The Right Balance Of Load And TUT

Could just out the optimal formula, except what good does that do?  Avoid picking rabbits out of hats.  Some thought process first.

Approach performance randomly or methodically.  It's a blog.  Do it at random, as it occurs.Little epiphanies presumably will arrive on schedule for purpose of putting together the first principles of performance.

From where will these be got?  Lots of places--my memory from my horse training, exercise physiology,  horse books- Ivers, Preston Burch,  The Airway book--failing to recall the Title, Nafzger's book, O'Gorman etc..  Think I've read them all.  My own present gym work is reminding me of a lot.

Today's principles:
#1--this morning I put my max weight on the bar for a seated military press.  Could barely lift it once on the first rep after warm up.  By my 4th go around it was easy:
Principle #1--The 4th rep is generally the strongest.  This is so important for horses and appropriate warm up.  I've seen it time after time.  If u want max out of your horse, come out of the gate on the 4th speed rep.  If that's impossible because of the outrider, at least try for 3.

#2--the other day I noted that slower speeds after u've attained faster are virtually useless in terms of improvement.  Tested this out again today on the tread mill.  Absolutely true.  Top speed today was 5.2 mph.  Dialing it back to even 4.8 mph was so easy after doing the higher speed for length of time.  Dialing it back to 4.5 mph I'd say the training effect was nil.  Some maintenance maybe. Improvement, no way.  This speaks to doing the horse's w/o as fast as possible, or at least part of it as fast as possible.
Principle #2: Faster is better  Let's remember--speaking here of performance instead of injury prevention.

#3:
There's more and more science these days.  They're looking into everything.  The below link provides a a critical principal of improving performance:  The right balance of load and TUT.  TUT = time under tension (for the muscle fiber).  According to the article--max benefit to increase muscular strength is max load for period just under 60 seconds.  Wow--think of the fast 5f breeze.  6f lasts too long! 4f is too short!
Principle #3  For improvement of muscular strength and hypertrophy observe the principle of "Right Balance of Load And TUT" (time under tension) or--max load held for slightly less than 60 seconds.  Read the link for the importance of staying under 60 seconds!!!

Here is some serious science:
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/getting_big_through_tut