Conditioning is the name of the game....

So the next theme of the blog is conditioning... Stories about my travels will just have to wait.

After a late night outing to the gym I got to thinking..... What is the best workout for my flyball dog? The hardest part is I live in the heart of the midwest, how do you condition when there is 18 feet of snow outside with a layer of ice on the top and subzero temps.... Grrrr for winter time! So the next best thing..... a treadmill! Here is what i would like to come up with, the best program to insure that my dog is in top physical shape in hopes this will fight off any injuries they may come from being out of shape.

I have done the On the Ball training, where they stand on the exercise ball and it helps them build there core. I think this is a huge part of conditioning... If you have a strong core you will be in pretty solid shape, but once they mastered this how do you progress? Both my dogs can stand on the ball without shaking, sit pretty one the ball, lay down, stand up, turn around... How do we go further? I recently ordered a donut shaped ball where they can do this on there own for more of a workout...

The other thing I've played with is the dogs on the treadmill... how do i achieve the best success in there endurance yet not losing the ability to burst out speed in fast sprints... That's what they need in flyball right?! So here is what I've played with...

• 45 minutes, 5.5 speed, 0% incline, 1 time a day...
• 20 minutes, 6.0 speed, 5% incline, 2 times a day...
• 45 minutes 5.0 speed, 2% incline, 1 time a day....
• 20 minutes, 6.5 speed, 0% incline, 2 times a day...

The other thing I've tried to work on it powerjumping... The tough part is, our building isn't big enough to do this in the winter time...

I have looked at sprinters workouts to see if i could do something comparable... its very tough! I would greatly appreciate anyone's input!