FDSP E479: Liz Joyce - "Running for the Dog Sports Handler"

Transcript

Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today we'll be talking to Liz Joyce about running so we can keep up with our dogs in fast moving sports. Hi, Liz. Welcome back to the podcast.

Liz Joyce: Hey, thanks so much for having me. It's always great to catch up, Melissa.

Melissa Breau: Likewise. It's always a pleasure to have you on. I want to start off by having you remind everybody a little bit about who you are and your background, maybe in both the fitness side and the dog side. That sounds great. I'm Liz. I'm on faculty with FDSA. I'm a personal trainer and I've been personal training since 2006.

So it's been 20 years now, which is kind of amazing. And for the last 10 years, I've been working with dog sport handlers to change and adapt and refine what I was doing with their clients. So it more closely fits what dog sport handlers do. And for the last four or five years, I've been kind of exclusively working with dog sport handlers to help them up their game and be more resilient for their sports and so on from a dog angle.

Well, right now I have a 5 year old male German shepherd named Levi and his sport is tracking. He is awesome, really awesome at it, which is great. We just got a two year old Malinois this last year. Bree and I are working on a little bit of tracking, but her primary thing is going to be doing agility, which is way more fun and also way more hard than I was expecting. All y', all, excellent agility. Handlers make it look easy, breezy and it isn't, but we're having a lot of fun doing that.

Melissa Breau: Awesome. So I want to talk a little bit about kind of the connection here, right, between the dog sports piece and the fitness piece. So dog sports definitely ask handlers to do a lot more than just walk or run in a nice straight line. So how does developing running fitness really affect or impact somebody's ability to move when they're training or when they're competing with their dog?

Liz Joyce: The first thing I think of when you ask me this question is energy. I think about somebody who has a better aerobic basis, which is what we'll be working on in this prevent and perform course. When you have a better aerobic base, you do just have better energy. Think about it. Like, how much does this cost you? We talk about that a lot in dog sport training. How expensive is this behavior?

When I think about people having better aerobic fitness, everything in life becomes a lot less expensive to do. So people have better energy, which comes out in a bunch of different ways. Like, we track. So for us, that can be easily 20 or 25,000 steps by lunchtime. Like, it's a lot of. It's a lot of walking. And I am probably by 20 or 25 years the youngest person that I track with.

So the women that I track with, like, having a good aerobic base allows them to be able to do those things with their dog, which I love. And. But I think too, having better aerobic base helps agility handlers recover quicker when they're running courses. Also gives them a better base when they do want to do sprint training or turn the volume up in that way, all of that is a lot easier for them.

But I also think a bit about mental clarity and when you're fatigued, how that can affect your posture, how it can affect how you carry yourself, maybe the cues that you're giving your dog, and also your ability to make decisions kind of in a split second. On agility course, for example, you got better energy and things are less expensive. Everything that you're doing with your dog and how you're able to communicate with them improves.

Melissa Breau: So in agility, speaking of, a handler may need to accelerate and decelerate and change direction, all while communicating with their dog. So how does general running fitness kind of support those demands? And are there places where maybe it's not enough and it kind of fall short?

Liz Joyce: For sure, there are, yeah, absolutely. I think about the layer. When I think about agility handlers and their fitness specifically, we're talking not about their strength stuff, but just their aerobic and cardiovascular fitness.

The zone two or the running that we're going to work into in this course is like the base layer of the triangle, and then the sprinting comes above it. So when, like I would say, when you're have better aerobic fitness, which is what we'll be working on, you have a better ability to train your sprints in a more meaningful way. So your sprinting improvements will be more dramatic, faster, which is always an encouraging thing to work on, but also your ability to kind of carry yourself through a course and actually make it all the way through.

Like a lot of handlers that I work with that maybe aren't quite physically ready to do sprinting start. I have them start with walking and then we do walk run intervals, and then we do walk jog intervals, you know, like that, and kind of build it up. And all those things have them leaving the agility course feeling a lot more confident about their performance and helps their dogs perform better, too.

