STEPS IN CONDITIONING
for
YOU AND YOUR PET (Below)
Warm up/cool Down
Core Training/Balance/Coordination
Endurance/Strength
Reactivity/Speed/Agility
Welcome to Lost Temple Fitness
Personal
Training for You and Your Pet.
Aerobic capacity, strengthening, balance and flexibility are important to
both humans and pets through all stages of life. When people
participate in activities with their performance dogs, sometimes they forget
about their own health. It is important to work on your own muscle
balance through strengthening exercises for the core and major muscle
groups. Endurance and agility training also help improve your ability
to accelerate, decelerate and to change
directions quickly without 'pulling a muscle'.
Canines that may be good in their particular sport are usually lacking core
training and strengthening.
According to
Fox News 35% of the pet population is overweight. This is in comparison to 30% of the human
population.
This can lead to diabetes, exercise intolerance, heat
intolerance, locomotion problems, heart problems and arthritis
in
humans, as well as pets.
I have been a licensed PTA in MA
for over 14 years, and certified through ACE as a Personal Trainer for 11 years.
I also have a Dip. in Canine Fitness.
See ABOUT LOST TEMPLE
for more background info.
STEPS IN CONDITIONING YOU AND YOUR PET
(focus on the canine/human athlete)
Core Training - It All Starts HereWhy do I need to
start training my core first?
Pay attention the next time you are walking
your dog up a hill. Really feel what your muscles are doing. If
you are currently participating in Agility with your dog, you need a stable
core to help accelerate, decelerate, make quick changes in direction and
stop. There is a saying 'form follows function'. Think about
what it is that you are training for. If you are participating in
canicross, doing lying down exercises are not going to be beneficial to the
skill you are trying to achieve. Gravity influences all
movement, so effective core training must be done against gravity.
Those crunches you are doing may great for looks, but in reality it is not
helping your stomach muscles. The rectus abdominus that you
are isolating with those crunches flexes the spine only when you are lying
on your back - not when you are standing. If you feel you have to do
crunches, use a stability ball that will make you use all the muscles that
work together to help control the core. We also need balance exercises
to help with those agility moves I mentioned above.
Why Core Training for Your Pet?
The same reason we need to stabilize our core with balance and
proprioception exercises. These exercises not only strengthen
the foundation/trunk of your pet, but also help with fine motor control.
Try standing your dog on a solid surface. Make sure he is
standing with all four legs in a 'stacked position'. Can he hold that
position for more than 15 seconds (provided it is a dog that will stand
still). Is he shifting his weight. If he can't stay in that
position he may have an imbalance (provided he is not in pain from
orthopedic problems). Any dog from puppies, older dogs, couch potatoes
and sports dogs can all benefit from stability training.
The following is an
excerpt from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_(anatomy)
The core is traditionally assumed to originate
most full-body functional movement, including most sports. In addition, the
core determines to a large part a person's posture. In all, the human
anatomy is built to take force upon the bones and direct autonomic force,
through various joints, in the desired direction. The core muscles align the
spine,
ribs, and
pelvis
of a person to resist a specific force, whether static or dynamic.
Static core functionality is the ability of one's core to align the
skeleton to resist a force that does not change.
An example of static core function is firing a rifle in the
prone position. To maintain accuracy, the shooter must be
able to transfer their own body weight and the weight of the rifle into the
earth. Any attempt of the shooter to create a dynamic motion of the sights
(muscle the sights onto the target vs. allowing it the posture to aim) will
result in a jerky posture where the sights do not sit still on the target.
For the shooter to maintain accuracy, the muscles cannot exert force on the
rifle, and the skeleton must be aligned to set the rifle (and therefore the
sights) onto the target. The core, while resting on the ground and
relatively far away from the rifle, is nevertheless aligning the spine and
pelvis to which the shoulder and arms and neck are connected. For these
peripheral elements to remain static, and not move unnecessarily, the spine,
pelvis, and rib cage must be aligned towards this end. Thus the core muscles
provide support of the
axial skeleton (skull, spine, and tailbone) in an alignment
where the upper body can provide a steady, solid base for the rifle to
remain motionless.
