Monday, August 2, 2010

Jumping skills

I really wish I could find the instructions for improving dropped bars!! Anyone? Anyone?

In the last several trials of Tip's the dropped bars have kept her from qualifying in everything. She is to the point where she has the most amazing runs, fast, on course, but it is always a dropped bar that keeps her from qualifying. I am beginning to get a little disappointed running her and that is not fair to her.

This moring we worked on jumping skills. I am starting with what I believe to be the foundation of jumping ability, are the muscles built up right? We worked on lines of jumps, I am out ahead and have no motion going on. Just call her too me.

Then we worked on turning jumping muscle building.

She did fairly well on the straight line of jumps. She had two shortened strides inbetween each jump (4 in a row). When she kept them all up, I threw a party and awesome game of fetch (low throws, don't freak out). When she dropped them, I was quiet, picked up the bar and we started again. My goal was to have her successful almost the whole time. Will she make the associated between parties and bars that stay up? We will see. I am not too worried about the muscles involved with straight jumps since we do a lot of that, jogging, ya know straight-line activity.

Next we worked on turning and jumping. Today was mostly teaching her the drill. Two jumps set side by side, the bars on the inside are set at 12" and on the outside 20". We worked on jump, turn, excellerate out of the jump today. I did see weakness on left turns which made sense. That is the side that has the arthritis. We will work these muscles sparingly but consistently to see if we can build some strength and stability.

Stay tuned...In the meantime if anyone comes up with answers or suggestions I am all ears!!