Awareness Of Detraining

KCMO this morning at left.

My horses last exercised significantly two days ago when they performed a nearly full speed riderless breeze. The ground is now frozen, and we face several days of very little, exercise wise. Forced off time, how does it affect my thought process in terms of detraining?

Off time from training has two categories. 1. Planned off time which we call "rest", and 2. Those times when for one reason or other we're unable to train, generally due to weather. Unknown how other trainers view forced off time. For myself when my horses are unable to work, I tend to fret and get upset. Why? Because I know I'm losing what I've worked so hard to produce, commencing almost immediately.

For me, mentally, I'm always gaging detraining and deconditioning. It's such a BFD in terms of putting together any sort of logical injury prevention training program. After the off time you will start up again, and you both know and see with your eyes what you've lost over the off period.

What have you lost when you're off? In my own experience, it takes two days training for every one day of training you've lost to get back to where you were before the off time began. Why? Here's an example. If the horse is off one week, it will then take one full week to get the horse back to where it was when the off time began. It will then take another full week to get to where you would have been had the week of off time never occurred.

Next post I'll go a little deeper into my concerns over forced off time, and the physiological basis of the concern.

Training

My question this morning was the same as Mandella where he begins his DVD in the dark at 5:30 a.m. wondering"What is the rest of the world doing on a day like this?" Eighteen degree weather, snow, a little sleet, ground frozen solid. I'd brainstormed what we're up against next two weeks forecast-wise and decided that we'll get on the horse irregardless. And so, first thing out of the house we round up the very cold tack and the horse, mount up, and off to the pasture we go. Art is a little out of control without the riderless preliminaries and last having been ridden two days ago and the snowy pasture. I was thus satisfied with 15 min. of walking, and we'll assume he'll be under control to trot tomorrow. Y has been working steadily and will get a few days off in this cold. Maybe he'll grow!