July 10, 2025 • 18 mins
If you’ve ever skipped a workout because you felt awkward, uncoordinated, or just plain embarrassed, this episode is for you.
We’re diving into why so many adults feel clumsy when they try to get back into movement—and how to change that narrative for good. You’ll learn why feeling “unathletic” has less to do with your actual ability and more to do with missing physical literacy building blocks that many of us never had a chance to develop as kids.
We talk about:
- What muscle memory really is—and how to rebuild it
- How physical literacy shapes confidence and coordination
- Why fitness can feel so vulnerable for adults (and what to do about it)
- The role of play, curiosity, and skill-building in getting better
- How dog training principles like “start simple and reward often” can work for people, too
Whether you’re brand new to movement or just feeling out of practice, you’ll leave this episode with tools, reassurance, and a few laughs—and hopefully the permission to start again, without shame.
👉 Want more? Check out resources, programs, and future episodes at caninehandlerfitness.com
🎙️ Subscribe so you don’t miss what’s next!
Ready to move better, feel stronger, and run your dog with more speed and control?
Jump into these free handler-specific stretches designed to boost your mobility, prevent injury, and elevate your performance—click here to get started now!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey dog sport handlers, welcome to the Canine Handler Fitness
podcast. I'm your host Liz Joyce, your go
to expert for all things dog sport fitness.
Whether you're running, agility,doing protection work, tackling,
search and rescue, handling it tough tugger or just looking to
build strength for a lifetime ofadventures with your dog.
Remember you are half the team and I'm here to help you stay
(00:23):
strong, mobile and injury free. Join me as I break down the
unique demands handler fitness, speed, strength, endurance, and
everything you need to perform at your best both in and out of
the ring. Let's stay strong, stay in the
game, and keep doing what we love.
Let's dive in. Welcome back to the Canine
(00:43):
Handler fitness podcast. I'm your host, Liz Joyce, and
today we're talking about something that affects every
handler, whether you're running world level agility or just
trying to feel stronger and morecapable.
Again, muscle memory and physical literacy.
If you have ever said to yourself I used to be able to do
this. Or maybe you've wondered by
(01:05):
something. Should feel easy but it feels
like clunky or frustrating. Or perhaps you're more of an
indoor kid and now you're picking up dog sports and it
feels uncoordinated and uncomfortable.
Or perhaps you were very athletic and then you've been
really focused on other aspects of your life and again, you're
(01:25):
returning to fitness and your body just isn't moving smoothly.
This episode is for you. We're going to talk about how
our brains and bodies learn movement, what happens when we
stop practicing certain patterns, and also how we can
rebuild confidence, competency, and also fluency.
Even if you missed out on those foundations when you were a kid.
(01:49):
We're going to start by talking about muscle memory.
Despite the name, muscle memory doesn't live in your muscles.
It actually lives in your brain and a lot of people confuse this
by thinking that if someone had previously had a lot of
experience in the weight room and they had a large muscles
that if they start working out again, they're that person is
(02:12):
going to gain muscle size fasterthan someone with less
experience. And that just really isn't what
muscle memory is. When you repeat a movement over
time, your brain creates A neural pathway for that
movement, and the more you practice, the smoother that
pathway becomes, which will eventually make the movement
(02:33):
feel and be automatic. But muscle memory isn't always
helpful because it can also workagainst you.
For example, if you've had an injury, you've maybe developed
compensations from that injury, or if you just simply stop
moving in certain ways if you'vehad a very sedentary job for a
long period of time. And also, I think it's fair to
(02:55):
say that as people get older, weexplore less complex, less deep,
less explosive movements overall.
What happens is your body might,and probably does remember
inefficient or guarded patterns instead, if you've been in
(03:16):
chronic pain, your body might flinch in anticipation of pain,
or brace your core unnecessarily, or perhaps avoid
full ranges of motion. And if you have had an injury,
you know that this is true. We're going to talk about how
you can undo that because the good news is that just like we
(03:37):
can retrain behaviors in our dogs, we can do the same with
ourselves. We are always going to get what
we train for and we can retrain what's not working for us.
