What factors are important to horse fitness?

  • Peak fitness and athletic performance in horses depends on a combination genetic factors, training quality and intensity, injury prevention, sports nutrition and sports medicine
  • Adequate tissue hydration, oxygenation, nourishment and drainage is crucial to fitness and performance
  • Injury prevention and prompt treatment is crucial to peak equine performance (an injured horse cannot train at peak levels, therefore, cannot reach peak genetic performance potential)
  • Environmental sensitivities can affect breathing capacities

Connective tissue (fascia, ligaments, tendons, aponeuroses, bone, hooves and cartilage) acting in concert with muscle tissue allows for physical activity to take place during equine sports performance and everyday activities.

Note

Immune provocation by antigens (foreign substances in the air or food) may decrease levels of energy, oxygen and nutrients, which are available for optimal equine health and fitness and sports performance.

The body’s first defense against foreign substances in the air or food is physical exclusion (non specific defense) via the skin and mucus membrane secretions of lungs, eyes and digestive tract. Production and maintenance of these protective tissue structures may be decreased due to genetic and lifestyle factors. Potential immune-provoking compounds (antigens) include pollens, chemicals, foods, medications, microbial constituents and environmental concerns.

What is the goal of Recovery®EQ medicine?

The ultimate goal of the sports medicine Recovery®EQ is to improve sports performance, health and fitness by decreasing tissue breakdown and lactic acid levels while increasing repair and improving breathing and circulation.

The sports medicine Recovery®EQ decreases catabolism (tissue breakdown) and increases healthy anabolism (growth and repair) of connective, epithelial and muscle tissue to increase sports performance and improve health and fitness.

The sports medicine Recovery®EQ improves horse performance and fitness by decreasing the absorption of antigens (foreign substances in the air or food that provoke performance diminishing immune responses).

Recovery®EQ

Recovery®EQ with Nutricol®, is an elite proprietary performance and wellness supplement for horses that enhances quality of life.Recovery®EQ improves healing by increasing circulation of nutrients to affected cells and extracellular structures, halting tissue damage and decreasing inflammation. It may be used on its own or in combination with prescribed medications. Ask your veterinarian how Recovery®EQ can help your horse.

Review in the prestigious Horse Journal in October and December 2003

Recovery®EQrated as “Best Performer Overall” as a pain-relieving supplement for joint pain, back pain and tendonitis – comparison of natural joint care supplements.

Review in the prestigious Horse Journal inJune 2006

“You get what you pay for” – Horse Journal quote about Recovery®EQ used as a performance enhancing supplement – comparison of natural performance enhancing supplements

How does Recovery®EQ improve fitness?

Athletic injury and age-related decline is generally associated with connective tissue structures such as ligaments, tendons, aponeuroses, fascia, bone, blood vessels and other joint structures.

Muscle tissue itself is not affected as often as is thought. If you picture the cross section of your horse’s leg muscle group, it would be similar to the cross section of a large industrial copper cable. A rubberized coating covers the entire cable. Inside the outer coat are sub groups of copper cables that are also covered with rubberized sheaths and so on, until you get down to individual copper strands.

The leg itself has many insulating sheaths (connective tissue) that reinforce and protect the muscle fibers (copper wires) from stress and trauma. The protective sheaths receive all the transference of force that occurs during training.

In other words, the tissue that receives the bulk of the stress associated with exercise is the connective tissue associated with the muscle groups.

These connective tissues tend to dry and become less flexible with age due mainly to:

  • Decreased production of fluid maintaining long-chain glycosaminoglycan structures
  • Decreased stability of cell membrane and extracellular collagen fibers
  • Decreased production of glycosaminoglycan structures also results in decreased muscle group size

Recovery®EQ, increases the structural integrity of connective tissue structures and maintains optimum tissue hydration. The potential results after using Recovery®EQ are:

  • Decreased susceptibility to injury
  • Decreased tissue breakdown
  • Faster recovery rates (shorter recovery times)
  • Decreased lactic acid buildup
  • Decreased pain and inflammation
  • Increased overall training capacity

If you optimize tissue resilience and decrease susceptibility to injury, your horse is able to train to its full potential, which increases your horse’s chance of victory. In other words, Recovery®EQ helps your horse maximize its peak genetic potential.

Less injury = Potential for harder training = Increased chance of victory

What does Recovery®EQ do?

1.Reinforces membrane and matrix structures by increasing aldimine reducible cross-linking of collagen fibers; this acts to reinforce the strength and elasticity of connective tissue structures such as cartilage, synovium, ligaments, tendons, fascia, bone, blood vessel walls, hooves, coat and the dermis of the skin (26,27)

2.Neutralizes reactive oxygen species (ROS) and catabolic enzymes before they can negatively impact cellular and extracellular structure and function; this results in increased membrane receptivity to growth factors such as insulin, somatomedins and thyroxin that are required for anabolic repair and cellular maintenance (4,10,13,28-30,35,49)

3.Decreases catabolism of membrane and matrix collagen and glycosaminoglycan (GAG) structures via decreasing the pathological production of catabolic enzymes and other biochemicals such as collagenase, elastase, hyaluronidase, tumor necrosis factor, nitric oxide synthase and xanthine oxidase*; these biochemicals are released from immune, microbial and damaged cells and cause further damage to connective and epithelial tissue structures, resulting in joint pain, inflammation, decreased performance, capillary fragility, bleeding into the lungs and other soft-tissue damage (4,25,31-35)

4.Stabilizes cellular membranes, preventing the release of compounds that promote inflammation and breathing difficulty such as histamine, serine proteases, prostaglandins and leukotrienes, by non-competitively inhibiting the release of associated inflammatory enzymes such as cyclo-oxygenase, lipoxygenase and phosphodiesterase (33,36)

5.Increases the stability and production of protective epithelial mucosal surfaces in the digestive, respiratory and genitourinary tract to decrease the absorption of antigens (environmental compounds that may initiate performance diminishing immune or non-immune mediated inflammation, spasm and damage) (37-40)

What are some other tips to improve health?

  • Incorporate a daily maintenance dose of Recovery®EQ
  • Maintain some type of periodic daily movement of your horse to improve muscle tone, circulation and lymphatic tissue “detox”
  • Consistently monitor your horse for any signs of lameness
  • Maintain regular veterinary check ups
  • Avoid excessive use of common pain medications as they actually promote tissue degeneration when used on a chronic basis (if chronic use of pain medications is maintained your horse will have fewer years of health and performance as it will degenerate faster).
  • Avoid performance sport when your horse is lame (simply masking pain with drugs when your horse is lame will further it’s risk of more severe injury).
  • Proper shoeing
  • Refer to Tips for a Healthier Horse

Exercise and Diet

  • Exercise helps reduce pain and prevents further joint damage and can help your horse maintain a healthy weight, which puts less strain on your horse joints
  • Disuse of a sore joint will cause the muscles around it to weaken, resulting in pain
  • Make sure to ask your vet how you could help your horse receive adequate nutrition necessary to build strong bones and joint structures

Proper Shoeing

  • Improper shoeing can cause a lot of joint and muscle problems and is a very significant factor in the progression of degenerative disease
  • Corrective shoeing is something that is very manageable with the help of an experienced and well-respected farrier
  • You should check your farrier’s credentials and get a few opinions of corrective shoeing techniques and ideas
  • Often times well qualified farriers have good relationships with well respected veterinarians.