The nature of dynamic movement must take into
account our skeletal structure (as a lever) in addition to the force of
external resistance, and consequently incorporates a vastly difference
complex of muscles and joints versus a static position.
Because of this functional design, during dynamic movement there is
more dependence on core musculature than just skeletal rigidity as in a
static situation. This is because the purpose of movement is not to resist a
static, unchanging resistance, but to resist a force that changes its
plane of motion. By incorporating movement, the bones of
the body must absorb the resistance in a fluid manner, and thus tendons,
ligaments, muscles, and innervation take on different responsibilities.
These responsibilities include postural reactions to changes in speed
(quickness of a contraction), motion (reaction time of a contraction) and
power (amount of resistance resisted in a period of time).
An example of this is walking on a slope. The
body must resist gravity while moving in a direction, and balancing itself
on uneven ground. This forces the body to align the bones in a way that
balances the body while at the same time achieving momentum through pushing
against the ground in the opposite direction of the desired movement.
Initially, it may seem that the legs are the prime movers of this action,
but without balance, the legs will only cause the person to fall over.
Therefore, the prime mover of walking is achieving core stability, and then
the legs move this stable core by using the leg muscles.
Endurance/Strength
Endurance
(muscle and cardiovascular) (aerobic-with
oxygen):
Many repetitions with sub-maximal
weight.
Muscular
endurance is the ability of a muscle or group of muscles to sustain repeated
contractions against a resistance for an extended period of time.
Cardiovascular endurance is the ability of the heart, lungs and blood
vessels to deliver oxygen to working muscles and tissues, as well as the
ability of those muscles and tissues to utilize that oxygen.
This is needed to help endure
long runs or sustained activity, as with biking, mushing or canicross.
In short, endurance or aerobic exercises increase
the heart rate and respiratory rate.
Strength
(anaerobic-without oxygen):
Single repetition with maximum resistance.
This is needed to overcome inertia for rapid
acceleration while trying to run or jump in both human and canine.
For example, this is need for a dog jumping over hurdles in an
agility trial or for sudden deceleration and multi-directional turns in
humans.
Strong muscles also help in preventing injury by helping to dissipate
repetitive landing forces when participating in weight-bearing activities,
such as agility, running, and jumping.
High repetitions and low weight will result in ‘toning’, where low
repetitions and high weight will result in ‘bulking up’.
·
Increases muscle fiber
size and contractile strength
·
Increases tendon and
ligament strength
·
Increases bone
strength
Agility/Reactivity/Speed
You will need a combination of
strength, endurance and flexibility for you and your dog to become agile at
your give sport. If you are
currently participating in Agility with your dog, you and your companion
need a stable core and strength to help accelerate, decelerate, make quick
changes in direction and stop without causing injury.
According to the Twist
Conditioning workbook, “Agility is the ability to link several fundamental
movement skills into a multidirectional pattern.
Reaction skills are the whole body responsiveness to external
stimuli, as well as muscle and joint internal reactivity.
Quickness is the ability to explosively initiate movement from a
stationary position, as well as shifting the gears of speed”.
(Twist, Peter, Twist Agility,
Quickness and & Reactivity Workbook, 2009, pg 16)
Most dogs that participate in sports are taught
this as part of their skills training.
For example, lure coursing, agility, flyball, field trials and disc.
If you are participating with your dog in agility, skijoring or disc
dog, as well as many other sports, this is something that will definitely
reduce your risk of injury on the field.
***Did you know there is also cat agility, rat agility
and rabbit agility.
***There are many cats that love taking a
walk on a leash.
If you live on the North Shore of MA and your pet are interested in personal
training, please e-mail me at losttemplepets@gmail.com
and let me
know what part of the program you would be interested in.
Always check with your
Veterinarian and MD before starting YOU or
YOUR PET on any exercise
program.
Copyright: LostTempleFitness 2010