Let's talk about physical literacy.
Physical literacy is a term thatmore people are starting to
hear, and it's a really important one.
(03:59):
It refers to the ability and confidence in physical
movements. It's built in childhood through
games and play and sports and all kinds of movement
experiences, and some people didn't get this as kids.
There's a lot of reasons for this.
Could be something to do with your people may have body image
(04:21):
issues, they could have been injured or I'll as children.
They could have had a lack of access because of where they
lived or perhaps just their family dynamics.
This person and you might not have just been very athletic.
You might have had a teacher kind of make fun of you when you
were younger, which isn't alwaysencouraging.
(04:42):
You may also have just preferredto do more indoor things like
music or art. Here's the thing about physical
literacy though. Even if you don't fall into
those categories, if you did have physical literacy or very
athletic child or teenager, these things can fade over time
if we stop using him. The good news again is like it's
(05:04):
not too late to rebuild or to simply build them in the first
place. And I see this happen all of the
time. The shock on people's face three
or six weeks after they start a well programmed workout plan.
It's amazing what the body can take out and express in a very
(05:25):
short amount of time. It's really exciting and
encouraging. And like any skill, building
physical literacy takes exposure, repetition, and
encouragement. You always want to start with
small and fun movements. Here's my hot tip.
Stay curious and think about playfully exploring your limits.
(05:48):
Movement does not have to be serious to be productive.
You can actually just go have some fun, and I love that.
Speaking of people that are thinking about building for the
first time or ingraining muscle memory intentionally for the
first time, I think I want to touch on real quick that it can
(06:10):
be really vulnerable to be a beginner.
And I don't think people talk about this nearly enough.
Specifically, trying new things as an adult can be really
vulnerable, especially when it comes to our bodies.
As adults, we are used to being good at what we do.
I think a lot of us build our lives in a way that we're fairly
(06:33):
good at most things that we do. Most of the time we try
something new and we're not goodat it.
It can feel like frustrating, embarrassing, and again, back to
bodies, it can be even feel. It can even feel shameful, which
I hate. I think this is one of the big
(06:54):
reasons that people don't start fitness if they don't have it as
an existing habit or something that they did when they were
younger. It's so vulnerable, and that
vulnerability is uncomfortable physically for sure, and
emotionally it's also very challenging to The good news
about that is that it's just a skill set, guys.
(07:18):
Fitness is just a skill set. If you learn how to handle and
train dogs when you're in a dog sport, then you are in
competing. You've already done this, just
in a different place in your life.
And you can totally do this. Also.
No one expects a green dog to belike go out and nail a course or
(07:39):
nail a behavior. But people expect this of
themselves, and it's unfortunatethat people expect themselves to
be instantly competent, especially with their bodies.
Like it's an innate thing. We should be able to hate that
word. We should be able to be
competent and really great at this.
And then you're not and you comeup feeling short.
(08:01):
So don't love that. But I learned quite a while ago
that training people in the sameway that I train my dog really
changed everything in how I communicate with the people that
I work with. This is these are the hot tips
(08:21):
that this is what I do for people and this is what I want
you to do for yourself. I want you to approach yourself
with compassion when it's hard. The next thing, and this is
super important, is try to thinkabout it like a game and keep it
fun. Have fun while you're exploring
(08:43):
new challenges. Also, deal with it with
encouragement instead of criticism.
When you look back at your last workout or your last week of
workouts or your last month of workouts, I want you to pick out
every single time you finish a workout two things that you're
(09:05):
really proud of yourself for doing.
And that's going to really flip the script.
So when you're in your workout and it's getting sticky and it's
getting grindy and it's hard, you're going to start looking
for things that you're doing really well rather than looking
for things that you're not doingwell.
And they want you to focus on those things because that is
going to pull you through. The last thing is that it's
(09:29):
totally OK in the overall picture to sometimes like take a
little break. You know, if you go on holidays
for three weeks, let's say people are three or six months
into their workout journey, they're coming back and they
haven't done this since high school.