But there's a huge element to this course that we're not talking about quite yet, and I'm just going to touch on it quick now. And it's the whole injury prevention side. So while running and what we'll be doing is all straightforward. The injury prevention aspect of it, and there's a workout that people are going to do once or twice a week is all about building out all the things that are going to keep you safe and stable when you're running.

So side to side movements, hip movements, making sure we can twist under control. Excellent core work, really nice stability. And all the things that happen in those workouts also help handlers have better stability on course. They help them make quicker direction changes and have more control about what their body is doing on course. And because those things are easier for them to do the actual act of sprinting and running, agility, again, is less expensive for them. So they get to finish the run feeling really jazzed rather than maybe crushed by those last few obstacles.

Melissa Breau: Hmm. So, you know, moving from agility, kind of some of the other sports that we do with our dogs. Right, Sports like tracking or search and rescue or field work. You know, you talked about how many steps you can get in on a day of tracking. And I think a lot of the times it's not on.

You know, it's not like we're walking a track. Right. A running track, I guess. I don't. I don't know, the word track there's confusing. Forget that. But you know, just kind of. You're on uneven ground, you're on unpredictable terrain. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know. Yeah. So what physical adaptations, you know, from running kind of carry over and are particularly useful when we're talking about that kind of a setting?

Liz Joyce: The thing that I like about running that transfers really well to these other things is that a lot of adults, most people. Well, I'm going to say all people with a asterisk for. I'm sure there's some people that don't do this. Most people, the vast majority of us, walk a lot, and there's not a lot of spring in our actual step, which is. Really want to make a joke about that right now, but I'm not going to.

So we don't have a lot of spring when we're moving, we're just walking and our bodies are moving at a great pace and all that's wonderful. But what happens when we get onto uneven terrain or terrain that is unexpectedly uneven is that it asks our body to react quickly. And that is something that gets developed when you're running because walking gets done at some points in your stride with two feet on the ground.

But running is only ever a one footed thing that you do. So you have to absorb impact and then balance yourself and then drive forward one foot at a time, back and forth, back and forth. And what happens is people build a lot better and quicker reaction times. Their ankles get more stable, their knees get more stable, their core get stronger. And again, having better cardiovascular fitness will leave a person less fatigued.

So when they do encounter uneven terrain, it's not like they're in a super fatigued state with, I'm going to say less than optimal rather than no. So less than optimal ability to recover quickly or be able to move in a fast way and kind of correct themselves. So I'm thinking about like fall risk. I'm also thinking about if you need to have a bit of more power if you're climbing over a rubble stack or something like that too.

Just gives your body more movement options. And I'm always thinking about keeping people in the game as long as possible. And I think that that is a big part of it too is like not falling, not twisting an ankle and these things, these activities and also the injury prevention workouts put you in a position where that's less likely. And I love that for people. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think probably everybody at one point or another in life has, you know, sprained their ankle or done something where it's like now suddenly, you know, you don't have the options of moving the way that you do most of your life.

And you know all the things and how much that can set you back. And you know, that only gets worse and worse as you know, you lose some of that activity that maybe you had when you're younger and whatnot. So can I say something about that? Yeah, sure. What I want to say about that is that what the thing that I love about it is that as people go through life and as we all get older that those like the muscles that help us move really quickly atrophy, but you can build them back and train your body to move quicker again.

And so if you're feeling, if someone's listening to this and feeling like, I used to be a runner But I'm just kind of heavy footed now that those qualities of movement are trainable and you can work on them. And it's like an empowering thing to be able to revisit an activity that you did years ago and find some joy in it again.

Melissa Breau: So I want to circle back to something you were talking about a little bit earlier. You know, kind of about what happens when we come physically tired. I think we often talk about, you know, how dogs lose precision when they become physically tired and, you know, in canine fitness how, like, you know, you need to be careful about form and things like that. But, you know, what about the human side of that? So what can happen when a handler's feeling fatigued? And, you know, how does that impact things like timing and mechanics and decision making? And I mean, honestly, like our ability to handle our dogs,

Liz Joyce: Right well I mean, in every way. So I think when people get fatigued, they're just like, yes, all of those things. I think when people get fatigued that it's quite common, that their posture is one of the first things to change. And while I would love my dogs to be fully verbal so I can just, you know, say whatever, and obviously that's a great goal to have.

