globecanvas

45 minutes on the trainer. No painkillers. 20 minutes of actual tempo. Feeling weak but no pain! Optimistic.

Heathpack 

globecanvas

@Heathpack, this is after 72 hours with zero carbs, as per the horse Rx. No idea if it's correlated but I will definitely be cutting back on carbs in the future any time I am off the bike for more than a day.

Heathpack 

Horses cannot actually go zero carb, but I know what you're saying.

Did you read that paper I sent you? It was interesting how one subset of commonly affected horses is the very fit racing thoroughbred. The biggest long-term management principle might actually be not taking training breaks, that seems to be what works for them. Personally, if I were you I wouldn't go zero carb forever, just transition back to your normal when you're riding well again.

Also interesting when you think about it that thoroughbreds are highly inbred freaks of nature, they are incredible aerobic machines. Their exceptionalism is traditionally thought to relate to cardiovascular function, especially heart size and strength. But you have to wonder as well if somehow differences in the way carbohydrate is stored/utilized by muscle has something to do with being fast in an endurance sport too. Right now it sucks to be you, but look on the bright side: it could be the negative side of a positive thing.

We see some exertional myopathies in dogs too, just not quite as commonly. But never in cats that I'm aware of. (But how would you ever provoke an episode in your typical housecat, lol?).

Horses and dogs are aerobic endurance machines. Cats are more sprinty. Whatever that means. (Probably nothing.)

globecanvas

I did read the paper, thank you for pointing me to it. It was impressively comprehensive (for completeness: American Association of Equine Practitioners).

Zero carb was just to get through this, and I'm declaring myself mostly through it. I just had a banana, and some rice with lunch. I'm not going to start plowing through the muesli for a couple of days though.

I've been thinking about this as well. The major differences in how I've been training this offseason compared to previous years are (1) more frequent vo2max intervals and (2) more fast-twitch work (plyo and sprints). Given that I never had a hint of this problem in the past, and this year it's been a background problem since December and now a foreground problem, I do wonder if I've somehow trained myself into a sort of metabolic profile that triggers a preexisting genetic issue.

TheKillerPenguin

You could probably train cats and stage a cat race with a bunch of laser pointers. It could be the next big thing at Saratoga!

Enthalpic

Do the horses develop liver problems / hepatomegaly as well?

mike868y

anaerobic ladders on the rollers today. didn't feel great but hit better numbers than last week. next block these go up from 30"-2' to 1'-3'.

Heathpack 

No, they need the fiber for intestinal health. But they digest some of the fiber that humans cannot and then some of that fiber is converted to sugars and absorbed. If you go zero carb, a horse would likely get very sick from colic and possibly die.

https://www.triplecrownfeed.com/arti...carbhorsefeed/

Enthalpic

Sorry, I meant when they are in that glycogen excess condition. Wouldn't the liver also store excess glycogen and become enlarged?

globecanvas

As I understand it, the mechanism discussed in the AAEP paper has to do with calcium regulation, rather than excess glycogen per se. Interesting connection with malignant hyperthermia in humans.


"RER in Thoroughbreds appears to be due to disruption of the mechanism by which muscle contraction is regulated in conjunction with excitement and exercise. This mechanism of action is based on the observation that intercostal muscle biopsies from RER horses readily develop contractures when exposed to agents (halothane and caffeine) that increase intramuscular calcium release. The threshold for developing a contracture is much lower for RER horses compared to normal horses similar to a muscle disease in people and swine called malignant hyperthermia. Every time a muscle contracts, calcium is released from muscle storage sites and then taken back up into storage sites for muscle relaxation. The altered contraction and relaxation of muscle suggests that abnormal intracellular calcium regulation is the cause of this form of RER. These intramuscular calcium concentrations are extremely small compared to the amount of calcium in the rest of the body and are completely independent of dietary calcium concentrations."

Heathpack 

There are actually multiple causes of exertional myopathy in horses.

One is due to a defect in storing polysaccharide specifically in muscle (but not liver as I understand it) and this gene defect has been identified. There are also horses who store excessive polysaccharide in their muscles who don't have the identified gene defect. They probably have a different, as-yet-unidentified gene defect. Then there's the thoroughbreds who manifest a clinically identical disease but do not have abnormal polysaccharide levels in their muscle on biopsy. All three of these diseases appear identical but probably have different gene abnormalities underlying them.