Now you're 35 or 40 or 60 and you're starting again and you're
(09:51):
three months and you're on a streak and you're doing great.
And then you go on holidays for two weeks, it can feel like the
clock has stopped and you're starting all the way back at the
beginning. And honestly, I bet you were
training your dog that whole time and you went on a two week
holiday and they didn't train for those two weeks.
And guess what? The world didn't stop spinning.
And it's fine. I also really want you to
(10:12):
remember and drill into your brain that the destination you
reaching your fitness goals is going to be amazing.
And the in between movements, the in between moments really is
like where the real magic happens.
That's where we bond with our dogs.
(10:32):
And also it's where you're goingto bond with yourself.
And I love that for you. Let's talk about how to build
movement confidence. So how do we rebuild or build
muscle memory? And physical literacy #1 this is
the most important thing. You're going to need to start
(10:52):
slow. Literally slow your freaking
movements down. Slow it down.
Rushing through things does a couple things.
A it makes you feel like you're doing a really great job.
So you got a lot done. But what is really happening is
that you're not allowing yourself time to figure out how
(11:12):
to fire the correct muscles in the correct order so that your
mechanics are clean and tight and are going to be able to
operate optimally. So slowing down will help you,
will allow you to do that. The other thing is that there
are going to be muscles in that kinetic chain for sure that are
not pulling their weight. You can call them your Lazy
(11:35):
Susan muscles. Sorry if there's a Susan
listening to this, no offense atall, but your Lazy Susan
muscles, when you're doing squats, for example, or lunges,
if you breeze through movements and you're really rushing
through things, especially when you're first starting, your Lazy
Susan muscles have no reason to turn on.
(11:56):
Our bodies are amazing compensation machines.
They are incredible. And if you have a Lazy Susan,
like let's say you injured a muscle and then that muscle got
protected by the ones that were all around it and you didn't go
through physical therapy or physiotherapy, you didn't have a
massage, You didn't rebuild the strength and make sure it's
(12:17):
firing well. And now it's 10 years later and
you walked it off. Now that Lazy Susan muscle that
was protected has had like a decade of time of the stronger
muscles around it dealing with life forces for it.
And when you go through a movement where the Lazy Susan is
supposed to be doing something, but she's lazy.
And the other muscles I'm going to have to find a name for those
(12:39):
are doing the job for it. If you go quickly, that Lazy
Susan muscle has no reason to turn on a fire and help you out.
So slow that stuff down. The second thing you need to be
consistent because repetition isreally what wires in muscle
memory, even like 10 minutes a day adds up really quickly.
(13:02):
And when you're first starting, I think there's this just a big
ramp of excitement. You're learning new things,
feels great, your muscles are firing.
The first like 8 to 12 weeks that a piece, a person starts
working out with a lot of effortand focus.
The amount of changes in the strength, speed, cardiovascular
(13:24):
capacity is just wild. And staying consistent is going
to help you see that happen in ain real time, which I think
really helps with motivation. The next thing I want you to add
play to your exercise. OK, odd.
I love ladder drills. They're so fun.
(13:45):
They're great for people who have an issue, like some
challenges with high impact needs.
You can do them at a lower impact thing, at lower impact
fashion. They're also great for people
that are very athletic, so they're good for a wide range of
abilities. Thinking also about some like
playing with your dog when you're out running around, like
can you make your body move a little bit more if it doesn't
(14:08):
hurt you, can you kind of run and play with them a little bit
more? Thinking about playing with your
body like you would when you were younger is a great way to
expose yourself in a playful wayto more challenging things.
The next thing that's really important is I really don't want
(14:29):
you to be chasing perfection, OK?
You are going to get better. You will.
If you keep trying, you will getbetter.