They do read what we are physically doing with our bodies and when we have better energy and we can hold ourselves up, right, and kind of lead the team, I think that that is helpful for the dog too. But just in like a movement perspective, like when an agility handler gets fatigued, on course they are going to move slower. And I'm going to use the word sloppier, but I'm not saying that about anyone specific.

I'm just saying when people get tired, like, things kind of slow down, there's a bit of lag. You may also find yourself actually out of air and unable to communicate with your dog. And you're doing this with your arm, they don't know what you really want. And so that can and does impact a lot of people's success in the agility ring, which I hate because they work so hard.

And I'm getting a taste of how hard it really is right now. It's a lot of work. So any way that I can kind of help someone perform their best when they're in that situation, I'm down for. When I think about people who are tracking, also people that are doing obedience with their dog, again, I think about someone who's able to lead the team for long durations of time and because the effort of what they're doing is so much less.

They have more room to have better thoughts about what it is that they're doing or they're doing obedience, for example. If they're less fatigued, they're going to be able to breed the dog and go back to themselves after their session and be like, what went well? What didn't go well? And bring their dog back out with a better plan because they have more mental clarity, because they're less fatigued.

You know, those kinds of things. And in regards to, like, tracking or field work, too, like, a lot of dogs that I track with, not mine, but a lot of dogs that I track with run some of the course. We do CKC obedience or AKC obedience, which is very different than IGP obedience, which the dogs are not supposed to run, but our dogs can. And that is difficult for a handler when they're running through uneven terrain and their dog is off descent and they don't know where the track is.

To be able to think logically about where I came from rather than just trying to recover their breath is very helpful. And I see that show up in the people that I work with that I also track with. I see that happen to them a lot. They're like, they finish a good run or they had to go up a hill really fast and they get to the top and they don't know where they're going, but they can recover themselves quickly and make intelligent decisions.

So many good points in there. Not necessarily all things I thought about. Right. Like the idea that, of course, if you are out of breath, you're going to have trouble communicating even your verbals. Well. Right. Like, and the idea that, like, of course your body's going to be sloppier with your physical cues when you're physically, physically exhausted. And I know so many agility competitors, you know, do multiple runs in a day.

And we're not just talking that one, you know, one minute and however long many seconds run we're talking, you know, you're back out there the whole day or the eighth time of the day. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. But it's all of it. It's the whole day. It's the how you take your dog through the whole agility environment is very busy. And when you're able to lead your dog with purpose, I think that that helps them take that environment more in stride. You know what I mean?

Melissa Breau: Yeah, for sure. I just think that's such a good point and so many pieces of that that maybe, you know, most people don't necessarily think about which leads really well into kind of what I wanted to ask about next, which is about capacity. So you know, how does improving your handlers running capacity kind of impact, you know, the way they're treating their dog?

You know, simply like you said, they, you know, having more energy, having more physical options available, you know, can you talk a little bit to why that's so beneficial when it comes to the training side of things?

Liz Joyce: Yeah, for sure. You know, the first thing that kind of comes to my mind right now is that I have a young dog who I don't really know that well and we're getting to know each other and at this stage in her age and where we are, and I think it's pretty common for most dogs that are about two years old is like I have to bring so much to the table with her.

Like, so it's a lot. I need to show up with 110% and like my movements need to be tight and she moves fast and I need to be aware and alert and I need to be able to like predict. But if I can't predict where she's going, I need to be able to adjust and fast. And those things would be so much harder if I didn't have aerobic fitness.

I also think about tugging with my dogs and like Levi is 85 or 90 pounds right now. He is not a very vicious tiger. But my little dog really, she's coming for me. And having good energy and having the aerobic fitness to support the things that I'm doing with them means that I can flow through a training session with the two of them back and forth very easily.

