Clean Run - March 2013 - 64

Foundation Jumping

Part 1
By Susan Salo

The foundation jump work is largely based on plyometric exercises which are defined as jumping
and bounding (among other things), movements that involve rapid eccentric (i.e., lengthening) and
concentric (i.e., shortening) muscle actions. This type of training enhances explosive muscular performance. Fred Wilt (1920-1994), a highly respected track and field coach from the United States,
first introduced the term plyometrics in 1975. The word can be broken into parts from its Latin
roots: “plio” meaning “more” and “metric” meaning “measure,” thus implying measurable increases.

The neural stretch receptors are muscle spindles found within
the belly of a muscle. As a muscle stretches, the spindles send
a message to the spinal cord to inhibit or control how much
further the muscle can stretch. In essence, the muscle spindles
are stretch-control regulators that communicate directly to the
spinal cord about how much stretch is happening within the
muscle and the speed of that stretch. The muscle’s coil, like a
spring—as in when the dog loads his weight onto his hindquarter as he prepares for a jump—is absorbing the energy required
for the coil’s release—as in when the dog actually lifts off the
ground to jump.
The low ladder grids (plyometric exercise), called straight-line
equal-distance grids in my Foundation Jumping DVD, therefore,
have two major ways to influence the forced increase in production of the required muscles: 1) Increase the speed at which
motor units can be recruited, and 2) Increase the number of
motor units activated during a given contraction—essentially
what plyometric training accomplishes.
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These exercises are widely used with well-documented success
for all athletes that require explosive and quick motion, including
our agility dogs. The low ladder grids have been a staple of the
foundation jumping program right from the beginning. Unfortunately though, they are widely dismissed by many agility handlers
as a nonessential portion of the dog’s athletic training, mainly due
to the fact them thinking that “any dog can jump, therefore why
would one need to dedicate time to training it?” Fair enough, but
the difference is night and day. A dog jumping fallen branches
and ditches while running free in the woods can navigate these
obstacles with great ease, primarily due to two major factors: 1)
The dog running free has total focus forward on his path, and
2) because of this focus the dog’s body responds quickly and appropriately. This is, however, not the dog we run with for agility.
An agility dog rarely has the luxury of total focus on a task since
he must divide his focus between task (obstacle performance) and
handler information. And we must all admit that this information
is often late, and we are often in the dog’s path obscuring his sight of
Clean Run | March 13

Clean Run - March 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Clean Run - March 2013