And if your expectation is that you're going to be perfect at
it, you are definitely going to feel disappointed in yourself,
frustrated. It's definitely not going to
(14:50):
ever be happening fast enough. And all these things can become
a mental brick that I see crush people's motivation and
excitement for fitness so fast. And I really don't want that for
you. What I want you to do is think
about training yourself like youwould if you were training your
dog. You've got a new skill that
(15:10):
you're training them. You're going to ask for splits
of behavior. So planks are really great
example for this. Of course, we always want to
work to be doing words, doing planks from our elbows and our
toes and adding variations. And also, if your abdomen isn't
strong enough, when you start doing those, your diaphragm is
(15:31):
going to act as a postural muscle and that's going to
really make breathing almost impossible.
People can get mad headaches. It's not cool.
So, well, if that's your goal and that's what perfection looks
like for you in that exercise, you're going to want to start by
putting your elbows and your knees on the ground or your
elbows on your couch and your knees on the ground and start to
(15:52):
work on breathing when you're ina plank.
And then slowly make that variation more challenging as
you can tolerate it. And the last thing is that I
want you to layer complexity. There's a ton of super sexy
people doing super sexy things on social media that's fitness
related, super hot. Of course we all want to be
(16:15):
doing those things. And also these people are
athletes. And unlike 20 years ago when we
had exposure to the 20 people or40 people in our gym that we
went to locally, now we have exposure to the very best people
in the whole world at our fingertips all the time.
And it raised the bar a lot. And I think that it's harder for
(16:36):
people to think about what does a foundation movement look like
when I'm seeing all these, like,really sexy moves all over the
place, because I want to be doing that.
And yeah, of course, we all wantto be doing that too, for sure.
And I think that it's really important to build the skills
independent of one another. And then you can add layering of
(16:57):
those things. So bringing them together, I
call it marrying things. We're going to marry your squats
and your rows today. We're going to bring it all
together. You can add some speed and then
you can add complexity and look for fluency under pressure.
And fitness works the same way as dog training in that way.
Here's my final thoughts about all of this, especially if you
(17:20):
are new to fitness or you're coming back to fitness and it's
not something that is feeling great.
If you're not yet feeling powerful and amazing, you are
not broken or behind or you're or bad at this.
You're just simply out of practice.
And practice is something that you can change and it's totally
(17:43):
in your hands. The more you move, the more
you're going to remember how to move well.
The more you try new things, themore your confidence is going to
grow. And listen to this one.
The more grace you give yourselfin the process, the more
sustainable the journey is goingto become.
(18:06):
Just like how you would train your dog, consistency and
kindness take us the furthest. Thanks so much for listening to
the Canine Handler Fitness Podcast.
And if this episode hit home foryou, share it with a teammate or
a training buddy. You can find more resources on
(18:26):
rebuilding movement skills over at caninehandlerfitness.com or
tune into our other episodes formore body smart handler
strategies. Until next time, move well, stay
curious and enjoy the process.
Hey dog sport handlers, welcome to the Canine Handler Fitness
podcast. I'm your host Liz Joyce, your go
to expert for all things dog sport fitness.
Whether you're running, agility,doing protection work, tackling,
search and rescue, handling it tough tugger or just looking to
build strength for a lifetime ofadventures with your dog.
Remember you are half the team and I'm here to help you stay
(00:23):
strong, mobile and injury free. Join me as I break down the
unique demands handler fitness, speed, strength, endurance, and
everything you need to perform at your best both in and out of
the ring. Let's stay strong, stay in the
game, and keep doing what we love.
Let's dive in. Welcome back to the Canine
(00:43):
Handler fitness podcast. I'm your host, Liz Joyce, and
today we're talking about something that affects every
handler, whether you're running world level agility or just
trying to feel stronger and morecapable.
Again, muscle memory and physical literacy.
If you have ever said to yourself I used to be able to do
this. Or maybe you've wondered by
(01:05):
something. Should feel easy but it feels
like clunky or frustrating. Or perhaps you're more of an
indoor kid and now you're picking up dog sports and it
feels uncoordinated and uncomfortable.
Or perhaps you were very athletic and then you've been
really focused on other aspects of your life and again, you're
(01:25):
returning to fitness and your body just isn't moving smoothly.
This episode is for you. We're going to talk about how
our brains and bodies learn movement, what happens when we
stop practicing certain patterns, and also how we can
rebuild confidence, competency, and also fluency.
