Supplement Series |The truth behind Muscle Supplements
How much protein does a horse actually need? and what ingredients are in muscle supplements
Equine Science Chronicles is a newsletter about equine science research, product dives and evidence based stable management for every horse owner or enthusiast.
Muscle supplements are marketed as feed products to help promote the building of horses topline, muscle or condition in horses. They have claims such as “builds topline on show and dressage horses”, “Faster and better healing of tendon/ligament/skin injury” or “maximize equine performance, build muscle, increase stamina”. So we ask:
What ingredients are in these supplements?
How much protein does my horse actually need?
How do I build my horses muscle?
What ingredients are in muscle supplements?
Creatine
Creatine is a organic compound, mainly stored in the brain and muscles. It is made up of a variety of amino acids, and humans consume it from red meat and fish. As we know, horses are herbivories and therefore cannot absorb creatine. A study investigated creatine supplementation on quarter horses, and found no improvement in the athletic performance of the animals (Teixeira et al., 2015).
Spirulina
Spirulina is a blue-green algae that is rich in protein, iron & antioxidants. Spirulina has the same amino acid composition as linseed or oats (and are also cheaper than spirulina).
Gamma oryzanol
Gamma-oryzanol (ferulic acid) is a growth-promoting substance found in grains and isolated from rice bran oil. Gamma oryzanol is used for high cholesterol and symptoms of menopause in humans. Currently there are no published studies regarding the ability of Gamma oryzanol to build muscle in horses.
Branched Chain Amino Acids
Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) are a group of three essential amino acids: leucine, isoleucine, valine. Amino acids are the building blocks for protein in the horses diet. High crude protein forage has been found to improve muscle recovery after intensive exercise (ESSÉN-GUSTAVSSON, CONNYSSON and JANSSON, 2010). Any effect of muscle building from BCAAs will be from leucine in protein (more on this below).
HMB (B-hydroxy B-methylbutyrate)
HMB is a substance your body produces naturally when it breaks down the amino acid leucine. Just like the BCAAs, results have been found to support the hypothesis that HMB supplementation helps to prevent exercise-induced muscle damage (Ostaszewski et al., 2012). In humans, there is evidence that supports the use of HMB for muscle development and health (Hashempour et al., 2019).
Amino Acids
Amino acids are the building blocks of protein, and made of up essential amino acids and non essential amino acids.
There are muscle building supplements that contain non essential amino acids, even though NEAAs are manufactured in the body and therefore do not need to be supplemented in the horses diet. The three most important AA are Lysine, Methionine and Threonine as they are what we call limiting amino acids. When one essential amino acid is deficient, the body can only synthesize proteins to the level of availability of that amino acid, and lysine is the most likely first amino acid to be deficient. Protein quality is considered by the level of lysine available. Amino acids play a role in the development of building muscle, but a few more factors needs to be in place first. Adding amino acids to your horse without these put in place will not build muscle on its own.
How much protein does my horse need?
Crude protein requirements for horses can be calculated from knowing the bodyweight and using an equation. For an average requirement it is BW x 1.26 (Crude Protein/ day)
So for a 500kg horse in light to medium work:
500 x 1.26 = 630g of crude protein needed a day
From this we can calculate the lysine requirements (lysine is on average 4.3% of crude protein)
630/ 100 * 4.3 = 27.09g of Lysine daily requirement
Looking at tested timothy hay, which has a:
Crude protein content of 98g/kg
Lysine content of 4.74g/kg
We feed our horse 100% hay on a 2.5% BW diet (12.5kg of hay) which equates to:
1.19kg of crude protein
59.25g of Lysine a day.
This exceeds the daily requirement for protein and Lysine. Supplementing more than the required amount does not aid in further muscle development, or provide any benefit.
How do I build my horses muscle?
To build your horses muscle there needs to be a few things in place:
Your horse is being provided with sufficient calories in its diet to offset depletion from exercise (take in more than losing).
Your horse needs to be in regular work, at least four days a week of exercise to induce muscle development.
Your horses protein requirements have been met (even a 100% diet of forage can provide this as we saw above) and over supplementation of protein will not add muscle.
Overall we can see that the majority of available muscle supplements are obsolete. If your horse is in need of extra protein, linseed is an excellent source, widely available and affordable.
Remember to be diligent with supplements, read the label and ensure the ingredients and content of active ingredients is available.
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References
Teixeira, F.A., Araújo, A.L., Ramalho, L.O., Adamkosky, M.S., Lacerda, T.F. and Coelho, C.S. (2015). Oral creatine supplementation on performance of Quarter Horses used in barrel racing. Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition, 100(3), pp.513–519. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/jpn.12411.
ESSÉN-GUSTAVSSON, B., CONNYSSON, M. and JANSSON, A. (2010). Effects of crude protein intake from forage-only diets on muscle amino acids and glycogen levels in horses in training. Equine Veterinary Journal, 42, pp.341–346. doi:https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2042-3306.2010.00283.x.
Ostaszewski, P., Kowalska, A., Szarska, E., Szpotański, P., Cywinska, A., Bałasińska, B. and Sadkowski, T. (2012). Effects of β-Hydroxy-β-Methylbutyrate and γ-Oryzanol on Blood Biochemical Markers in Exercising Thoroughbred Race Horses. Journal of Equine Veterinary Science, 32(9), pp.542–551. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jevs.2012.01.002.
Hashempour, A., Hooshmand, S., Tabesh, M.R. and Alizadeh, Z. (2019). Effect of 6-week HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta methylbutyrate) supplementation on muscle strength and body composition in sedentary overweight women. Obesity Medicine, 15, p.100115. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obmed.2019.100115.
Interesting insights! Is the horse’s protein requirement fixed regardless of the amount of exercise, or is the formula you mentioned for maintenance?