over muscled

Hi roodog,

That is a very good question and one that is not easy to answer.

The short answer is that using this type of training on a pure bred greyhound is most likely to have the dog break down.

The long answer?

Well as I have said that is a difficult one, however some of our most successful trainers employ a training regime that includes competitive running every day, twice a day, to get their greyhounds to a stage of peak fitness.

Unfortunately only a percentage of greyhounds are able to handle this type of stress, and their turnover of greyhounds is rather high, but then the greyhounds that do come through this training method are able to be raced twice weekly without requiring much in the way of injury treatments and physiotherapy.

However this method certainly requires a steady supply of new greyhounds to train, and is therefore is not one suitable to someone that buys one or two pups per year and has a rather high stake in getting the very best out of each individual greyhound, and in ensuring it has a long racing career.

Now in regard to muscle bulk and solid rock hard muscle tissue:

The reality is that it is all about speed, and speed that can be maintained at a high level for 500 metres or more. For a greyhound to maintain maximum speed it is essential that the muscle tissue is not only capable of contracting quickly but also capable of stretching easily so that the limbs are fully extended, and that the dog spends minimum time touching the ground.

Take the example of golf; in golf it is well understood that the better you follow through with your swing the further the ball travels. How does the ball know if you follow on with your swing or not, the ball has already left the club.

What it does come down to is the smoothness of the swing, and such is the case with a greyhound. The smoother the stride and the further the limb continues through after it’s foot has left the ground the further the dog travels through the air, and the faster it will run.

Bulky or hard muscle tissue will certainly have more power, but this invariably reduces the ability of the muscle to fully stretch and to allow the limb to fully extent, and therefore unfortunately reduces speed. Greyhounds with that type of muscle tissue are generally limited to short 250/300 metre sprints.

In my own case when I first started training greyhounds some 46 years ago, and looking at the weight handicapping that occurs in thoroughbred racing, I decided that if I trained my greyhounds with carrying some sort of weights while running, and then when I removed the weights the dog should run faster.

So I made up a light harness that allowed me to put small patches of lead in the appropriate places on the dog, and slowly over a period of time increase the weight slightly. Sounded like a good idea at the time, and yes the two dogs I tried it on did get bigger in the muscle tissue, but also unfortunately got slower. So that idea did not last too long. LOL

As a trainer you are constantly confronted with ensuring your greyhound has sufficient muscle tone, so that the muscle contracts as fast as possible, but the same time not as much muscle tone as to cause any restriction to the full comfortable extension of the limbs.

Cheers,
Tom