Even if you missed out on those foundations when you were a kid.
(01:49):
We're going to start by talking about muscle memory.
Despite the name, muscle memory doesn't live in your muscles.
It actually lives in your brain and a lot of people confuse this
by thinking that if someone had previously had a lot of
experience in the weight room and they had a large muscles
that if they start working out again, they're that person is
(02:12):
going to gain muscle size fasterthan someone with less
experience. And that just really isn't what
muscle memory is. When you repeat a movement over
time, your brain creates A neural pathway for that
movement, and the more you practice, the smoother that
pathway becomes, which will eventually make the movement
(02:33):
feel and be automatic. But muscle memory isn't always
helpful because it can also workagainst you.
For example, if you've had an injury, you've maybe developed
compensations from that injury, or if you just simply stop
moving in certain ways if you'vehad a very sedentary job for a
long period of time. And also, I think it's fair to
(02:55):
say that as people get older, weexplore less complex, less deep,
less explosive movements overall.
What happens is your body might,and probably does remember
inefficient or guarded patterns instead, if you've been in
(03:16):
chronic pain, your body might flinch in anticipation of pain,
or brace your core unnecessarily, or perhaps avoid
full ranges of motion. And if you have had an injury,
you know that this is true. We're going to talk about how
you can undo that because the good news is that just like we
(03:37):
can retrain behaviors in our dogs, we can do the same with
ourselves. We are always going to get what
we train for and we can retrain what's not working for us.
Let's talk about physical literacy.
Physical literacy is a term thatmore people are starting to
hear, and it's a really important one.
(03:59):
It refers to the ability and confidence in physical
movements. It's built in childhood through
games and play and sports and all kinds of movement
experiences, and some people didn't get this as kids.
There's a lot of reasons for this.
Could be something to do with your people may have body image
(04:21):
issues, they could have been injured or I'll as children.
They could have had a lack of access because of where they
lived or perhaps just their family dynamics.
This person and you might not have just been very athletic.
You might have had a teacher kind of make fun of you when you
were younger, which isn't alwaysencouraging.
(04:42):
You may also have just preferredto do more indoor things like
music or art. Here's the thing about physical
literacy though. Even if you don't fall into
those categories, if you did have physical literacy or very
athletic child or teenager, these things can fade over time
if we stop using him. The good news again is like it's
(05:04):
not too late to rebuild or to simply build them in the first
place. And I see this happen all of the
time. The shock on people's face three
or six weeks after they start a well programmed workout plan.
It's amazing what the body can take out and express in a very
(05:25):
short amount of time. It's really exciting and
encouraging. And like any skill, building
physical literacy takes exposure, repetition, and
encouragement. You always want to start with
small and fun movements. Here's my hot tip.
Stay curious and think about playfully exploring your limits.
(05:48):
Movement does not have to be serious to be productive.
You can actually just go have some fun, and I love that.
Speaking of people that are thinking about building for the
first time or ingraining muscle memory intentionally for the
first time, I think I want to touch on real quick that it can
(06:10):
be really vulnerable to be a beginner.
And I don't think people talk about this nearly enough.
Specifically, trying new things as an adult can be really
vulnerable, especially when it comes to our bodies.
As adults, we are used to being good at what we do.
I think a lot of us build our lives in a way that we're fairly
(06:33):
good at most things that we do. Most of the time we try
something new and we're not goodat it.
It can feel like frustrating, embarrassing, and again, back to
bodies, it can be even feel. It can even feel shameful, which
I hate. I think this is one of the big
(06:54):
reasons that people don't start fitness if they don't have it as
an existing habit or something that they did when they were
younger. It's so vulnerable, and that
vulnerability is uncomfortable physically for sure, and
emotionally it's also very challenging to The good news
about that is that it's just a skill set, guys.
(07:18):
Fitness is just a skill set. If you learn how to handle and
train dogs when you're in a dog sport, then you are in
competing. You've already done this, just
in a different place in your life.
And you can totally do this. Also.
