Stress & Rest = Success

[Laura]

I hope this article would be of some interest to some. This is my interpretation of a canine athlete (SBT pictured multiple show/conformation winner and agility winner):





Thought those interested in fitness would be interested in this reading;

The canine body is an incredible boilogical machine, second to none in the diversity of it's athletic potential. Capable of running over 40 mph, briskly walking more than a hundred miles uphill on an eleectric treadmill or pulling over a ton of weight, the canine athlete is likely the most multi-talented animal athlete the world has over seen.

An adequate nutritional intake and carefully planned, productive exercise plan are, as everyone knows, the two primary components of any conditioning progam. But, an extremely crucial and oftentimes overlooked aspect to increasing a dog's fitness and ability to compete at higher levels lies in what may be an unexpected area of the training program: rest and recovery.

Adapt or Die

Physical training (working out) is beneficail to the dog only if it forces the dog's body to respond to the stress of training and allows the body to adapt and prepare for further stressess (workouts). If the stress of training is insufficcieant to effectively overload the body, no positive physical adaptation will occur and the dog will not increase his current fitness levels. If however, the stress is too great or adequate rest and recovery periods are not provided, the results will be overtraining, exhaustion, and descreased performance and overall health.

Making physical stress and adaptation the central part of a training program is simply a way of using the dog's natural reaction to physical stress, which is, in basic terms, the "adapt or die" survival reaction. In the workout, the conditioner places a stress on the dog, and the canine body not only satisfies the demand of the stress, but also sets into motion a highly complex series of internal changes that prepare the dog to handle even greater demands in the future.
Training works in this waay because it upsets the dog's biological balance and drives the canine body to increase it's physical capacity. As do all animals, the canine body seeks "homeostasis", a condition in which it's biological systems are in balance with the enviroment, maintaining the status quo, when training stresses the body beyond this threshold, the body responds by adapting, so that the workload will become easier to handle in the future. It's as if your dog's body was saying, "Today's workout was tough, but the next one may be even harder. If I don't want to die, I'd better adapt to this workout and get in better shape."

Adequate rest, recovery, and, recuperation are absolutely essential or otimum physical training and are often overlooked or not given enough attention. The connection between stress and rest is probably best shown through an illustration: Suppose you were to rub your finger repeatedly against a piece of sandpaper every day without exeption. After a while, your finger would develop a blister, a red, sore spot that would never a chanceto heal since you rub it every day.. If, however, you were to rub your finger against the sandpaper every other day or maybe every third day, the finger would have an opportunity to recover and adapt to this stress. A callous would form that would allow you to increase the time that you could run your finger against the sandpaper without hurting yourself. With this alternation of stress and rest, the size of the callous would grow and become tougher, the essence of adaption. This point is - before your dog can adapt to the stress of training and get into beter shape, he must first recover form the last workout. Or, as the saying goes, "recovery precedes fitness gains"

Bill Kazmair, the World's Strongest Man and the world record holder in powerlifting, agrees saying, "When I'm asked how to get really strong, I always say train really hard. Of course. But, also allow enough time for rest and recovery between hard workouts or you'll never make the big gains. The biggest mistake most athletes make in my opinion, especially the new guys, is that they don't allow their bodies to recover enough between workouts".

Far and away, the single most common mistake that most beginning conditioners make is that they overtrain and overcondition their animals while under feeding them. They do not understand how critical the integration of stress and rest is to success in training. They seem to believe, in many cases, that dogs are mechanical toys that need only to be worked harder every day to get into shape. They fear that a rest or a light workout day will erode conditioning gains they have already made when the facts are just the opposite. You see, to train effectively, to make the time spent conditioning as productive as possible. Dogs need to be worked hard and smart, not just hard! Intense workouts combined with adequate recovery periods.

[kendal]

that is amazing i think i knew about the rest thing in humans but i don't think i ever considered it for a dog, i don't know why it seems so obvious.
thanks for that

[Laura]

Yeah sometimes the obvious things are the least obvious if that makes sense.

Resting is just as, if not more, important than working out. Without proper rest and recuperation the body never fully repairs and does not allow itself to get into the best condition possible. Also over working can make a dog stale.