Help Yourself Train Better
24 Oct 2026
Seek out/build “tools” to help you train and learn. I’ve been working with Oakley Canine Athletics to help Spark build strength and skills for choosing his Take Off Point for jumping. I found I was having trouble organizing my training sessions and wasn’t working on all the skills/exercises I should have been.
So I put together a simple spreadsheet with the skills/exercises on the rows and days of the week as columns. Then I asked Laurren to recommend sets/reps for the skills/exercises for the days. That was super helpful so now I know what I should be working on and we can tune the reps as we progress.
Then I realized I was looking around for how I should set up each drill/exercise. So I copied images for each day’s exercises from Laurren’s PDFs and combined them with the set/reps and put them in a document for each day along with Spark’s specific notes. I then put those docs on my phone.
Presto! Ready to train at any moment with everything I need and it’s with me at all times.
You may not need documents, but think about how you might organize your props, notes, practice courses, etc to reduce your “setup time”. Don’t forget your coach/trainer/instructor wants you to succeed so don’t hesitate to contact them for suggestions!
Other thoughts: I put contact mats in my car and in my training area, wubba’s everywhere(!); I never want to be missing a tool when I have a training opportunity.
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