Tag archieven: horsetraining

Answers to the muscle quiz

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The answers to the big muscle quiz in the former blogpost:

1. About 45 to 55 percent of a horse’s body is made up of muscles. In humans, that is around 40 percent.

2. No. Some are consciously controlled. Others, such as the heart muscle, work completely by themselves. You can order yourself to move your arm, but your heart won’t beat faster if you want to.

3. A horse can never get more muscles. The amount of muscle cells he has is hereditary. What is possible is that you increase the muscle volume, in other words, a muscle becomes thicker through training. This is because more substances are stored in it.

4. Proteins are the building blocks, carbohydrates and fats provide energy. But it is not wise to give your horse huge amounts of it when you want to make him more muscular. This requires training in combination with a precisely tailored ration. From too much energy a horse becomes fat, not muscular.

5. On the contrary. Did no one taught you never to swim with a full stomach? The same principle applies to horses. After eating, the glucose level in the blood rises. This is followed by a dip after two to three hours, which makes a horse slow. Feeding before riding is also not necessary. Muscle cells contain a supply of energy. It has to be built up and that takes a while. Moreover, this only happens if energy has been used up by movement. Incidentally, feeding roughage is always good, because it contains relatively little energy that only slowly enters the body.

6. You have red muscle cells and white and a mixed form. Unlike humans, horses are more likely to have much more of one type of muscle cell. You have varieties that are particularly suitable for endurance efforts, while others give more explosive power.

7. The red give stamina, the white are for power explosions and the mix can be made suitable for either of them by training. That can also be undone and transformed, but it will take some time.

8. Have you ever seen what an arm or leg looks like after a while in a cast? It becomes a thin stick. The muscles seem to have disappeared, but they are not. They just got thinner. When muscles are no longer stimulated, for example because a saddle pinches the controlling nerves, the size decreases.

9. It is often thought that muscle pain means that muscle cells are ruptured. If that is the case, it is a serious and even dangerous health situation, because the contents of those cells act as a poison. Training does cause a little damage to muscles. However, it is about cracks in the proteins, not the cell itself. This slight damage prompts the body to repair and the so-called “overcompensation” by building in some extra reserve to be able to cope with the effort next time. And that is exactly what we want.

10. We usually have muscle pain a day after an effort and it disappears a day later. With a horse this can last up to three days. This is due to the plant-based low-energy diet, which means that recovery takes longer.

11. No. A well-tailored ration helps, but a horse is simply built to handle high-fiber, low energy roughage. He becomes ill from large amounts of quickly digestible sugar rich hard feed.

12. Haha, trick question. A horse has no muscles in his lower legs.

Some training tips:

• The neck is a flexible garden hose that can go in all directions

• By varying between effort and relaxation you build muscle

• Always vary posture and pace during a workout

• Good training is a form of physiotherapy

• Muscular pain manifests itself in a horse later than in a human

Recovery time in horsetraining: play the muscle quiz

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Training is necessary to improve performance. In a useful training you go to the limit, you keep it there for a while or you even go a little further and then you go back to the relaxation. This can be an endurance effort, but also a bend. Just by teasing the muscles a little, they get better. Provided you give them enough recovery time.

In terms of recovery after exertion, a horse needs more time than a human. Up to three days after a hard workout. While a person usually is ready again after a day. That has to do with the differences in digestion. A horse’s fiber-rich diet is slower to digest than our sandwich or energy drink. That recovery speed cannot be artificially accelerated with miracle drugs.

If you want to train a horse properly, it is wise to make a plan and keep track of how it goes, so that you can make adjustments. There are plenty of handy systems for this, but a normal notebook also helps. It is important to progress gradually. Regularity and structure ensure that a body can adapt to what is being asked. There are people who leave a horse for a week and then suddenly take him on an intensive three-hour hack, with a lot of canter and gallop. After which they leave him again for a week. A horse is naturally a better athlete than us, so it can handle that performance. But such a peak load is an attack on his body. You also get that effect if you keep a horse in the stable for 23 hours per day and then let him work hard for one hour per day. Apart from the undesirable aspect of welfare, it is unhealthy. How would you feel if we locked you up in a small bedroom and then take you to the running track once a day for an hour of training?

Play the big muscle quiz. Do you know the answer to the questions? (Read the answers here tomorrow!)

