By steve
Last week, we discussed the importance of working your dog’s hind legs to keep their strength proportionate to their front legs and prevent atrophy as they age and introduced the Slimdoggy Squat exercise. Another great exercise that you can do with your dog to build their hind leg strength is called hill repeats.
Doing hill repeats with your dog will help build strength in your dog’s hind legs and your own hamstrings, glutes, and calves. If you keep your pace brisk (when walking) or run up the hills, hill repeats can also improve your cardio (endurance) as well. Slimdoggy Jack and I often use a combination of both short hill spurts and longer hill jogs as shown in the video clips. We prefer running, but walking will also provide lots of benefits as long as you keep a good pace.
Hill Repeats, Part 1
It is important to know that moving uphill will work your dog’s hind legs and downhill will work the front legs. The human analogy is that uphill works the posterior chain and downhill works the anterior chain. Thus, when we want to place the focus on our dog’s hind legs, we look for hills that offer a steep path up and a much less steep path back down. Further, if your dog has any front leg issues, we recommend that you avoid any steep hill descents. The same holds true if you prefer to use stairs.
Hill Repeats, Part 2
As always, you should check with your vet before beginning or changing your dog’s exercise program. Assuming you are cleared for hill repeats, add them into your dog’s routine 2-3 times per week. We like to do 5-10 reps of long hills and 20 or more reps of shorter hill sprints. For progression, you can increase the intensity by adding resistance using a weighted vest like the K9 Fit Vest, increase the speed of ascent (e.g. run instead of walk, sprint instead of run), or increase the repetitions.
Stick with this for three months and you will absolutely notice a difference in your dog’s hind legs. You might also be astounded at the improvement in our own butt and posterior leg muscles!
Please enjoy our FitDog Friday Blog Hop brought to you by SlimDoggy and our co-hosts Peggy’s Pet Place and To Dog With Love. Join the Hop or just enjoy the links below – lots of fun fitness tips and advice!
From: Hind Leg Exercises for Dogs: Hill Training
