Energy and Strength

How does energy become power?
Your horse gets energy from food. Even in staple food, hay, there is a lot of digestible energy that is used for many metabolic processes in the horse.

In muscle metabolism, energy is used to build strength. Without muscles there is no movement! A horse has over 250 paired muscles. These connect the different bones with each other and move them through the joints. This means that energy is consumed with every movement.

How does such a muscle actually work?
A muscle can be imagined as spindle-shaped. At both ends, the muscle is attached to the bone by tendons. All skeletal muscles have one or more opponents that should be in balance with one another.

A muscle consists of many muscle fibre bundles, which in turn consist of a large number of muscle fibres. A muscle fibre contains several myofibrils, which are mainly composed of the proteins myosin and actin. A nerve stimulus causes a contraction to take place there, in which energy (ATP) is consumed and various other metabolic processes are involved. This contraction shortens the entire muscle and thus develops its strength.

The muscles of a riding horse
The body of our horse is a functional unit - everything is interconnected.

When we ride our horses, we put a lot of strain on their muscles. A horse's body is not naturally designed to carry us humans on its back. Therefore, targeted muscle building is the basis for a healthy riding horse, regardless of the discipline, whether you are a dressage rider, prefer distance rides or are a leisure rider.

Does your horse have recurring muscle problems such as tension, insufficient muscle growth, etc? This can have various causes. Either the problems are caused by external factors, e.g an unsuitable saddle, or there could be physical causes. Nowadays there are various therapeutic treatment methods for this, such as physiotherapy or osteopathy. Of course, it is fundamentally important that muscle metabolism is working properly, which can be activated and supported by correct feeding.

Muscle tension
The causes of muscle tension can have different origins: Sometimes a tight saddle is to blame, other times unbalanced or unphysiological training or a painful hoof position and the resulting compensation posture. Even a misaligned tooth usually leads to muscle tension. Horses that are under stress also tend to have tense muscles. Basically, one can say that a muscle becomes tense as a result of overloading the corresponding muscle chain.

A tense muscle needs more nutrients, such as magnesium or vitamin E, to relax the muscle cells again.

Stiefel E-Plus / Stiefel E-Power Liquid - For performance and fitness
Vitamin E is a fat-soluble vitamin and a high-quality antioxidant. It is involved in numerous processes, which in turn have a positive effect on muscle building. Vitamin E improves the oxygen supply in the muscle cells and thereby improves performance. In addition, its antioxidant effects render aggressive compounds in the body harmless. Vitamin E should always be provided in sufficient quantities during high performance and sport. A lack of vitamin E can lead to decreased performance, muscle problems and tension.

Selenium is an essential trace element and is built into muscle cells in conjunction with the essential amino acid lysine. In addition, selenium plays an important role in protecting cell membranes from oxidative destruction and is also a component of various enzymes.

Muscle building
Muscles are mostly made up of protein. Protein, therefore, plays a particularly important role in building muscle, as well as in regeneration. In order for the muscle to grow, it must be trained (correctly).

The muscles should be exhausted to a certain extent after training so that the metabolism receives the decisive message that more energy is needed here. So the body begins to thicken the muscle fibres. To do this, he needs protein. Protein can only be built up if all the necessary building blocks are available in the body. The building blocks required are 20 different amino acids. Some of them can be produced by the horse itself, others have to be added with the feed. If only one of these amino acids is missing, the body cannot build up any further proteins!

That is why it is important to support horses in the training phase with the right feed. But if you feed protein/amino acids without training the horse at the same time, no muscles will build up. This only works in conjunction with the right training.

Stiefel Elomin - For muscles and growth
Stiefel Elomin with valuable amino acids is, so to speak, a protein shake for your horse. It contains essential amino acids that cannot be produced by the body but are necessary for protein synthesis.

Lysine and methionine are particularly important in muscle-building. Lysine promotes energy metabolism in the muscle cells and also contributes to the general strengthening of the immune system. Methionine is jointly responsible for building up the muscles and is significantly involved in sulfur metabolism, which influences the health/growth of the coat and hooves.

Stiefel Mag12 / Stiefel Mag Power Liquid
Magnesium influences the production of stress hormones, which in turn have an effect on muscle tension. Magnesium also helps regulate cardiac activity and thus lower the level of stress and relax the muscles. If the horse is constantly suffering from muscle tension, the consumption of magnesium and thus the dosage requirement is correspondingly higher.

THE SECRET TIP FOR BUILDING MUSCLE

Stiefel Rice Germ Oil
This tasteless oil is rich in essential fatty acids and contains a lot of natural vitamin E. It also contains the active ingredient gamma-oryzanol, which can have a positive effect on testosterone production. Testosterone in turn promotes muscle metabolism and thus muscle building.