Frequency Conclusions III

"Strength and toughness depend on....."

Posing the question--when the elements come together what are the causes, forces, designs in nature which form materials, in this case bone, bone toughness, and strength?

In the medieval era on back the unseen hand of God provided explanations, and this is still used by many of our trainers. Then, late 15th century, Francis Bacon in Novum Organum finally shifted the focus of these questions from religion to science. We'd prefer then in our era to look for discernable explanations.

In the case of bone material they characterize these in terms as:

self assembly

size and arrangement patterns

orientation

shape

Research I noted somewhere stated "strength and toughness" depend on the size/arrangement pattern of the fibrils.

The Max Planck Institute Research on this blog late 2009, early 2010 showed the above statement as simplistic in terms of bone. There's more to strength and toughness than size and arrangement patterns of the fibrils, although the concept of that is what is being talked about.

In terms of calculating minimum frequency of speed work necessary for FR I have summarized this particular aspect as:

realignment of fibrils/osteons and rearrangement of materials in optimum directions.

You will understand realignment and self arrangementt by running or walking an appreciable distance and focusing on the sensation in your knee caps. You can almost feel the strain of the knee bone materials orienting into the direction of force. This is particularly noticeable launching up a flight of stairs.

This arrangement of bone materials--the fibrils, fibril arrays, osteons and so forth is illustrated below which shows indeed there are different arrangement patterns possible:

The middle left photo shows arrangement from ordered to random. Exercise tends to bring order to the arrangement. Again, Nunnamaker noted that arrangement of bone tissue organizes itself along the lines of stress.

The blog has previously explored this at length identifying rearrangement/reorientation as thee most significant of the various processes contributing to fracture resistance. Keep in mind this involves both the HA nano mineral crystals inside each individual collagen fibril, the fibril arrays, and even the larger osteonal structures. Presumably the greatest amount of reorientation will take place, per Nunnamaker, along the angles of greatest stress.

So now, the conclusion, how often must the horse do speed work to counter the inertia that will cause the fibrils to revert--after the race--to their less organized state i.e. keep them in their optimal positions for FR, and make this a permanent part of the structure.

My best guess is that there is a tiny little bit of nano movement with each work and that immediately post work the materials will tend or be pulled back to their pre-work shapes.

Imagine an individual collagen fibril moving slightly in response to concussive force from racing. For 48 hrs. post race there will be significant heat and circulation more easily permitting movement. However, water will fill up the nano-spacing created by this movement causing pressure that will tend to keep the newly oriented fibril in space. By the end of 48 hrs. this heat has subsided, water temp. goes down, there is less pressure, and other forces will tend to reverse the movement of the fibril. I'd think by day #3 post race the fibril will be significantly relaxing and reverting. By day #4--as just a wild guess--this fibril is likely to have reverted most of the way back to it's original position. There may be some residual positive effect in day #5 that could still be reinforced on that day. By post race day #6, I am thinking there would be but a precious few fibrils to reinforce in terms of new orientation other than those fibrils that have been "stuck" in new positions.

Thus, day #7 on outward, I'd think you get very little fibril rearrangement effect. Conclude: for realignment of fibrils/osteons and rearrangement of materials in optimum directions the minimums require speed work by 5 days post race.

Training:

11/25 and 11/26 Thanksgiving the horses were off (55 degrees down 18 around here).