Ever found yourself wondering ‘What should I do in the off season?’. It can be tricky to know if you should keep competing, take the whole time completely off or go down the middle and do bits of training. And the short answer is it depends on you and your dog and what works best for you.
But as a Vet physio what would I recommend you do in the off season to give you the best next season?
3 steps to the most successful off season (in my opinion as a vet physio):
Take a step back from competing and have some rest time
Having some time away from competing gives both you and your dog a mental break away from the high pressure environments that you compete in. This is often helpful to ensure you keep your love and motivation for the sport. And as a human allows you time to plan the season ahead.
It is also valuable to have some physical rest to allow for recovery of any micro injuries such as slight strains or overuse injuries. This is also a great time to schedule in your yearly vet health check and your postseason vet physio sessions to speed up the healing process and ensure your dog’s in top condition entering the new season. A vet physio will also give you a conditioning plan which brings us to step 2!
Up the conditioning work
Just because we are having a break from competing and some rest time does not mean we have to have the whole off season as just rest time. I like a good mix of rest and upping the conditioning work we do year round.
Your vet physio will give you a bespoke plan for your dog which takes into account their sport and areas of weakness but broadly you want to focus on core strength, proprioception and range of motion.
I recently put together a free download that would be a great start point for you and you can find it here:https://mailchi.mp/097bda4cd9ff/strong-dog
I would also recommend reading the following blogs, especially if you are just starting out:
Learn something new
The off season is a brilliant time to try something new, to keep both you and your dog mentally stimulated. Some sports are a great way of trying something new and helping to improve your dog's fitness too. You might want to try some fun canicross if you have an agility dog who loves to run. Or you might want to try some scent work if you have a flyball dog who loves to search.
Trying something new is a little like cross training for us. It keeps us interested, motivated and works muscles we don’t usually use to help support our joints and improve our core, and its just the same for our dogs.
So what will you be trying this off season?
Jack is now retired from agility so we’ve tried tracking and he loves it! He even managed to pass his first tracking title and I think you will agree looks very proud himself!
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