In a message dated 96-11-20 09:42:46 EST, you write:
<< Attention Tom Ivers:
Hello Tom,
> My name is Linda Van Ceylon, I live in Fort Collins, CO
>I've read some of your articles/books in the past and found them very
>helpful. My training philosophy/system has evolved from information that
I
>have gleaned from various sources (some could have been from your
writing).
> Essentially, I believe that once you have a "long-slow-distance" base on
>your endurance horse, the best use of your training time and miles is to
>stress the horse with anaerobic intervals in order to raise the horse's
>aerobic threshold. I would like to refine my methods a little more than
I
>currently do and maybe apply a couple of principles you discussed
recently
>on this E-mail list.
Linda, first let me say that I'm not an expert in endurance horse
conditioning, by any stretch of the imagination--I'm a racehorse guy
interested in learning about what you folks are doing--it gives me
ammunition
when I'm talking to people who believe that a horse can only work 1 mile
per
day--most days.
However, I can offer some odds and ends of insight, and my comment about
the
above paragraph is that you're skipping an important section of
conditioning.
Let's put it this way--the Law of Progressive Loading says that you
increase
increments of physiological stress a slice at a time. Between LSD and
anaerobic intervals is a large ladder of increments where the animal is
experiencing increased stressors but has not crossed into medium or high
lactate production. For want of a better tag, I call this the
"cardiovascular" stage. The highly anaerobic work, when it comes, is
contained within a relatively short period of final preparation, where
other
work has been tapered back somewhat and where "hard" days are being spaced
more widely apart. In the horse, anaerobic work is a very sharp scalpel of
a
conditioning instrument.
> QUESTION #1
> My first question regards your statement below. What is a "good"
recovery
>heartrate for 60-90 seconds post anaerobic work at 200-220 bpm?
Tom Ivers wrote-----------------------------------------------------------
There is a plateau that the recovering heartrate will hit at about 60-90
seconds after the work has ceased. It is this "recovery" heartrate that
can
give you a reasonable estimate of the level of anaerobic work performed by
the horse. Other factors come into play when simply sitting waiting for
heartrate to drop below 100--body heat, for example, and
agitation/discomfort.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the 200-220 bpm actually represents anaerobic work in the given horse,
then the recovery number will exceed 105. A recovery number between 110 and
125 suggests that you're well into anaerobic work and that the exercise
bouts
should be relatively short (2 minutes or less). Recoveries in excess of 125
are in the "yellow light" area with horses very experienced in anaerobic
work
and recovery heartrates above 135 are in the red zone--shut it down now.
I'd creep up on the 110-115 recoveries and sit there with an endurance
horse--you don't need, I think, the kind of lactate tolerance we need with
racehorses.
> QUESTION #2
>From your statement below were you inferring that "bursts of near-maximal
>effort" should be performed in TRAINING or in COMPETITION?
Tom Ivers also wrote------------------------------------------------------
Again, anaerobic threshold is not a consideration in an event like
this--and
in fact, crossing that threshold with bursts of near-maximal effort may be
beneficial. The problems are going to be muscle substrate depletion and
body
heat. Eventually, alkalosis (too much oxygen due to rapid breathing).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I meant during competition.
> QUESTION #3
> Does interval training w/"bursts of near-maximal effort" actually raise
the
>anaerobic threshold or does is just develop a more efficient system to
>metabolize lactic acid?
IT does both and more--but the "bursts" I was talking about was not IT.
Interval training is a series of sustained medium to high speed efforts
separated by partial recovery periods. The bursts in competition were to
trigger the firing of Fast Twitch cells, which generally go unused in
moderate-level work. This produces lactic acid fuel which will trickle down
to the ST muscle cells--also covers some ground with "free fuel"--since FT
fuel would not normally be used, just carried around.
>SCENARIO -- long--
> Linda Van Ceylon
Linda, I'm going to need some time to look over your program, so I'll save
your post and do that and get back to everybody with as good an answer as I
can deliver. Remember, I'm not your best coach here--Tina would be better.
But I'll give it a shot.
ti