More Detraining

Human athletes have a pretty good feel for detraining as applied to muscle strength, endurance, stamina, etc. When I lay off from my runs, I know instinctively from a broad expanse of training experience pretty much where I am, how I will feel and what my performance will be. When I was playing basketball, generally the 4th and 5th consecutive days following a two day layoff where my strongest. It took that many days of playing and working out to get back to where I was even before just two days of laying off.

And, how strange it was when I got into horse racing how absolutely clueless these trainers are in this same sense. I quickly learned that those qualified to throw feed are other than necessarily qualified to direct an athlete.

But, I digress. Bones is a different story. Humans have little worry in general about bone structure. With our equines knowing where the bones are is critical

Last post defined bone detraining as what occurs within the micro structure of bone during any gap or change up in training. If we have an FR horse (race appropriate fracture resistance) the question might be--what will occur post speed work on day #1,2,3,4 and so on up to as long as 6 or 7 months if we have to lay off due to injury?

I've come up with two ideas:
1. Normal ongoing osteoblast/clast resorption and rebuilding of bone tissue will at some point have replaced all the FR bone, and
2. The FR processes are temporary processes that reverse themselves at some point of inactivity.

As to the osteoblasts and osteoclasts, somewhere on the blog is that at any point in time approximately 4% of bone is undergoing reconstruction. This is an ongoing process that happens all the time. On top of said 4% we also have the total annilation that every race type speed work will produce on 1% of the cells in the bone structure. After one race we have 4% +1% = 5% cells undergoing repair--after two closely spaced races 6%, we breeze 4 days later 7% and so on.

It was also noted that it takes 2 weeks to 1 month from the time a single cell is destroyed either by exercise or osteoclasts for the osteoblasts to repair and restore the cell. Thus, if a week later we breeze again, or e.g. if we're doing breezework every three days Preston Burch style by the end of a 30 day period 9-14% of the horses bone cells will be in various states of repair instead of being strong working cells.

This natural process of building up and tearing down which in our race horse is enhanced by the exercise, we must calculate in conjunction with the FR processes in deciding on the strength of bone. List the FR processes again, and will conclude this next post:

contraction/compaction (increase density) of the mineral lattice

increase in bone glue proteins that hold everything together

adherence between some fibrils creating a stronger structure

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

speed up of calcification/ossification/cell repair due to heat and dilation of circulatory structures,

Post race--a bounce back effect to pre-race conditions. We want to retard this bounce back with timely subsequent speed work.

Training: the fat one a day later just out of the paddock where we got several nice short bursts of the horses chasing each other full speed.
Tues. 3/15: 4 x walk trot up and down the hill.
Wed. 3/16 2 miles of mostly slow paddock work (horse refused faster) + 4 x mostly trot up and down hill.
Thurs. short riderless speed work in the paddock + 3 x trot-gallop up and down the hill. Nob aborted after heat 3. First gallop in a while and the horse was playing around on long toes--needing to shoe--making this dangerous. Good choice as Nob almost hit the ground on the way back.