Bone Remodeling And Distance

Injury avoidance/fracture resistance requires bone size, density, quality for the race horse as opposed to inactive horse. I've surmised we need :12.5/f speed, minimally, to get this, but, how far need we carry this speed before bone commences to remodel. Be nice to know as opposed to guesswork, just the facts ma'am.

Supposing we're without studies, and thus we have the usual analysis using a few tidbits of info available. To clarify, what I'm talking about here, in order to get appropriate bone remodeling (emphasis on appropriate, racing speed fracture resistance over 1 to 1.25 miles), in our breezing and race prep at :12.5/f how far do we need to go at that :12.5/f speed--e.g. 1f,2f,3f,4f, farther???

Per last post, the front lead leg strikes the ground anywhere from 25 to 30 times per furlong depending on speed and stride efficiency. For discussion, let's say it's 28 "hits" per furlong with each hit presumably having some effect on bone. If you disbelieve that last statement, please do as I did last night and clap your hands together reasonably hard, hard enough to make a loud sound. This handclapping produces some feel in your wrist bones simulating the feel or impact on the cannon bone as the hoof hits the track.

I did about 90 fairly loud claps. Per my posts on warm up last summer, after about 60 claps you begin to feel that your wrists are a lot more into it and efficient. I felt, literally, the transition to more efficient stronger clapping after 60 claps. My complete reaction was as follows:

first 30 claps--I'm just doing it--feeling in the bone is of a lot of concussion but the wrist bone feels, comparatively, fairly dead compared to what's to come.

second 30 claps--clapping feels easier, more efficient, the actual force and concussion on the wrist seems to dissipate somewhat in terms of the sensation you get.

third 30 claps--the concussion now feels as it's actually building but the wrist also feels stronger and more able to absorb compared to the first 30 claps. First 30 you get sensation that if you clap hard enough you might break those little bones, whereas from 60-90 you get a feeling of invulnerability that the bones could stand a lot more force than you're giving them.

The point of the above exercise is that there is as you transition through the total "number" of poundings the bone is to absorb a difference in the way the bone absorbs things. For example, I'm supposing the relatively "dead" feeling in the bone in the first 30 claps means perhaps that the first 30 hits are doing very little to the bone itself other than waking up the living cells there that something is going on, and as the clapping continues the internal bone commence some adjustment.

Now, may we further surmise that as the clapping continues some of the bone tissue at some point will become strained. The feeling of strength will transition to a feeling of fatigue, and finally we will get the microscopic damage that causes the bone to actually remodel. I declined to clap long enough to cause damage. Hey, I need my wrists and I've learned in the past from weight lifting how quickly you can get a little developing stress fracture there. But, I feel reasonably sure that had I kept clapping at some point the fatigue and damage would have come.

Do we need to keep the horse going far enough to develop bone fatigue and microscopic damage to get the remodeling that we need, i.e. how far must we go, next post.

Training: better weather last night and an office thing kept me downtown till after dark. 2/28 thus was a rest day. We'll commence again with tack work tonight.