As an athlete, human, or canine, it's important to continuously improve your fitness and performance. One of the best ways to achieve this is by progressively overloading your workouts, which involves gradually increasing the intensity or difficulty of your exercises over time. However, to avoid hitting a plateau or risking injury, it's crucial to periodically regress the exercises as well. Regressing exercises means going back to a simpler or easier version of an exercise your dog may have already mastered. This could include reducing the resistance in strength training, decreasing the range ..read more

There are 10 essential steps to having great workouts with your dog. If you follow these 10 steps, you will increase the effectiveness, increase the safety, and increase the enjoyment from each and every workout with your dog.  The first 5 steps, as we discussed previously, are: Motivation. Be safe. Keep it positive. Get focused. Watch your step. STEP 6: GET EQUIPPED. Equipping your canine home gym will vary with your location, your goals, your budget and many other factors. But you will need at least a few pieces of equipment to really achieve your fitness goals. In many cases, you can ..read more

Recently I was asked why one should care about canine fitness. Especially if one owned a dog that was a companion pet and not an athlete. And while I know the benefits are abundant, I have assumed, likely inaccurately, that those who were reviewing our articles, joining our community, and signing up for our programs already knew the many benefits. So let me step back and remind everyone of the many physical and mental health advantages of having your dog “hit the gym” on a regular basis. Not every dog needs to be a canine athlete, but every dog should strive to incorporate some targeted fitnes ..read more

Agility, dock diving, obedience, IPO/Schutzhund/French Ring, and flyball all have something in common. These dog sports require the dogs participating in them to execute at least one jump while training and competing in their sport. Jumping is a high-impact exercise that exponentially increases the force on the body, the joints, and the muscles. This increases the risk of injury, especially if your dog is not strong enough (read here to find out if your dog is strong enough to participate in high-impact sports) or has poor technique. Understanding the biomechanics of the canine jump is crucial ..read more

One of the primary reasons that we encourage fitness training for our canine athletes is to reduce the risk of injury in dog sports.  Fitness training involves improving a variety of fitness components including cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, proprioception, balance and stability, strength, endurance, speed, and power. We use the K9 Fitness Pyramid as a visual representation of these components. Different sports have different specific fitness requirements but all sports involve all of these to some degree. (For more information on this, read our blog on training in the K9 Fitness P ..read more

Every dog needs a little R and R, right? This can be a confusing topic for those whose dogs train and compete in canine sports. What exactly does a rest day entail for your dog as a canine athlete? What can your dog do or not do on that day? Why does your dog need it? Is a rest day different from a recovery day? The Active Rest Day  A rest day is a day that your dog uses to physically and mentally recharge. It is a full day off, not just a few hours or an evening. Your dog's body will use this time to repair tissues. A rest day is ideally an ACTIVE rest day in that your dog will maintain ..read more

The benefits of a proper warm-up are numerous and indisputable. As canine sports competitors, we understand that we need to warm up our dogs before we ask them to run, jump, twist, turn, pivot, pull, catch, swim, or leap. This applies to dog sports, working dogs, and canine fitness. While there are many approaches to a warm-up, there are components that are vital to include in a warm up every single time. We must ask ourselves: What’s the most important part of our dog’s body to warm up? What is the best thing to do to prevent injury? What must we avoid including in a warm-up? What will give ..read more

When you and your dog train and compete in agility, flyball or any canine sport, your dog’s fitness level plays a key role. It is so important that hiring the wrong fitness coach can have a huge negative impact. Your dog’s fitness level will directly affect performance, longevity in the sport, and perhaps biggest of all - the risk of injury. Your choice of fitness coach or personal trainer for your dog is critical to success. All K9 athletes, from top national level competitors to the novice in the sport, need the appropriate fitness level to compete for better times and placements. You c ..read more

The Fast Start Fitness program was created to help dog owners squeeze canine fitness into their busy lives. This program provides a broad based, general fitness program that any healthy dog can begin by simply following the step by step exercises. Previously this program was only available to those who had purchased a K9 Fitness Solutions membership subscription, but now it is available to anyone. The program begins with teaching your dog common fitness movements. From there, the program moves into the foundation of the K9 Fitness Pyramid:             &n ..read more

There are 10 essential steps to having great workouts with your dog. If you follow these 10 steps, you will increase the effectiveness, increase the safety, and increase the enjoyment from each and every workout with your dog. Here are the first 5 of these Essential Steps, taken from our K9 Fitness Journal. Step 1: Motivation.             The first step to a great workout with your dog is understanding why you are doing it. What is your reason for fitness training with your dog? Is it to enhance performance? Or reduce the risk of your ..read more