By KATIE BOWERSOX
As an athletic trainer, the recent interest in athletic performance in the equestrian world has not gone unnoticed. More and more riders have been advocating for cross-training, eating healthy, and recovering like athletes. However, the horse world is very late to the party. Other professional sports such as baseball, football, and soccer, have been using objective data to guide their training and set goals.
Equestrians seem like they’re just throwing darts at the board instead of having specific targets. Every other elite-level sport is constantly trying to find a new edge to get a leg up on the competition. For equestrians, targeted training with objective measures could be our edge to everyone else’s standard.
Heart rate variation (HRV), respiratory rate, and range of motion aren’t just buzzwords trending in sports science right now, they are useful objective measures that can quantify your performance, health, and recovery.
HRV is a neurological measure that measures the time between heartbeats to track nervous system health over time. In general, a higher HRV (longer time between heartbeats) is indicative of strong nervous system health and is related to good cardiovascular health. HRV allows you to objectively measure physiological stress and the body’s reaction to different activities and is a more accurate measure of what is actually going on in your body more than subjective feelings. For example, you may be sore after what you perceive as a really hard workout, but your body did not find it physiologically demanding.
If you are sore after a workout, you may try popular recovery modalities such as a cold tub or sauna. However, depending on what your goals are you may be selecting the wrong recovery modalities or, if your HRV did not get lower than your normal range, you may not need recovery at all. This means you may have wasted a day doing ‘recovery’ when your body was able to workout.
The best analogy for understanding HRV is to think of it like your body’s gas tank. Let’s say your HRV the day after a grand prix is a 39. Your gas tank is pretty low. You’re feeling good but your HRV says otherwise. This would be a good day to focus on recovery. However, let’s say it is the day after your grand prix and despite being tired and a bit sore your HRV is a 70. You have enough gas in your tank to do a cross-training workout that day and get good adaptations out of it. That is the first benefit of using HRV, you know exactly what your body can and cannot handle on a given day so you know what you should or shouldn’t do rather than trying to guess.
Next is recovery. There are so many popular recovery modalities on the market. Ice tubs, saunas, massage, cupping, dry needling, contrast, and the list goes on. When you look up these modalities they all say they are good for recovery, but in what ways?
Some of these are anti-inflammatory, meaning they decrease inflammation and others are pro-inflammatory, meaning they increase inflammation. Inflammation has gotten a bad rep for causing pain and discomfort however, recent research has proven that controlled levels of inflammation can be good to promote tissue regeneration and help heal injuries. Think about it this way, inflammation is your body’s natural response to tissue damage, and not all tissue damage is bad.
When you lift weights you are breaking down tissue in order for it to rebuild itself stronger. If we stop the inflammation following a weight training workout we are stopping the body from how it will naturally rebuild itself, preventing the exact adaptation we were trying to gain by weight training in the first place.
In the case of chronic soreness, this is usually due to a lack of tissue healing in the area so we need to promote inflammation to the area so that the body can heal that tissue. However, sometimes enough inflammation builds up and our body overreacts to something. This can cause pain and a lack of function as well as damage to nearby healthy tissue so we have to slow the process down. Knowing what our goal is (ie. tissue growth, decrease inflammation or increase inflammation), allows us to pick the most appropriate recovery modality.
The effectiveness of each modality we use can be measured by the change in HRV. Not every modality works on everyone the same and it might not work the same every time. Using HRV, we can tell what works best for us and when it may be time to try something new.
Another objective measure we can use to enhance athletic performance is range of motion. With enough research, we can determine what ranges of motion are normal in elite riders versus amateur-level riders. This can give riders target goals when they are stretching and working on gaining mobility if we know where we need to gain it and how much we need. You can also use acute changes in ranges of motion to track workload.
Changes in range of motion is often how physiological demand presents itself externally, so if you do not have access to HRV tracking technology this may be a more accessible option. For example, after a hard workout, you may lose hip range of motion. From there, you can use whatever recovery modality works for you best that is best for your target adaptation and then see how much range of motion you restore. The more range of motion you can restore the more effective that modality was for promoting recovery.
Finding the Right Fit
HRV, range of motion, recovery, modality, inflammation, there’s a lot to keep track of! Most professional riders have enough to worry about and trying to add sports science and data tracking to the mix just seems like too much to keep straight. Private consulting is a small sector that is currently booming with new opportunities. Currently, the only certification in this specialty is the Certified Performance and Sport Scientist certification from the National Strength and Conditioning Association.
When looking for a sports scientist consultant, the most important thing is to check their resume. In this field, experience is more important than their degree or certifications. Ask what teams or athletes they have worked with before? What metrics do they use and track? How have they used this data in the past and were they successful? You will also have to make a choice about what device you will use to collect this data. There are many options on the market each with their own pros and cons so be sure to do your research and ask your selected consultant what they recommend and why.
The equestrian world has made giant leaps towards advocating for our sport, starting with treating ourselves like athletes. The growing popularity of weightlifting, pilates, and yoga has taken cross-training from trendy to standard. Recovery to promote performance has spread through every barn and gym causing it to lose its edge in making a single rider better than the rest. Almost every other sport has moved towards using sports science to create small changes with huge results and the horse world needs to keep up. As those at the top of our sport become more and more desperate to win, sports science may be the low-hanging fruit we are missing out on.
About the Author
Katie Bowersox is an athletic trainer, writer, wine lover, dog mom, and equestrian! A 2023 graduate from The Ohio State University with a Bachelors of Science in Athletic training and a 2024 graduate from the University of Florida with a Masters of Science in Applied Physiology and Kinesiology. She began writing when she took her first full-time job. She was fortunate to spend time as an intern with Division 1 sports teams, as well as Minor League Baseball, but decided she wanted more time to dedicate to horses. Originally from Maryland, she now resides in Nashville, TN with her dog Wyatt.
Click here to visit her website or follow her on Instagram here.