Additionally, there also seem to be sporadic cases that are probably not genetic and may have to do with nutritional or environmental factors.

Probably all these diseases appear identical clinically because they all result in some sort of metabolic dysfunction with exertion which results in muscle damage. That final mechanism may well be excessive Ca++ release.

Here is a link to a research group that studies these disease in horses. This link is to the thoroughbred disease, RER. On the sidebar to the left are links to info about the polysaccharide storage diseases.

Recurrent Exertional Rhabdomyolysis (RER) - CVM - Equine Genetics and Genomics Laboratory, University of Minnesota

FWIW horses get this exertional rhabdomyolysis, which for lay people means that there is actual physical damage to the muscles. The hallmark of this is muscle pain that lasts for days after an episode and results in elevation in the blood of the (normally intracellular) muscle enzymes, CK (aka CPK) and AST, these are blood tests which @globecanvas has not had. Dogs on the other hand get exertional myopathies (note the lack of the -lysis suffix on this word) which are purely functional disorders with no muscle damage, no muscle pain, no elevation in CK and AST. Also no residual symptoms once the episode is over.
@globecanvas describes symptoms that are very similar to the equine disease.

Hermes

equine disease...hmmm @globecanvas Maybe you need to back off on the mares.

Seriously, hope you figure this out or just get better.

globecanvas

I blame my nervous inner filly.

"Thoroughbreds with the greatest risk of developing RER are young, nervous females."

rideaz

Good news!

TexMac

Easty z2 commutes with 4 sprints today, 23 miles each way
Stage race Sat & sunday

rideaz

Group ride today. I thought my legs would be dead from last week (they felt terrible yesterday and all I did was Yoga) but I felt pretty good.
I rode my Madone again, every time I think I want to sell that bike, I ride it and enjoy it so much. Idk what to do!

TheKillerPenguin

2.5hrs / 10 sprints mix of seated and standing. Saved the last one for the very end and followed @globecanvas go hard then sprint protocol, and I think just barely broke 1000w haha.

I did these with my race wheels and fresh rubber and it is noticeably quicker spinning up, which was unexpected so I kept shifting at what would normally be the right time but was way too slow. I'll be riding with my race setup more often I think.

Ygduf

In a case of serious I-regret-teasing-Aaron-karma I crashed AGAIN today. Group ride and wheels crossed ahead of me. I was rider 4 or 5 into the pile. Nice core sample taken from my right forearm and 5 real-solid chainring punctures to my left quad. Quad also has a large contusion which really hurts the worst my current injury list.

Text me for gore pics. I pulled like a 1.5cm string of fat out of my right arm when I got home. No nerves in that stuff, btw. I felt like Rambo!

Kids are due next week. We'll see if fate lets me live that long. :O

Wylde06

Lets make this a thing.

gsteinb

I'm not around here much lately. Due next week? Are they on some sort of fedex plan? It seems sooooo soon. I'm now aging in dog years, perhaps.

And stop crashing (I don't know what 'again' refers to, but quit it.)

rideaz

well damn! good luck with the healing and the kiddos coming! take care!

Ygduf

We have a scheduled c-section on the 12th. Wife is geriatric and multiple pregnancy with 2 7-lb babies make it complicated. Next Tuesday is the latest.

caloso

We had the same deal with our kids. Our old school Ob-gyn was all for a standard vaginal birth but one kid was head up, and as we got to 39 weeks, we had to schedule a C-section. I asked if we could schedule it for late night so each kid could have a different birthday, but he wouldn't go for it.

globecanvas

Our twins were emergency c-section. Ruptured placenta, by extreme good luck it occurred literally across the street from a hospital. By further remarkable luck my wife's doc was already at the hospital in surgical scrubs. I asked the admitting nurse to please call the doc and she said "oh I just saw him hold on..." and paged him on the overhead. He had literally just come out of another surgery and he was there 5 minutes later and the twins were out maybe 10 minutes after that. What's crazy is it wasn't even the hospital where we were scheduled to have the birth. Just a crazy set of coincidences.

I'll never forget the doc coming out after the twins were born and saying "everybody who has an unplanned c-section says they had an emergency c-section but believe me, she really had an emergency c-section. 10 minutes longer and it would have been a very bad outcome."

er... I'm sure it will go great for you though! Good luck with everything.