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  Discussion on Reseach Summary: Exercise and Muscular Response
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DrO

Posted on Thursday, Jul 26, 2007 - 9:28 am:

As we get better at knowing what is required to correctly exercise our horses we should be able to decrease injury and improve performance. The study below may require a brief explanation of how we measure exercise intensity in running horses. A standard of exercise intensity from running has been the formation of lactate in the exercised muscle that defuses into the blood and then measured. For example the velocity that obtain 2 mmol of lactate per liter of blood is called V2. Note that V2 for a horse changes as he becomes more fit, it increases because the amount of stress on the conditioned muscle becomes less.


J Appl Physiol. 2007 May;102(5):1871-82. Epub 2007 Jan 25.
Effects of intensity and duration of exercise on muscular responses to training of thoroughbred racehorses.

Rivero JL, Ruz A, Marti-Korff S, Estepa JC, Aguilera-Tejero E, Werkman J, Sobotta M, Lindner A.

Laboratory of Muscular Biopathology, Dept\. of Comparative Anatomy and Pathological Anatomy, University of Cordoba, 14014 Cordoba, Spain\. an1lorij@uco.es

This study examined the effects of the intensity and duration of exercise on the nature and magnitude of training adaptations in muscle of adolescent (2-3 yr old) racehorses\. Six thoroughbreds that had been pretrained for 2 mo performed six consecutive conditioning programs of varying lactate-guided intensities [velocities eliciting blood lactate concentrations of 2.5 mmol/l (v2.5) and 4 mmol/l (v4), respectively] and durations (5, 15, 25 min)\. Pre- and posttraining gluteus muscle biopsies were analyzed for myosin heavy chain content, fiber-type composition, fiber size, capillarization, and fiber histochemical oxidative and glycolytic capabilities\. Although training adaptations were similar in nature, they varied greatly in magnitude among the different training protocols\. Overall, the use of v4 as the exercise intensity for 25 min elicited the most consistent training adaptations in muscle, whereas the minimal training stimulus that evoked any significant change was identified with exercises of 15 min at v2.5\. Within this range, muscular adaptations showed significant trends to be proportional to the exercise load of specific training programs\. Taken together, these data suggest that muscular adaptations to training in horses occur on a continuum that is based on the exercise intensity and duration of training\. The practical implications of this study are that exercises for 15 to 25 min/day at velocities between v2.5 and v4 can improve in the short term (3 wk) the muscular stamina in thoroughbreds\. However, exercises of 5-15 min at v4 are necessary to enhance muscular features related to strength (hypertrophy).
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