What Does Focus Have to do with Fitness?

It is a conundrum that many riders have faced in the midst of consistent, focused effort: despite hours of invested time and exercises, the horse’s fitness and athleticism show no improvement. Even the most wisely chosen exercises do not seem to be working. One explanation for this might be due to the precision with which they are executed. Research from the past few years, though, has revealed an alternative — and surprisingly non-physical — explanation for some of these cases.

What we have learned recently about horses’ brain function shows us that curiosity, or mental engagement, plays a large role in the success of physical adaptations. A horse needs to be alert enough (not too much, not too little) in order to form the neural pathway bridges that create new movement patterns.

When a horse participates in a task without giving it full attention, whether from dullness OR tension/anxiety, he does not form an optimal number of synapses from the task that he would otherwise. This means he fails to form the pathways in his brain that connect nerve signals for particular movements. In fact, these nerve signals will degrade over time due to lack of stimulation and chemical input to the areas of the brain that store them.

In the case of fitness, this translates to diminishing returns. Rather than make consistent positive gains in the precision and/or power of his locomotion, the horse idles at his current fitness level. Many horses will not make the fitness gains you would expect after routinely performing exercises that promise strength, agility, and so on.

As an example from my own training, I had the opportunity to work with a lovely Andalusian mare that had been schooled extensively with various groundwork programs. The problem was that she had done TOO much groundwork. She was docile and obedient about the patterns and games that her owner liked to do with her, but she went through the motions with a vacant expression and slow, shuffling steps. She was bored and tuned out. The mare was not doing anything “wrong” per se, but she resembled a sullen child sitting slumped at her desk passively listening to her teacher.

Consequently, when the mare came to me at seven years old, she had some persistent movement and balance challenges. She could not sustain a canter for any duration, she did not bend through her spine to the right, and her body posture was disorganized and unbalanced for a horse of her age. The solution? Use entirely new exercises to encourage full mental and physical engagement. Within six months, she could sustain a very nice canter and developed much greater propulsive strength.

Your fitness goals rely on keeping your horse’s attention dialed in. Any time you notice it shifting, whether tension is escalating or the horse is fading and getting dull, you need to make a change. This might be as simple as speeding up or slowing down, changing gaits, switching to a different exercise, or taking a quick break.

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Photo: iStock/SerrNovik