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Please Reply to: ti Tivers@xxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Hi,
Two questions:
Any value for the endurance competitor in a twice/daily conditioning program to 
either 1)supplement your prescribed program or 2)replace to add a day of rest?
(As a runner on a competitive track team (years ago) my coach recommended a 
twice daily workout for those who wanted to greatly improve.)

Secondly, is there a reason your program doesn't recognize the need for rest 
for the horse for muscle recovery from breakdown (as w/ weight lifting)?

Thanks, Erica DeVoti  ponxprss @centurytel.net
>
Twice-daily's are for athletes that are far fitter than any endurance horse 
will be for the next 50 years. Even with my approach, the athletes never really 
reach a fitness level that would approach that of a human marathoner.

The recovery days ARE for muscle rebound and repair. A day completely off means 
that whatever debris has resulted from muscle breakdown stays in the muscle and 
produces inflammatiton and pain. So the recovery days get the circulation 
moving and flush out the residual wastes from yesterday's injury. Meanwhile, 
they don't amount to enough to draw down any of the supply systems.

Weight lifters tend to do short, high intensity works which can do significant 
damage--but they don't stand around in a stall all day on days off, or stand 
around in a paddock gorging themselves on grass. So, doing 15 minutes of light 
work is probably more of a bother than a benefit.

In terms of the outset of the process I outlined, it's not work that causes 
muscle damage--no intensity involved. You're just building a minimal workload 
that can then be manipulated to allow for hard and easy days, while still 
maintaining a base glycogen drawdown that will, among otherr things, prevent 
tying up.

As you review parts 2 and 3 you'll note that the "ten miles a day" average is 
not doing ten miles a day, but 2 or 3 hard days per week exceeding ten miles, 
followed by minimal distance/intensity recovery days. These ARE "days off", as 
far as I'm concerned.  At a 3 1/2-4 minute/mile rate of speed that might be 
made in the final stages of conditioning, you're talking about 15-16 minutes of 
actual exercise. Not even a decent warmup for a human athlete.

Remember, too, that the gameplan outlined is for prepping elite level endurance 
horses--the equivalent of human Olympic athletes. that level of human athlete 
is typically exercising from 2 to 6 hours a day, every day, 364 days a year. At 
intensities at or greater than 65% VO2Max. Endurance horses RACE at 50% or 
lower VO2Max (Max HR of the horse is between 225 and 240, and these animals are 
racing at between 120 and 150 HRs.

ti


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