1. What percentage of the horse’s body consists of muscles?

2. Can you influence all the muscles of a horse?

3. How do you get a horse to gain more muscle?

4. What kind of nutrient is needed for muscle building?

5. Is it useful to feed a horse before training?

6. How many types of muscle cells does a horse have?

7. What type do you want for an endurance horse? And a jumping horse? And a dressage horse?

8. What happens to the back muscles if the saddle does not fit properly?

9. What is muscle pain?

10. Do horses have muscle pain in the same way as we do?

11. Is there any point in giving a horse an energy drink?

12. What should you do if a horse has a muscle injury near the fetlock joint of his left front leg?

Training a horse: muscles and feeding

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To train correctly with a horse and to prevent injuries, it is useful if you know something about anatomy and biomechanics. The functioning of the muscles, for example. I always like to listen to exercise physiologist Dr. Eric van Breda, who can talk endlessly about that. About 45 to 55 percent of a horse’s body is made up of muscles. Because muscle cells can contract and relax again, they ensure movement. Some are controlled consciously, others – like the heart – all by themselves. There are many misunderstandings about muscles. To name one: a horse can never gain more muscles. How many muscle cells a horse has is hereditary. You can’t change that, no matter how much you practice. Muscles can become thicker through training. If you train a horse, all kinds of substances in those muscle cells are used up and some damage occurs, in the form of cracks in proteins. That’s okay, it’s a natural process. It is actually the intention of training. It is an incentive for the muscle cells to build in some extras during recovery, so that next time they are prepared for the requested effort. This extra reserve makes the muscles thicker, making it look like a horse has gained more muscles.

Fuel

Muscles need fuel, but also materials to repair the damage after an effort. Carbohydrates and fats provide energy. Proteins are the building blocks for recovery. Many riders think that proteins are bad for a horse. That’s not right, they are needed. But don’t stuff a horse with proteins, carbohydrates and fats, because you want more muscle building. It is a matter of a correct amount of feed, in combination with training. Horses become fat from too much feed with not enough labor, which is unhealthy. Most dressage, jumping and recreational horses perform well on a basic ration of a lot of roughage and a little hard feed. Only with more extreme exertion, for example for endurance or eventing, it is wise to investigate, perhaps with expert help, whether the diet should be supplemented.

Warning: know how

Dr. Eric van Breda warns that the diet can also have a negative effect on muscles. Take the time of feeding, for example. Some riders feed a horse just before an effort. This is not wise, because the processing of a meal causes fluctuations in glucose and insulin levels, which can make a horse feel tired or somewhat uncoordinated. It is also not necessary, because if a horse has been trained more often, there is a store of energy in a muscle cell. Incidentally, you can give roughage, because it digests so slowly that it does not cause fluctuations. If you are going to do something exciting with a horse, it is good to give some roughage, because chewing has a stress-reducing effect. This is because it produces saliva. This lowers the acidity of the stomach and gives a horse a pleasant feeling.

Endurance or exertion

Training not only stimulates muscle cells to make more reserves. Converting fuel in the cells into energy also becomes increasingly efficient. No matter how well you exercise, horses have a predisposition to the type of muscle cells they naturally have. They are born with that. You have the red ones, which give more endurance. White muscle fibers are suitable for short power bursts. Arabs, for example, have more red muscle fibers and are therefore suitable for endurance. Horses also have a small amount of mixed muscle cells, which through specific training become suitable for endurance or exertion. This is reversible, but it takes time. If you have done a lot of endurance training, the mixed muscles are focused on endurance and less on explosive power. You can change this by changing the training. But that will take a few weeks.

When muscles are not used, they do not disappear, but they do become thinner. Anyone who has ever had an arm or a leg in a cast can relate to this. Unused muscles go to a minimum level at which they just survive. This also happens when a nerve is blocked, for example by an ill-fitting saddle. Only in very severe malnutrition does the body break down muscles to use the proteins as fuel for the brain.

Muscle pain occurs when muscle cells are damaged by training. People often talk about “ruptured muscle cells”, but it is usually not that bad. Only when you have really gone too far muscle cells can tear, which is immediately very dangerous for a horse. This releases the content that contains myoglobin. That is poisonous for the kidneys. If this happens, the urine has a brown color. If you see that, your horse has a big problem and you should immediately call the vet. But then you must have done something very foolish trainingwise, because a horse can naturally cope with a lot. Much more than a human.

Tying up

Brown urine also occurs with Monday morning disease or azoturia. This is a form of tying up, in which cells are damaged. But the cause is different. It arises when a horse that is trained a lot and therefore receives energy-rich (power) food, is suddenly on rest for a day. If the amount of food is not drastically reduced, he will get an overdose of fuel, causing the muscle cells to explode, as it were. A horse with this problem can hardly walk from pain from one moment to the next. And you shouldn’t ask that of him. Call the vet right away! It’s called “Monday morning disease ” because it used to happen when workhorses had rest on Sunday and still were fed the usual amount. The moral of the story is of course that you have to adjust the diet to the energy consumption.

