Like most runners, I have learned the hard way that stretching is vital to injury prevention and recovery. Many novice runners start out not stretching, or stretching the wrong things and end up injured at some point. It is at the time of injury that many of us slow down and learn to stretch. I am in that category, I developed overuse injuries that could have easily been prevented if I'd taken time to stretch. Lesson learned, the hard way for me, but I hope to keep these types of injuries from happening to the dogs.
We learned a good deal about stretching and strength training from Dr. Christine Zink at one of her Peak Performance seminars many years back. To this day, I work my dogs spines with techniques learned from her. But since my own injuries resulted from "old lady" things such as a tight hip flexor and stiff Achilles tendons, it seemed important to incorporate more soft tissue stretching for the dogs on the major muscle areas as well. I enlisted the help of our veterinarian, Dr. Diane Castle and her staff at Union Hill Animal Hospital. We are now incorporating a stretch/massage type technique for the dog. I began this practice with Mira. She laid on the floor and gazed at me as if I were a Goddess during her stretching routine. Maddie doesn't tolerate touch very well, she overstimulates easily and it becomes a battle which defeats the purpose, so she doesn't receive the same level of stretches that Mira and Stetson did/do. When Stetson arrived, he wasn't willing to trust me to manipulate him the way you need to for this exercise, so it took some time and trust building between us.
Personally, I stretch myself in the evening. I believe hot muscles injure more easily during stretching than muscles that have had time to work back to their normal state. This is a heatedly debated topic among runners, and the facts flow on either side of the hot vs. cold stretch that could make you decide they both had some validity. So, you tend to go with experience. My experience has shown me that when my muscles are hot, post run, I can do things to them that I should not do. When they are cold, they will rebuke me and force me to stop before I feel the "burn" of "oops, shouldn't have gone that far". Based on this personal experience, and also the need to get dogs loaded back into a vehicle and given a nutritional support post run, I have also postponed stretching dogs until they have sufficiently cooled down, typically after the evening meal.
I do personal basic stretches daily; touching toes, stretching inner thighs and calves... The dogs receive basic stretching each day too, bowing and turning their heads toward their tails to get a treat. On run days, dog and human receive a much more in depth stretching routine. We'll focus on the dogs here.
Stetson finds this routine to be very relaxing. He will let go as if taking a nap by the time I get to the first back leg.
Once Stetson has relaxed, I begin stretching his toes. One by one, I gently straighten his toes. I assume resistance with toes is one of two things, a sore toe or a memory of being "quicked" when having nails trimmed. In either situation, it takes patience and trust to be able to evaluate the cause of the tension. Once toes are stretched, we move on to the wrist. Holding the leg in my hand, I rotate the wrist and stretch it by "folding" it gently inward (folding it the way the wrist was intended to bend). If there is much resistance with this, I slow down and work it again until there is no sign of resistance from the dog. From the wrist the next joint is the elbow, I gently rotate the elbow and fold it in the same manner as we did the wrist. Again, at any display of resistance I release all pressure. Once we begin working on the shoulder, I hold the leg by the elbow as I move it forward toward the neck, and then back toward the hip. It is amazing how flexible Stetson's shoulders are. He has wonderful extension and will sometimes give a sigh of pleasure when we work on this part of the routine.
When finished with the shoulder, we move to the rear leg in the same fashion. Start with toes, then hock, knee and finally the hip. I work each limb twice. If there is a particular tightness that I can massage and stretch out, I will work the area a little longer or repeat it.
When finished with the first two legs, I turn the dog, aka "noodle", over and we begin on the other side. It is a great opportunity to feel where the dog is tight, what sides and limbs he prefers... An additional bonus to the process is a deep relaxation for the dog and a bond between he and I. He becomes used to me handling and manipulating him while giving me the opportunity to feel in detail for any heat, swelling, or other sign of injury.
We learned a good deal about stretching and strength training from Dr. Christine Zink at one of her Peak Performance seminars many years back. To this day, I work my dogs spines with techniques learned from her. But since my own injuries resulted from "old lady" things such as a tight hip flexor and stiff Achilles tendons, it seemed important to incorporate more soft tissue stretching for the dogs on the major muscle areas as well. I enlisted the help of our veterinarian, Dr. Diane Castle and her staff at Union Hill Animal Hospital. We are now incorporating a stretch/massage type technique for the dog. I began this practice with Mira. She laid on the floor and gazed at me as if I were a Goddess during her stretching routine. Maddie doesn't tolerate touch very well, she overstimulates easily and it becomes a battle which defeats the purpose, so she doesn't receive the same level of stretches that Mira and Stetson did/do. When Stetson arrived, he wasn't willing to trust me to manipulate him the way you need to for this exercise, so it took some time and trust building between us.
Personally, I stretch myself in the evening. I believe hot muscles injure more easily during stretching than muscles that have had time to work back to their normal state. This is a heatedly debated topic among runners, and the facts flow on either side of the hot vs. cold stretch that could make you decide they both had some validity. So, you tend to go with experience. My experience has shown me that when my muscles are hot, post run, I can do things to them that I should not do. When they are cold, they will rebuke me and force me to stop before I feel the "burn" of "oops, shouldn't have gone that far". Based on this personal experience, and also the need to get dogs loaded back into a vehicle and given a nutritional support post run, I have also postponed stretching dogs until they have sufficiently cooled down, typically after the evening meal.
I do personal basic stretches daily; touching toes, stretching inner thighs and calves... The dogs receive basic stretching each day too, bowing and turning their heads toward their tails to get a treat. On run days, dog and human receive a much more in depth stretching routine. We'll focus on the dogs here.
Stetson finds this routine to be very relaxing. He will let go as if taking a nap by the time I get to the first back leg.
We start with the dog laying flat on their side with their spine straight.
Once Stetson has relaxed, I begin stretching his toes. One by one, I gently straighten his toes. I assume resistance with toes is one of two things, a sore toe or a memory of being "quicked" when having nails trimmed. In either situation, it takes patience and trust to be able to evaluate the cause of the tension. Once toes are stretched, we move on to the wrist. Holding the leg in my hand, I rotate the wrist and stretch it by "folding" it gently inward (folding it the way the wrist was intended to bend). If there is much resistance with this, I slow down and work it again until there is no sign of resistance from the dog. From the wrist the next joint is the elbow, I gently rotate the elbow and fold it in the same manner as we did the wrist. Again, at any display of resistance I release all pressure. Once we begin working on the shoulder, I hold the leg by the elbow as I move it forward toward the neck, and then back toward the hip. It is amazing how flexible Stetson's shoulders are. He has wonderful extension and will sometimes give a sigh of pleasure when we work on this part of the routine.
When finished with the shoulder, we move to the rear leg in the same fashion. Start with toes, then hock, knee and finally the hip. I work each limb twice. If there is a particular tightness that I can massage and stretch out, I will work the area a little longer or repeat it.
When finished with the first two legs, I turn the dog, aka "noodle", over and we begin on the other side. It is a great opportunity to feel where the dog is tight, what sides and limbs he prefers... An additional bonus to the process is a deep relaxation for the dog and a bond between he and I. He becomes used to me handling and manipulating him while giving me the opportunity to feel in detail for any heat, swelling, or other sign of injury.
