Monday, September 01, 2008

Microfracture

And so, in "appropriately conditioned bone" (an important distinction) during the breeze while there may be microscopic movement and rearrangement, the end result is bone material primarily unchanged due to its nature and composition.

I questioned this hypothesis, particularly in terms of movement of bone material. Bone seems like really hard stuff. Press in on your own tibia to get my meaning. It's other than rock but its a lot harder than what we'd describe as a semi-solid such as slightly heated plastic. In describing the feel of our tibia, if we use the range between semi-solid in various stages of hardening to a solid like perhaps a diamond, certainly the "hardness" of the bone is somewhere just short of being rock like solid i.e. hard enough that you'd question the concepts of microscopic movement and rearrangement.

And, in this regard it seems the obvious hardness and strength of the near rock hard tibia would withstand the normal forces of a "stride" without microscopic movement of material. HOWEVER when we take our thinking to what happens during the breeze, i.e. 240 strides--as you feel your tibia imagine what happens to the material if you hit it against a brick wall 240 times!. With the idea of repetition of pressure the concept of microscopic movement of material seems fairly easy to visualize even in material as hard as our tibias.

The next question would then be whether during the breeze 100% of this material "reforms" to its original composition, or whether in certain places the material breaks down.
During multiple strides while most of the material would rearrange to the original, would any portions of the lattice, collagen or bone glue be crushed or broken? E.g. at microscopic level would maybe just one supporting section of lattice fracture?

Follow this process in the illustration above from A to F. "A" shows a connected lattic that is gradually undone as you proceed to "B","C" and on. In our bone cell we may think of the possiblity of rupture at any of these stages post breeze.

A microscopic enlargement of an actual bone micro fracture sequence appears below:

We know we're heading for trouble with a "Micro crack" (center illustration), and notice the change in color! But I'm thinking much more relevant is the illustration on the right showing "Diffuse Damage". Continue next post.

Training:
Sat. 8/30: An evening of firsts: Rod for the first time trot-walks all the way around the course. Mostly walk as Rod was balking and inexplicable still throwing his head from the bit, which is one of those expensive Herm Sprenger $125.00 mouth friendly jobs. Rod then galloped riderless slow for 2 miles. Art for the first time went around the course twice 1.75 miles. About a mile of this gallop. Never changed a lead and Nob kept having to bring him to a trot and back track to get the correct lead. Discouraging night--no leads from Art and Rod still throwing his head all over the place even after wolf tooth extraction, but, good news ahead, read on.
Sun. 8/31: Art goes to lead change school. Got to get this down before we develop into an Alydar. Art was galloped over a 2.5f section with a sharp 1/2f curve in an effort to get lead changes. He went 4 times back and forth for about a 1 mile gallop total and was brought to trot-walk with each turn around. Voila, the horse changed leads every time, left to right, and right to left. It was hardly on cue, and he has yet to associate the rein work with the lead change, but, this is coming. With Rod we tried a different bit, and the head throwing largely disappeared. Rod trotted one mile under tack. So, we go from a $125 mouth friendly bit to a cheap $23 jointed very mouth unfriendly snaffle D racing bit and he likes it. This one I've yet to figure.

5 Comments:

Blogger Wind Gatherer said...

I saw a video a while back with trainer Vladimir Cerin, who apparently has a degree in equine exercise physiology or something like that, where he states that horses cannot tolerate interval training. They don't respond to it and it deteriorates performance.

Similarly, Papi Chullo, a gelding a couple of years ago was switched from a barn that used interval training to a "traditional trainer" and started winning some races. Graded I think.

Now, I know nothing about horses and training. I read Ivers and it makes sense to me but I wonder why I have yet to see a horse that is trained hard and often, make it to the big time? There must be professional trainers out there that use this method. Why are they not successful against these powderpuff trainers? As much as it pains me to admit it, not everyone out there is an imbecile and if it worked they would probably use it.

Maybe its more of a time constraint issue and the inability, with 80+ horses in a barn, to dedicate the time required? I guess like you said, why do 6f when you can get away with 4.

Still you would think that smaller barns would have the time and show SOME success. I mean as far as I know, Ivers, who championed his approach never had a great horse. Did he?

9/2/08, 8:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Winston-

I'm an exercise physiologist here in the Lou/Lex, KY area and I have a bit of insight to add in regards to interval training.

'IT' is the best way to increase endurance without sacrificing speed in humans, but not all horses are fit enough to benefit. Most importantly, humans can train while fatigued and improve, but horses training in a fatigued state will injure themselves. Plus the subjective measures of how a horse is doing are not good enough to ascertain proper recovery during the 'rest' intervals of such training.

For instance, 90% of horses that breeze 3/8 do not exhibit proper recovery heart rate within a 5min post exercise window. Adding interval training repetitions to these animals would be suicide.

However, a few trainers interval train with regards to gallops at slower paces and have much luck increasing aerobic capacity.

Afleet Alex, trained by Tim Ritchie, was probably the most successful US horse trained in an interval manner.

9/2/08, 11:08 AM  
Blogger rather rapid said...

Bill and Winston txs for ur comments! Winston for "knowing nothing about training" your post contains a lot of insight. lol!

The blog has already answered my version of all of these questions, but I'm afraid parts of this blog are becoming ancient history. I'll try to do another post on Winston's questions in the next week and will welcome Bill's reaction when its up.

9/2/08, 12:47 PM  
Blogger Wind Gatherer said...

Thanks both for your reply.

Bill-besides the Ivers website, is there any literature you recommend?

9/4/08, 12:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Not much in print that this site hasn't already covered, but here are some good links:

www.thoroedge.com - that's my site
www.polar-equine.com
www.etrakka.com - download the brochure
http://animalscience.tamu.edu/main/academics/equine/hrg001_scentificracehorses.pdf
http://www.pursuit-performance.com.au/equine/images/equine_sport.pdf
This last one is 68 pages and awesome! The last 2 links may be too long....?

9/4/08, 5:43 PM  

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