And that's really important. The other thing is when I finish these sessions, I can go about my day with mental clarity and energy to give to the rest of my life. And that's an important thing too. So I think that all of that stuff is helpful. I also think a lot about, you know, when I'm thinking about people who train their dogs, I think a little bit about like the whole picture of living with dogs too.

And I think that having good aerobic fitness and I've had a lot of people come through this course. I think this is the fourth time I've run it. Ish. I think it's number four. People who come through this course start doing canacross or cana hiking with their dogs. And I think that's just super awesome because when I think about the whole, when I think about somebody's whole life with their dogs and is there a way that I can help them live a better, fuller life with their dog.

I think about those kinds of things, too. If someone has better aerobic fitness, could they start thinking about doing different types of activities with their dog or trying new things? Or if maybe they've been doing rally obedience, but they're nervous about doing agility because they don't feel like they have the aerobic capacity or the cardio fitness or fitness just in general to do agility, that it's a great stepping stone to get them into that.

But also for people who are a little bit more advanced in that program too, or in their fitness training, even higher. Aerobic fitness is going to give you the ability to have everything just cost your body less energy. And I think that that's really helpful too. You know, you can, again, just be quicker with your cues, cleaner with your mechanics, more clear with your posture and your movements.

And I think that all of that's just really helpful. What kind of improvements might somebody notice, you know, on the sports side, even if, you know, they haven't necessarily noticed an equivalent thing or a change, you know, necessarily in their running statistics yet? Yeah. Cause running to running statistics take a little bit of time. Although, you know our good friend Shade Whitel, everybody knows Shade. You don't know Shade.

You better act someday. She's great. So Shade started doing Zone two running, and this was maybe a year and a half ago, and I just love this example, so you've probably heard me say this before. When she started doing zone two running, her running time was about 14 minutes per mile. Zone two, or the kind of running that we're going to be doing in this course, is cardiovascularly challenging, but it's also a challenge for your ego sometimes to be running at a pace that just feels really slow.

But we're building the aerobic base and that is required to do that. So when she started doing her zone two running, she was running at about 14 minutes a mile. And then within a few months, she was running 11 minutes per mile. So it's a really, actually quite a quick progression for her. So the thing that people are going to notice, and what she also knows too, is like your recovery times reduce, you're going to leave a course and feel like you have better energy, which I think is great.

And just being less winded, also having more energy during the day, so your legs will be less tired as the day goes on. You were talking about people doing agility runs, having six or eight runs in a day, and I'm like, yeah, that's a part of the day. But that's not the whole day. Then there's also all of the walking and if you're volunteering, there's bar setting and all the packing, exercising the dog and warming them up.

It's so much more than just what you're doing on the course. Having a better aerobic base or more energy for all of those things leaves you being able to perform at your best when the time comes. I, I hear people say, and I have experienced myself, that they just have this over, you know, this big feeling of I just have way more available today. I can just do more.

I just, I can just do more things and feel great. Who doesn't want to be able to say that? No. Yeah. When somebody is, you know, just kind of beginning to run, um, and maybe, you know, they haven't been a runner before or running is pretty new to them, you know, how do you tell the difference between an appropriate training effort and accidentally turning, you know, every workout to a fitness test where you're making it just too hard and, you know, over facing yourself?

Yeah, and I think that that's a big problem. I think a lot of people, when they think about running, the, like, the first thing even I think about is, I'm going to put my shoes on. This is exactly what I just thought about. I'm going to go for a run. First thing I thought of is I'm going to go downstairs with my running shorts on and put my shoes on, go outside and just run until I kind of can't anymore.

I don't run like that. But that's just what I, I was like, yeah, that's how I go for a run. That's how people run. But that's a bad way to run. So I think when people think about that, that you're kind of cold, your body's cold, you go out, you literally, I'm going to say pounding the pavement, this language that people use. But we don't actually want to be pounding the pavement when we're running.

And the difference between training and testing is testing is asking yourself, what is the very most that I can do? What's the furthest I can run before my legs fail or I just can't actually go on anymore. And training is building the capacity bit by bit. So when people are out running and they're first starting running, I kind of think about a talk test a little bit more than there's a RPE rate of perceived exertion that people can kind of go by too.