Every horse can be trained

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Every horse can be trained. My father used to say: everything in the stable will be trained correctly. That was mainly because we had no money and I got the leftovers, horses with problems or no one could do anything with. However, it was a good challenge to make something of them. I still don’t care with what type of horse pupils come to me. Every horse has something nice and if you are willing to take the time to work on something, it will always get better. Realism is necessary here. I can improve a horse, but not do magic. Instructors should be optimistic, but remain honest. One of my loyal students once came with a Frisian with very crooked legs. I had never seen them that crooked before. The horse had a fantastic character and a lot of enthusiasm. We started training the mare. The canter was a problem. It is more often with Frisians, but this one really couldn’t do it. By taking her to the beach a lot, doing some driving and rewarding exuberantly for short stretches of canter, it worked out well. Because of all the training, the legs even seemed to become slightly straighter. Of course, there is no international dressage career for such a horse. But they can all go to advanced level. Dressage training is also useful if you want to score in a different discipline. Endurance horses remain sound when you teach them to use their back the right way, with their balance spread over four legs. I have all kinds of horses in all sizes in my lessons. I am convinced that through proper training with a lot of patience you can improve each horse physically. I have a pupils with an advanced horse of 28 year old. Getting him supple takes a little more time and in terms of exercises the first part of the lesson I focus on flexibility and harmony. With the transitions and the sideway movements we wait until the second part of the training, until he has warmed up well and we do not repeat those too often. He is healthy, happy and fit. Riding is not only fun, it is also a form of physical therapy.

The amount and frequency of training depends on what you want to achieve and the type of horse you have. I am talking here from a luxurious situation, where horses live in a field every day. If not, they should be taken out of the stable as much as possible. But that is different from training. Socrates is a nervous hot-head. It is best to train them briefly every day. Not too many new things at a time. I offer a lot of relaxation and a few exercises. This is also better for older horses: a little every day. However, Dutch Design thrives better with some more time off in between, with the occasional long hack lasting two to three hours. He doesn’t want to go in a school every day. And when we are I have to do as many varied exercises as possible and not repeat too much to keep his attention. I used to train my international top horse Davy for a maximum of 3 to 4 times a week and always first in canter. What you should not do is do nothing for a longer period of time and then suddenly get to work. That is asking for trouble. If you want to know how that feels, do a 10 kilometers run untrained yourself.

Remember that muscle pain in horses does not manifest until later. People usually have this after 24 to 48 hours, horses after 36 to 72 hours. So if you’ve done a lot, take it easy until he’s recovered. Do not put him on rest but do a quiet hack with some trot or canter with a slightly longer neck.

We talked briefly about the difference between left and right. Check out the earlier blogpaosts. If you work on this, the “stiff” side becomes smoother. This feeling can switch sides after some time. Adjust according to what you feel.

 

How to train a horse

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Training a horse has several aspects. You want to make his already beautiful natural way of moving even more beautiful. You want to make him stronger and more flexible in the right places. But what you mainly want is for him to do something on a command from you. So obedience. That means practice. Tuning into each other. Learn to understand what you mean.

I sometimes mockingly say that training a horse is not that difficult at all. You do the opposite of what he wants and you will be fine. If a horse wants to go faster by himself, you don’t allow it. Get him back to the pace you want and then release the pressure of the rein. You repeat this until the penny drops and he stays in that tempo, without you having to take him back again and again. Depending on the type of horse, it can take quite some time. And if something happens, something other than normal, he quickly falls back into his old mistake. An important point here is that you release, so the pressure decreases if he does what you want. Because that is a reward for him.

One aid, not twenty

It is the other way around for horses that are slowing down all the time. At that moment you encourage them to engage more. Don’t keep repeating your aid endlessly, he has to answer if you ask. So first a light aid, with no response a stronger one and if he still does not go, then you really should be bold. Do not give leg aids all the time as a precaution. Only give it if you want something from him and make sure he responds. One aid, not twenty. Mean it and he also needs to know that you mean it. And this should always be the same. Do not wait with your correction until the tempo is completely gone. As soon as something changes without you having asked for it, you have to act against it. If you correct it on time, before things get completely out of hand, the aid can be small.