No one expects a green dog to belike go out and nail a course or
(07:39):
nail a behavior. But people expect this of
themselves, and it's unfortunatethat people expect themselves to
be instantly competent, especially with their bodies.
Like it's an innate thing. We should be able to hate that
word. We should be able to be
competent and really great at this.
And then you're not and you comeup feeling short.
(08:01):
So don't love that. But I learned quite a while ago
that training people in the sameway that I train my dog really
changed everything in how I communicate with the people that
I work with. This is these are the hot tips
(08:21):
that this is what I do for people and this is what I want
you to do for yourself. I want you to approach yourself
with compassion when it's hard. The next thing, and this is
super important, is try to thinkabout it like a game and keep it
fun. Have fun while you're exploring
(08:43):
new challenges. Also, deal with it with
encouragement instead of criticism.
When you look back at your last workout or your last week of
workouts or your last month of workouts, I want you to pick out
every single time you finish a workout two things that you're
(09:05):
really proud of yourself for doing.
And that's going to really flip the script.
So when you're in your workout and it's getting sticky and it's
getting grindy and it's hard, you're going to start looking
for things that you're doing really well rather than looking
for things that you're not doingwell.
And they want you to focus on those things because that is
going to pull you through. The last thing is that it's
(09:29):
totally OK in the overall picture to sometimes like take a
little break. You know, if you go on holidays
for three weeks, let's say people are three or six months
into their workout journey, they're coming back and they
haven't done this since high school.
Now you're 35 or 40 or 60 and you're starting again and you're
(09:51):
three months and you're on a streak and you're doing great.
And then you go on holidays for two weeks, it can feel like the
clock has stopped and you're starting all the way back at the
beginning. And honestly, I bet you were
training your dog that whole time and you went on a two week
holiday and they didn't train for those two weeks.
And guess what? The world didn't stop spinning.
And it's fine. I also really want you to
(10:12):
remember and drill into your brain that the destination you
reaching your fitness goals is going to be amazing.
And the in between movements, the in between moments really is
like where the real magic happens.
That's where we bond with our dogs.
(10:32):
And also it's where you're goingto bond with yourself.
And I love that for you. Let's talk about how to build
movement confidence. So how do we rebuild or build
muscle memory? And physical literacy #1 this is
the most important thing. You're going to need to start
(10:52):
slow. Literally slow your freaking
movements down. Slow it down.
Rushing through things does a couple things.
A it makes you feel like you're doing a really great job.
So you got a lot done. But what is really happening is
that you're not allowing yourself time to figure out how
(11:12):
to fire the correct muscles in the correct order so that your
mechanics are clean and tight and are going to be able to
operate optimally. So slowing down will help you,
will allow you to do that. The other thing is that there
are going to be muscles in that kinetic chain for sure that are
not pulling their weight. You can call them your Lazy
(11:35):
Susan muscles. Sorry if there's a Susan
listening to this, no offense atall, but your Lazy Susan
muscles, when you're doing squats, for example, or lunges,
if you breeze through movements and you're really rushing
through things, especially when you're first starting, your Lazy
Susan muscles have no reason to turn on.
(11:56):
Our bodies are amazing compensation machines.
They are incredible. And if you have a Lazy Susan,
like let's say you injured a muscle and then that muscle got
protected by the ones that were all around it and you didn't go
through physical therapy or physiotherapy, you didn't have a
massage, You didn't rebuild the strength and make sure it's
(12:17):
firing well. And now it's 10 years later and
you walked it off. Now that Lazy Susan muscle that
was protected has had like a decade of time of the stronger
muscles around it dealing with life forces for it.
And when you go through a movement where the Lazy Susan is
supposed to be doing something, but she's lazy.
And the other muscles I'm going to have to find a name for those
(12:39):
are doing the job for it. If you go quickly, that Lazy
Susan muscle has no reason to turn on a fire and help you out.
So slow that stuff down. The second thing you need to be
consistent because repetition isreally what wires in muscle
memory, even like 10 minutes a day adds up really quickly.
(13:02):
And when you're first starting, I think there's this just a big
ramp of excitement. You're learning new things,
feels great, your muscles are firing.