But that is a kind of a tougher scale, unless you have quite a lot of experience with how your body feels. But I think a little bit more about a talk test. So if you're listening to this and you're gonna go for a run and you're wondering, I wonder if this is, like, higher than a zone 2 or, like, higher than what. What this course is going to call a training run.

This more of a test run. It's like, how many words can you say in a row? So you can say, like, three words in a row. Like bar conversation was, you know, you know me, I'm all. I'm all about coffee. Hey, Melissa, how was your morning going? I had a coffee this morning, and it was so delicious. That kind of language. So, like, taking a breath when I took a breath.

So, like, two or three kind of words out at a time is a good place to be when you're thinking about doing a training run. Whereas a testing run, you can't really talk or you're thinking about talking, but you're kind of angry that someone's asking you questions. I like that. So if you're getting angry, you're probably. So. I know you talked about injury prevention a little bit earlier, but what are, you know, some of the most common reasons people, you know, they get hurt when they first start running, especially if, you know, they're returning to it after a long break or maybe they haven't really been a runner before.

Mm. Yeah, there's a lot of. And you know, it's. It's highly individual. So the things that I see come up a lot with people are feet. That's a huge thing. And I'm all about feet. So we go over quite a lot of foot stuff in the course. You know, in the injured prevention workouts. Where do you place your weight on your feet or doing this movement? Your big toe is probably tucking in.

Let's get it out and get some pressure through that thing to help people, like, connect with their feet in a more meaningful way. Because feet are such a huge issue for so many people. People also have a lot of problems with their knees. And, you know, if they've had a significant injury or they're approaching a knee replacement or whatever, like, they, you know, that's maybe going to be uncomfortable.

And if they aren't, a lot of the time, it's like a loading issue. More where people go from couch straight to 5K or couch straight to cold body running shoes, literally pounding the pavement till they can't anymore, and their muscles and their ligaments and their tendons are like, what is going on here? Things get inflamed and sore and tight knees are a big issue for people. And hips also get quite sore for people too.

So those things happen when people are starting to run. So one thing that I really like about being gradual about it is you can kind of nip things in the bud as they come up. So like, if something comes up with your feet, you're not in a place where it's been like a catastrophic thing. You know, it's like, oh, I'm a little bit sore and then I'm going to do something about it, or oh, my knee's a bit sore, I'm going to ice it after my run and really make sure I roll before I go and see, you know, if I can kind of mitigate this. Or maybe I need to see PT about it. But the nice thing is that you're going to catch things or hopefully catch things before they are like really a problem and it's like easier to recover from.

Melissa Breau: So you, you know, you've talked a little bit about the kind of the complimentary workout piece. So how do things like strength. Strength training, excuse me, I don't know why that word didn want to come out of my mouth.

But you know, strength training, gradual running progression and recovery work kind of together when the goal is ultimately to become more capable runner rather than maybe, you know, run a marathon or compete, you know, run a certain distance. Well, this is a great question. And I think that people sometimes think about strength training as being tiring on their body. And I think about running as being the activity that they don't want to be tired for because it's already so fricking hard.

So when we think about like the monetary thing again, about what's expensive for our body to do, when you're stronger, things are less expensive, just full stop. So being stronger, having a body that has the capability to move in a bunch of different ways means that when you're running, your body has the ability to like take on, you know, uneven terrain or if there's a slope on your sidewalk or whatever like that.

But running again is like a single legged sport. And if you just think about all the things that need to happen, from your foot to your ankle to your calf to your quads and hamstring to your glute to your core, all that stuff needs to like. It's, it is amazing how humans are designed to move. Amazing. And being stronger makes all of that stuff just a lot easier.

We work a lot in the injury prevention portion of the course too, like on balance. So if you come up, you're going to draw your knee up. Make the shape of running in a space where it's safe, in a space where you can practice being collected with your body and finding that balance point. So running, there's a big part of it is balance. When you land on a single leg and your whole body's going forward, that's a lot of force and you need to balance it.

