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Humans have been exercising with weight to improve body composition for decades. We can apply the same concept when exercising our dogs by working them in a weighted dog harness or weighted dog collar. These are training tools that can perfectly compliment your dog’s workout routine, helping to achieve their performance goals.
The first step to improving your dog’s fitness is developing a plan. The truth is, exercise alone is usually not enough to see noticeable improvements in performance. It’s important to understand in order to take your dog’s health and conditioning to the next level, you need to combine exercise with a proper nutrition plan. Once a plan is in place, you can focus your time on the training methods that work best for your dog to improve their conditioning.
In this post, I’ll focus on some common results you can expect when consistently training with weight. Focusing on your dog’s fitness goals will help you better understand how to use your gear to determine the best methods to optimize the outcomes. Here are some benefits of consistently exercising your dog while wearing a weighted harness or weighted collar.
Burning calories is the first thing we typically think about when it comes to getting in shape. Incorporating a weighted collar or harness into your dog’s regular exercise routine will increase their calorie output, without having to extend their volume of exercise.
The science is simple. The extra weight makes the dog’s muscles work harder as they move. This alone increases the intensity of the exercise, resulting in more calories burned during training. This helps your dog get more out of their workouts. You can simply continue to do what you normally do, but by adding in weight it supercharges the workout.
Training with weight increases the mechanical work your dog must do. As a result, the cardiovascular system must work harder to compensate. As time goes on, the dog’s lungs will adapt and become more efficient.
Training with weight is an example of progressive overload. This principle was explained to me many years ago by my friend and former NFL running back Bryce Brown. He utilized progressive overload during his football career to help him become faster, stronger and more explosive. I started implementing this same concept when exercising my dogs and the results have been spectacular.
When training with extra weight, this forces the dog’s core stabilizer muscles to work harder to maintain proper posture of the body. For the dog to remain balanced it must utilize coordination, timing and all the muscles across the neck, front assembly, loin and rear assembly. Extra weight exaggerates this challenge. Training with weight helps the dog's body adapt and improve its core strength, helping the dog become more stable on their feet.
Resistance training with weight is proven to increase the effectiveness of your dog’s workouts, without changing anything but their gear. To realize substantial improvements, you need to be consistent in your training. The results are a dog that's faster, stronger, more agile and that has great stamina.