What applies to faster and slower applies equally to left and right. Every horse is crooked by nature. In other words, it has one side that bends more easily and another side that is stiffer. I will come back to that in detail, because this is a key point in riding. We call that straightening, but I actually find that a difficult expression. It reminds me of something stiff, like a lamp post. While straightness means that you make a horse equally flexible on both sides, train the weak hind leg more and make the strong hind leg more flexible, so that it can move under the body more. To make it simple, if a horse tends to bend easily to the left, don’t do that. Keep straight or even bend slightly the other way. Stiff to the right? Then keep that side a little flexed, also on the straight line.

A flexible garden hose

There is a catch in this simplification. A horse’s neck is like a flexible garden hose, which can go in any direction. Find a picture of a skeleton. There are no protrusions on the cervical vertebrae, which is why the construction bends more easily. If a horse is tight to the right and you only bend the neck, it does not help. He is supposed to stretch his body. You should move the shoulders between two reins, not just pull the head to the side. As promised, I will further elaborate on straightening later, this is about the principle of training: do the opposite of what happens under you. If a horse naturally likes to walk with its head up, try riding its neck forward-down in training. He prefers to move like a vacuum cleaner, with his nose on the ground on the forehand, then ride him with his head higher and neck shorter.

Whatever you do, no muscle will benefit if it is constantly contracted. A bodybuilder does not gain strength by holding a weight in the air for half an hour, but by lifting and putting it down alternately. The alternation between tension and relaxation trains the muscles and that is what you have to do. Ask something and let your horse relax again. Vary the posture. Vary in tempo.

How to reward a horse

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I’ve talked about being patient before. Many riders say they are. But then there are competitions, rosettes to be won or there is an audience and the ego plays up. What will the outside world think about it?

Just like people, horses have different learning abilities. One picks up something a little easier than the other. This is partly due to their aptitude, which is how simple it is physically for them to answer the question and how intelligent they are. It matters a lot if what you want to teach them is offered in a way that suits them. In addition, I now revert to the four different natural behavioural preferences that exist. Each requires a different approach. Some prefer step by step, others like a challenge. One wants a fast learning pace, the other does not. Whatever it is, horses don’t know about our plans, expectations or the economic value they represent. It is us who have a double agenda.

A horse does not know your agenda or expectation
It is perhaps more important that you truly love a horse than that you are an excellent rider. I know many examples of perhaps less talented riders, who went on to compete on a very high level because they had a deep bond with their horses, based on trust. These people were patient and affectionate so their horses went out of their way to understand what was required of them, because that’s how a horse works. It is people who betray confidence, not the horse. If things go wrong this can almost always be attributed to communication problems or a lack of knowledge of how a horse works.

Know your horse

Take the time to find out what kind of personality your horse is. This can be done by having a profile made by a professional. But you can also discover it for yourself by spending time with him. What does he like, what makes him happy, what frightens him or makes him nervous? You don’t have to ride him every day. Groom, hug or play with him. Do in hand work and lungeing. If he does something you don’t want, try to ignore it. Ask him something he understands so that he can give the correct answer and you can reward him. Setting boundaries is allowed and it means you sometimes have to be tough. “No means No”, but in a way that your horse understands. So be consistent (always the same) and without hitting, shouting or nagging.

Watch your posture. For a horse that is a kind of language in his nonverbal communication. Huddled and turned away means something completely different than firmly standing with your shoulders back. Straight towards him with your body and your eyes means that you as a predator prepare for the attack. A horse does not have swinging arms but legs and a tail that can swing, so those arms are viewed with suspicion.

How do you reward?

With syrup you catch more flies than with vinegar. Reward works more effectively if you want a horse to do a little better. What exactly is a reward for a horse? That is different from what we often think. How do you reward your horse? Is it by patting his neck? Do you think he also experiences that as a reward? While we’re at it, how do you punish him? Do you ever think about this?

Punishment never causes anything to improve. With punishment he learns not to do something, but it doesn’t help him to do something better. So if you want to improve on something in riding, such as a shoulder in or backing up, it won’t work if you whack him or get angry. You can sometimes touch him with a dressage whip to point something out. But I’m talking about something completely different from hitting him. Have you ever tried the whip on your own leg? It hurts!

Let us go back to the topic of “reward”. You can achieve a lot with this when used the right way and especially at the right time. Reward the moment they do something you like encouraging them to want to repeat it. They gain something.

Patting the neck is not a natural reward for a horse. When it is done for the first time they are often shocked.  It is an easy movement for us humans with our arms and hands, using them on a creature with such a long neck. It has become established as the reward for the horse. He learns, if you do it often enough and after a period of time, to understand what you mean. So, if he knows patting the neck can be used as a reward, don’t hit too hard in your enthusiasm and risk frightening him.

