to illicit further response; and once a muscle cell has
 been totally catabolized, it aint coming back no matter what you do.>

Cites, please. Muscle cells are dying every time you perform strenuous
exercise. If what you say is actually true, then a few competitions would
bring any athlete into the Old Folks Home. Instead, the opposite is true: "No
pain, no gain". Elementary exercise physiology. Tissue destruction results in
adaptation and stronger tissue.
 
 >I'll send you a copy of my ICEEP paper and tell me if you agree with my
 conclusions about CS in endurance horses.  My feeling is that actual fat on
 board isn't the important thing to consider when you look at an endurance
 horse with CS of 3 vs 5, it's just an indicator of more important things.>

I can agree with that right now.

> There may be some very minor effects on substrate availability, but I doubt
 very much.>

And vehemently disagree with that. In a fully conditioned, healthy athlete,
substrate availability (assuming adequate fluid and electrolytes) is the sole
determinant of performance. And it has to be readily available substrate.
Predominantly glycogen.


 > IMO, an endurance horse of CS 3 in all likelihood hasn't been
 truly starved per se, he's probably just working alot harder and expending
 more energy than he's taking in, and the body is having to burn body stores
 to supply the fuel.  At a certain point, not only adipose tissue but also
 lean muscle mass is being catabolized---which means that the same work load
 is now being relegated to lesser and lesser amounts of muscle, which in turn
 are going to fatigue faster and push the horse closer to enzymatic and
 energetic exhaustion and therefore failure.>>

All true.

>  On the other hand, a horse in
 that ideal window of CS 5 or so has just the smallest amount of fat cover
 (and there are areas where it is clearly fat deposition, like around the
 tailhead).  The presence of small depositions of adipose tissue indicate (to
 me) that the body is in positive energy balance, that lean muscle mass is
 not being catabolized for energy costs and therefore the available
 force-producing components of the body are as present and available as the
 conditioning program allows them to be (in other words, the body's been in
 an anabolic state, not catabolic, so whatever muscle you put on through
 conditioning is still there).>

I can agree with this, too. But I'll take it farther. While stored fat is an
indicator of surplus energy supply (or undersupply of exercise), it is not, in
and of itself,  an insurance policy against fatigue in an extended exercise.
There must always be a plentiful supply of muscle glycogen or blood
glucose--throughout the exercise. Exhaust the glucose/glycogen and 25 lbs of
fat will get you nowhere.
 
 >I think we're probably saying pretty much the same thing---just some minor
 differences in  interpretation of what CS implies.>

Kind of.
 
 See ya,
 
 Susan G
 
  >>

ti


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