Wellness Wednesday: Handler Fitness and Agility

Structuring a fitness plan specifically for agility handlers

Jan 19, 2022

By: News Editor

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This podcast is shared with permission from Bad Dog Agility.

What's more important for success as a handler — strength? aerobic fitness? anaerobic? In this episode, Sarah, Jennifer and Esteban are joined by Chris Kerton, aka Kert, Handler Fitness Coach for Team Great Britain and owner of Karma Fitness.

You will learn:

  • How fitness training can be specialized for dog agility handlers.
  • Why anaerobic fitness is important for agility.
  • How strength training can help prevent injury.
  • Why mistakes may be more common toward the end of courses.

Listen to the podcast:

Excerpt from the podcast:

"It's the same as you train a dog. I know that might seem a bit simplified but it really is.... You just gotta build foundations. You need to take things slowly, progress cleverly, intelligently and anyone can do it. ...There are a lot of people in the sport who ... were not athletic. Maybe their dogs were incredibly athletic. And then once they got into the sport they wanted to do better. They wanted to help their dog more. And I know so many people who maybe did not make fitness and exercise a part of their life or their weekly routine until it started holding them back in agility. And agility was the thing, right? That gave them the motivation that they needed to pursue fitness and exercise. So I think for a lot of people agility is the thing that pushes them to be better, to be healthier, to lose weight, to gain strength. And then they get all of those benefits into the rest of their life, right? But the agility is like the foot in the door."

"Yeah, for sure. I mean, I used to joke with my friends who I trained and we used to say that my motto should be, 'Don't be the one that lets the dog down'. Just because of the story that you're saying there is such a familiar story. I've had a lot of clients who've come to me for that exact reason. They've got dogs that are showing a lot of potential and they don't want to be the one that lets the dog down...."

Bad Dog Agility provides high-quality agility training online and hosts the Bad Dog Agility Podcast, which has over 1.5 million downloads. For free help with your training problems, visit https://baddogagility.com/.