What is a much greater reward for a horse is the removal of pressure. Suppose you sit on his back and you push his side with your right calf. A horse is a sensitive animal who can even notice a fly on his skin. That push doesn’t really hurt but he doesn’t like it. If he steps sideways to the left, away from your leg, stop pushing. At that point he learns that if you put your right leg on and he steps to the left, you “release” the pressure from your leg. So that’s what he will do from now on, provided you really take away that pressure every time.

As a reward, taking pressure off works best. You have to be careful with giving treats. It is also not very comfortable if you have to bend all the way forward from the saddle to give something nice. There are trainers who claim that eating is not a reward for a horse, because he eats grass and so his food grows all around him. But when I see how mine react to a treat, I doubt this. Sugar is bad for their health and before you know it they grab your coat to get some. So use treats in moderation.

Incidentally, giving sweets or food is a typically human form of reward. We do that with children too. Eating is a basic necessity of life, which is necessary for survival. When we give away food, we do something “good” for someone else, which creates a pleasant feeling for ourselves. Giving too much away to others or animals is an overreaction of that. I sometimes find myself doing this with my animals. Fortunately, I’ve learned enough to realize that giving a handful of hay is healthier than a treat (and just as pleasant if not more) for a horse. It is also very human to think that an extra scoop of hard feed is better. That is not the case. Less is often healthier for him. The most important thing is that a horse does not experience it as a reward, because he does not understand the idea of ​​”more” or “less”. It is very much like not feeding a horse because it has been “naughty”. Or even more stupid: not giving a horse anything to eat because you had an altercation with his owner… (believe me, this happens!) Horses do  not understand the message behind it.

Let’s go back to training for a moment and find out what a horse likes as a reward. Some horses like that pat on the neck once they have learned what it means. Others prefer you to scratch the withers. Some horses like to be talked to in a friendly way, while others like to be exuberantly applauded. That depends very much on their natural behavioural preference. Rewarding incorrectly, which is different from rewarding at the wrong time, can even cause fear or uncertainty.

You can use a reward to encourage desired behaviour, but if you overdo it the reward loses its meaning. Behavioural scientists sometimes explain this works like using a slot machine, because it only pays out the jackpot every now and then, which makes it is so addictive for you to keep playing and keeps your attention. If you would win constantly it would no longer be exciting. If you constantly reward a horse he will no longer see it as a reward, as it then becomes “normal”.

Just walking on a long rein in between is also a form of reward for a horse. If he’s doing something right, let him stretch his neck and relax his muscles. If he has done his best for half an hour, then do something that you know he can do well. Something that is easy to him and what he likes to do, after which you then end the training. Such a positive finale makes him eager to do something nice with you next time. It may be that you go for a short hack with him at the end or you trot him over some poles. Or do an exercise that he finds funny. I have a pupil with a horse who likes half pass. It may sound crazy, but you can see his ears go up and he gets more bounce in his stride. So, at the end of the training he is allowed to do a few half passes as his reward. My giant  “DD” thinks passage is a hoot. He needs to develop more power but you feel that he thinks it takes little effort. He is as light as a feather at the front. It may sound strange to keep such a potentially heavy exercise until the end of the training, but I only do it for a short time and he goes back to his friends very satisfied with himself.

How does a horse learn?

A horse can learn something in different ways. These are habituation, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Complicating terms for something we use every day. An example of habituation is the saddle on the back of a horse. After a while he learns that this will not hurt (it becomes a habit). Habituation can also occur if you constantly give leg aids without really insisting on a reaction (he will become desensitized from the habit). These repeated aids also don’t mean anything anymore, just like the saddle on his back.

Classical conditioning means that you link an aid to something that produces a reaction, after which you can omit that intermediate step after a while. For example, you give leg aids forwards and then immediately tap the whip to strengthen your clue. If you repeat that a few times, only those legs are enough to make him move forward.

Operant conditioning means that you reward a horse for a desired response to an aid. This can be done by patting his neck, cuddling, talking to him, giving sweets or by removing pressure. The removal of pressure works best for horses as a reward when teaching.

Fear and tension ensures that a horse learns nothing. His mind is not “open” to recording information. All he wants is to run. He falls back on his primary instinct. Therefore, using force or a pain stimulus is never the way to teach or improve. When a horse tenses up, he is not open to your signals. Your aids will not get through.

• A horse never fools you

• He does not know what plans or expectations you have

• Punishment does not improve your exercise

• Coercion and pain impede learning ability