How many of you look at the agility shows over the year, and plan which you do with a strategic plan in mind?
How many agility dogs do back to back competitions for weeks and weeks in a row?
Athletes need time for muscle recovery, time to recover small micro muscle tears or injuries, tight muscles, and also the psychological effort required for competition.
I have an insanely busy year this year, pretty much my busiest yet! With several online courses, a wedding overseas, presenting at a national conference, my US trip required for the fitness training certification, NZDAC, and also a working spot in a seminar. Not only is that a lot for me, that's a lot for my dogs.
As well as ensuring that I don't do more than two or three competitions in a month, I also block out a substantial 'agility holiday' each year. I try to be very strategic when I do this - I want at least 6 weeks off all agility, including both competition and training. This 'holiday' needs to be timed so that it gives me sufficient time to build back up full 'agility fitness', and needs to have enough shows to make sure my dogs are back in top form for NZDAC. I've also made sure to time it with my US trip which is my longest trip away from the dogs, and at a time (winter) where the weather and ground conditions are typically the worst.
This holiday will consist of continuing fitness and conditioning training, but stopping all agility training and competition. Because I'll have more time with less agility training, I'm planning on adding in more stress relief or decompression type activities like fun novel trick shaping, and long walks.
When coming back from the agility holiday I'm not going to go back into full sequence based agility training, but start slowly with single jump and jump grid training exercises, and slowly build back up their 'agility' fitness.
