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Hey Mike,
Boy, this is one subject that you could write an entire book about, but
I'll try (for a change) not to turn this into four hours worth of
reading.
One of the things to keep in mind is that there really isn't a clear
demarcation of now-we're-aerobic-now-we're-anaerobic. The actual "line"
between the two is defined as a ratio of the amount of O2 being inhaled
and carbon dioxide exhaled, which isn't really important for this
discussion. Just remember that it's more of a gradual shift from one
energy system over to the other. So when you're increasing the exercise
level into the anaerobic levels, you're still utilizing the aerobic
metabolism---it's just that the anaerobic mechanisms have kicked in to
make up the shortfall in energy demand.
The main thing about conditioning is to spend most of your time doing
the type of work that you will be doing during the competition---in
other words, for an endurance horse, condition most of your time
aerobically. However, once your horse has an excellent LSD and aerobic
conditioning base, then yes, you CAN sharpen his level of conditioning
by adding in some anaerobic work, such as galloping hills, or whatever
it takes to push his heart rate up to anaerobic levels (which is going
to vary widely among individuals). What you will do through anaerobic
exercise is SOMEWHAT increase the efficiency and capacity of the
cardiovascular and hemotological systems that move oxygen from the lungs
to the muscle and organ tissues; increase the total cardiac output a
bit; and increase the efficiency of all the various systems that are
designed to get blood around the body. However, you will actually get
comparatively little additional benefit from exercising at maximal
(anaerobic) levels than you already have received from exercising at
submaximal, aerobic levels. I know there are some human exercise
physiologists on the list that are getting ready to argue that the
cardiovascular and oxygen-transport benefits from maximal exercise are
more significant than that, and in humans, they are. However, horses
are unique critters and don't respond to submaximal and maximal exercise
the same way that humans do---they're already designed to be such superb
cardiovascular athletes that once you've conditioned them aerobically,
there just isn't that much more response you're going to get from the
cardiovascular system as a response to maximal exercise, as you WOULD
see in human athletes.
What you ARE going to do primarily is increase the efficiency of the
anaerobic metabolism---the intracellular system that produces energy
without oxygen. There will be an increase in production of the enzymes
required for anaerobic glycolysis, and in turn an increase in the amount
of total energy that can be produced at any given time during anaerobic
exercise. This means, that in a sprint to the finish, for example, the
horse that has done some anaerobic training is going to be able to
produce more ATP and therefore more muscle contractions than the horse
than has trained exclusively at aerobic levels.
You are also going to increase the maximal lactate concentrations
tolerable before failure. Most everyone on this list knows by now that
during anaerobic exercise, you produce lactic acid as a by-product.
Lactic acid is just that, an acid, and the pH of the muscle cell starts
to fall (become more acidic) as production and cellular concentration
increases beyond what is being removed from the cell. The enzymes
responsible for anerobic energy production are pretty picky about what
pH they're willing to work at, so as the pH becomes increasingly more
acidic, the enzymes become less and less efficient (fatigue), and
eventually energy production stops altogether (failure). Generally, you
can only reach this very extreme point of exhaustion when playing around
with electrically stimulated muscle cells in the lab in little petri
dishes. When you go out and exercise yourself, you can feel the "burn"
in your muscles as the level of exercise increases and if you keep going
for as long as you can, eventually the pain will stop you, usually
before actual muscle failure.
So, if you exercise at anaerobic levels on a somewhat regular basis, you
will get the muscle cells used to operating under somewhat acidic
conditions---as a result, the time to fatigue and failure during maximal
exercise will be increased. Please notice that this is not a
recommendation to go out and gallop your horse into exhaustion. Use
common sense here as in everything else.
One other thing to keep in mind, however, is not to overdo the anaerobic
conditioning. If done too much, the horse's body will become better
suited to anaerobic exercise than aerobic exercise, akin to a Quarter
Horse that can sprint like hell for a few hundred meters, than quit.
Obviously, for an endurance horse, you just want to sharpen up all the
toys in the toybag, not start to replace the aerobic mechanisms with the
anaerobic ones. Most endurance people know about slow-twitch and
fast-twitch muscle fibers, and that Arabians have a higher density of
slow-twitch fibers and that's why they're better at endurance as a breed
than say, your average Percheron. However, besides just slow and
fast-twitch, there are also numerous classes of intermediate fibers that
will respond to the type of exercise by leaning more towards becoming
either a slow-twitch or fast-twitch fiber (not totally, just sorta). If
you're exercising primarily at aerobic levels, the intermediate fibers
will help out by gradually acting more like slow-twitch fibers. If you
exercise alot at anaerobic levels, they'll start acting more like
fast-twitch fibers, thereby decreasing your aerobic performance.
So, the bottom line to all this, is that yes, you can improve
performance with some judicious anaerobic conditioning. You're not
going to affect aerobic performance very much, if at all, you're just
going to increase the anaerobic capacity. This increased capacity is
probably of the most use to the competitor who is expecting to spend
some time during the race racing at maximal, anaerobic levels, such as
during an all-out drive to the finish. For the majority of riders who
just want to complete, even finish within the top half or third of the
pack, it's of less value, and there is something to be said as well for
avoiding the increased risks of injury that come along with maximal
effort. For most folks, alot of aerobic conditioning is going to fill
the bill. If you're a hotshoe AND HAVE ALREADY DONE YOUR HOMEWORK IN
THE LSD DEPARTMENT, then adding anaerobic to the exercise regime will
add a nice final edge.
Hope this helps and wasn't hopelessly confusing.
Susan Evans Garlinghouse
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