The first like 8 to 12 weeks that a piece, a person starts
working out with a lot of effortand focus.
The amount of changes in the strength, speed, cardiovascular
(13:24):
capacity is just wild. And staying consistent is going
to help you see that happen in ain real time, which I think
really helps with motivation. The next thing I want you to add
play to your exercise. OK, odd.
I love ladder drills. They're so fun.
(13:45):
They're great for people who have an issue, like some
challenges with high impact needs.
You can do them at a lower impact thing, at lower impact
fashion. They're also great for people
that are very athletic, so they're good for a wide range of
abilities. Thinking also about some like
playing with your dog when you're out running around, like
can you make your body move a little bit more if it doesn't
(14:08):
hurt you, can you kind of run and play with them a little bit
more? Thinking about playing with your
body like you would when you were younger is a great way to
expose yourself in a playful wayto more challenging things.
The next thing that's really important is I really don't want
(14:29):
you to be chasing perfection, OK?
You are going to get better. You will.
If you keep trying, you will getbetter.
And if your expectation is that you're going to be perfect at
it, you are definitely going to feel disappointed in yourself,
frustrated. It's definitely not going to
(14:50):
ever be happening fast enough. And all these things can become
a mental brick that I see crush people's motivation and
excitement for fitness so fast. And I really don't want that for
you. What I want you to do is think
about training yourself like youwould if you were training your
dog. You've got a new skill that
(15:10):
you're training them. You're going to ask for splits
of behavior. So planks are really great
example for this. Of course, we always want to
work to be doing words, doing planks from our elbows and our
toes and adding variations. And also, if your abdomen isn't
strong enough, when you start doing those, your diaphragm is
(15:31):
going to act as a postural muscle and that's going to
really make breathing almost impossible.
People can get mad headaches. It's not cool.
So, well, if that's your goal and that's what perfection looks
like for you in that exercise, you're going to want to start by
putting your elbows and your knees on the ground or your
elbows on your couch and your knees on the ground and start to
(15:52):
work on breathing when you're ina plank.
And then slowly make that variation more challenging as
you can tolerate it. And the last thing is that I
want you to layer complexity. There's a ton of super sexy
people doing super sexy things on social media that's fitness
related, super hot. Of course we all want to be
(16:15):
doing those things. And also these people are
athletes. And unlike 20 years ago when we
had exposure to the 20 people or40 people in our gym that we
went to locally, now we have exposure to the very best people
in the whole world at our fingertips all the time.
And it raised the bar a lot. And I think that it's harder for
(16:36):
people to think about what does a foundation movement look like
when I'm seeing all these, like,really sexy moves all over the
place, because I want to be doing that.
And yeah, of course, we all wantto be doing that too, for sure.
And I think that it's really important to build the skills
independent of one another. And then you can add layering of
(16:57):
those things. So bringing them together, I
call it marrying things. We're going to marry your squats
and your rows today. We're going to bring it all
together. You can add some speed and then
you can add complexity and look for fluency under pressure.
And fitness works the same way as dog training in that way.
Here's my final thoughts about all of this, especially if you
(17:20):
are new to fitness or you're coming back to fitness and it's
not something that is feeling great.
If you're not yet feeling powerful and amazing, you are
not broken or behind or you're or bad at this.
You're just simply out of practice.
And practice is something that you can change and it's totally
(17:43):
in your hands. The more you move, the more
you're going to remember how to move well.
The more you try new things, themore your confidence is going to
grow. And listen to this one.
The more grace you give yourselfin the process, the more
sustainable the journey is goingto become.
(18:06):
Just like how you would train your dog, consistency and
kindness take us the furthest. Thanks so much for listening to
the Canine Handler Fitness Podcast.
And if this episode hit home foryou, share it with a teammate or
a training buddy. You can find more resources on
(18:26):
rebuilding movement skills over at caninehandlerfitness.com or
tune into our other episodes formore body smart handler
strategies. Until next time, move well, stay
curious and enjoy the process.
Popular Podcasts
New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.