And when you're balanced in the gym or at home and you're doing your strength training workouts, when you land on your foot and you're running, your body can collect itself and be balanced like a lot faster or I'm going to use the word immediately. And that puts you in a better position to drive forward into your next step without needing to find your balance point and figure that stuff up with your body, because that is expensive energy wise.

Oh, and then recovery. Right? We didn't talk about that. So the recovery part too is like stretching and rolling. When you do a new stimulus with your body, something that is challenging for you, things are going to get tight. When you ask for an adaptation, some of that is going to cause muscles to get tight. That's just a part of it. So we talk and do quite a bit of stretching, rolling in the class to make sure that our fascia and that our muscles are able to do the work that we want without getting locked up and tight and uncomfortable for us.

And when I think about recovery, that's a piece of it. But I think something that's misunderstood about recovery, or maybe isn't, but I'm going to say it right now anyways, is that when we're doing activities, it's a stress on our body and it's great to stress your body, but that's not when you get stronger and that's not when you see improvements. That's when you're providing stimulus that will cause the improvements.

But it's when you rest that you actually, your body's able to recover and make the adaptations to the stress that you provided it. So all of those things are things that we talk about in the course and things that we also do in the course. Okay, so I'm sure you hear this all the time, but, you know, what would you say to a dog sport handler who thinks, you know, I'd like to build a run, but I'm just not a runner.

One of my favorite things to do when I want to do something, and there's a sentence, is to add the word yet to the end of it. So I would encourage those people to think a little bit about, I'm not a runner yet. And, like, how do people get to be runners? They just do it and, you know, having the support of a community. And one thing that I just love, love, love about this specific group within Fenzi Dog Sports and all the students that I've had in every course that I've run with FDSA is that there is a kind of camaraderie that's found in this group that I haven't seen anywhere else.

And it's this really safe, beautiful space that I think has been quite carefully curated and protected by all of you and all of the other instructors, too. So the thing about feeling like you're not a runner yet is that all you need to do to change that is actually just start running a little bit. And. And also I think, too, that people sometimes can think about the only experience or one of the only experiences they've had might have been gym class in high school where they had to run laps until they felt sick, or run laps in the cold till their lungs burned or they tasted blood in their mouth, or, you know, they had a bully at school, maybe that they were running and it was an awful experience, or they were maybe in their 20s and they didn't have.

You know, we didn't always talk so much about this progression, and we didn't always talk so much about, you know, building your aerobic base and having zone two training and. And all the injury prevention aspects. It was kind of like, you want to run, Just go run until you kind of can't and figure it out. Just keep going. And I think if that's been a person's only experience of running, that that's really unfortunate, and it doesn't have to be that way.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Okay, so as you mentioned, we're talking about this because your class is coming up. Prevent and perform couch to 5K for the handler. It's on the schedule for October. So do you want to talk a little more about the class itself? You know, who it's for, what it covers? Obviously covered a little bit of that in the abstract, but go ahead and, you know, give us the official on the class.

Liz Joyce: Yeah, for sure. So whenever I run a class with FDSA, I always am careful about accessibility. So there's a beginner and an intermediate version. So if you're feeling like you've already kind of surpassed being a real beginner, there's a level there for you. And if you're really starting out. There's a level there for you too, and that's in both the injury prevention and the running stuff. So there's people are asking them to run twice a week.

And the workouts are like 17 minutes. They start on, I think they get as long as 25 minutes. So think about how to fit that into your schedule. You can slide that in somewhere. And the injury prevention workouts all have follow along videos. So literally just press play. The equipment is very minimal. I think in the videos I just have my Cato boards. You could use something that's about that height.

And in the intermediate level, I have some lightweights and then minivans. So the equipment list is like super, super low. And the injury prevention workouts once or twice per week. And those are about a half an hour. So that's the ask that the class has. And the injury prevention workouts cover all kinds of things like core strength and lower abs and breathing when you're working out and really great coaching cues to help you find your balance.

And I'm doing it with you and I've been doing this for a long time. So I see and have seen over and over and over again where people's form fails, where it gets challenging, where it maybe gets to be something where some extra coaching cues or encouragement can come into play and really help people, you know, do their workout more effectively. So all that's in there too. And the students are going to have access to my app as well.

