Re: Conditioning Tips

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> Well I guess we there is a semantics problem here. And by the way how many
wind
> sprints did you brother have to do in high school, college and the pros?

Plenty.  But even in the pros, cardiovascular is an also-ran compared to the
attention paid to tendon, bone and ligaments.  Not often you see an athlete
destroyed because he just got too damn tired.  Plenty of them (including my
brother) were ruined due to stress to soft tissue and bone.


> According to the very good series of articles by Nancy Loving in TB, it
takes a
> couple years - maybe two maybe three - depending on a lot of things for
> tendons, ligaments and bones.

Agreed, though that concept originated long before Dr. Loving.  All the more
reason not to let it slide if you can't get out onto a trail and only have
access to an arena.


 >Pretty hard to get that in a ring.

Pretty easy, actually.  10m circles at a balanced canter promote alot of
remodeling in joints and dense tissue.  Bone remodeling is triggered by an
electrical event occurring semi-immediately after sharp concussion on hard
ground---quality, not quantity.

  It's also
> pretty hard to get that with progressive speed to condition these things
if
> you got a turn every 60 feet.

Standard large dressage arena is 60' x 180'.  If you can't build some
serious muscle doing circles and serpentines in an arena that size, you
ain't doing it right.  Quality, not quantity.  Though I agree with Kat,
doing nothing but arena work gets boring for the horse, and teaches them
nothing about watching out for gopher holes, etc.

Susan G