So the app is great because it schedules things for them. It also has an audio follow along too. You can just press play. It talks you through your intervals over music that you're already listening to, which I think is kind of nice. Again, we're going to talk a little bit about fueling and hydration and stretching and rolling and all that kind of stuff. It's like a great starter pack for somebody who wants to get into running or is thinking about getting into running or maybe is finding that they're winded when they're finishing agility run or wants a little bit more energy or finding that their body gets fatigued and their form or their position maybe is suffering a bit when they're doing obedience or anything along those lines.

Yeah, and it's been really cool too because a lot of people have. There's been people that have finished this class and gone on to run like half marathons and marathons because it's been so approachable that they decide along the way that, oh, this really is something that I can do and Then they do it. And that's not everybody, but that does happen. And that's pretty awesome, too.

Melissa Breau: Yeah, for sure. Just because I think it probably comes up and you didn't specifically mention it. Do you want to talk a little bit about what Gold students are actually filming?

Liz Joyce: Yeah, for sure. And I think that this is a great question. So the Gold students film well. They ask a lot of questions about, like, their running capacity. Hey, this was hard. This was easy. We talked through those kinds of things.

But I think the thing that they get the most feedback on historically, what people have submitted more than running, although we do look at. So I do have a certification in running gait analysis. So people do send things in and I take a look at how they're moving and give them coaching cues about how they can position their body. Different or different things to think about to change their form.

So that does happen, for sure. And a larger portion of what people submit to me is from the injury prevention workouts, because how you execute that stuff impacts so much about how you're training your body. You think about, like, dog training, too. You're always going to get what you train. You want your dog to have a really tight situation, but every time you go to train the sit, the dog's loosey goosey and their hind ends over here, when you want them tucked in nice and tight, that's what that loosey goosey long sit is what you're going to get when you're trialing or, you know, asking that position to kind of be its shiniest.

And that same thing happens with strength training, too. So when you're doing strength training and injury prevention is a part of that, too. These workouts, how you do that stuff is going to train your body and your muscle memory about how to move and how to do those things. So that's pretty important. That really is more of what people submit to me more than their running stuff. For sure.

Melissa Breau: Interesting. That's super interesting. I actually didn't know the answer to that before I asked, so glad I did. All right, Liz, I think this has been fantastic. Any final thoughts or kind of takeaways you want to leave us with as we wrap up?

Liz Joyce: Yeah, you know, I don't have any final takeaways. Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, I just think that. I just think that, like, when people are people that are dog sport handlers that I know and spend so much time training their dogs and so much time making sure their dog's needs are met and that they're Fed well, like, look at this pacing horse behind me and so on, that it's easy to forget about themselves and it's easier to forget about their own fitness.

And I mean, I get it, this furry little face who's like, hey, what are we going to do? And you're like, I'm going to spend every second that I can with you because you're amazing. At the end of the day, too, when the handler's in a healthier body and they move better and they have better aerobic fitness and they're healthier, that. That impacts everybody's quality of life and also expands the kinds of things that they can do with their dog.

So if any of that connects with how you've been feeling or maybe you've been wanting to explore different types of things with your dog or take up hiking or hike more challenging things, or you're finding that you need a little bit more umph. Or a bit more gas in the tank for the sports that you're doing. Any of those things are great reasons to join this class or, and, or start taking care of your aerobic fitness and your strength on your own.

Because I think that that is so valuable for handlers and y' all are such an amazing group of people. And sometimes it's, you know, it's very easy to forget that you're also an end, you know, a part of the team. So, you know, that's my. That's my end thing.

Melissa Breau: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast, Liz. This has been great. Thanks for having me.

Liz Joyce: It's great to see you, Melissa. Back at you and thanks to all of our listeners and our viewers for tuning in. We'll be back next week, this time with Petra Ford to talk about the idea of power foundations and kind of what that means to her. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast either on itunes, the podcast app of your choice, or over on YouTube to make sure you never miss an episode.

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio and video editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.

Credits

Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.

Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!