30/12/2021
This post very eloquently explains why instability equipment is not needed for conditioning your dog and is only used for very specific problems.
Should we ditch the instability equipment? 🤔
For the last 18 months I have been hard at work creating a progressive conditioning plan for sports dogs. The reason it’s taken so long is because I have been extensively researching every detail to ensure it is 100% evidence-based.
As an evidence-based veterinary professional and physiotherapist, it is very important to me that there is hard science backing up every move and that each exercise is functional.
If you’ve worked with me or seen my conditioning training before, you will know that I’m not a massive fan of using instability equipment and that when I do, it is to serve a very specific purpose. In my head it doesn’t make sense to train dogs on unstable surfaces all the time when it doesn’t replicate any of the movements our dogs perform (I will cover unstable surfaces such as sand and see-saws later) and we know that the key to conditioning is in the specificity. I also like the dog to have full concentration when performing an exercise and not worrying about having to maintain balance at all times.
Balance can be broken down into three components.
1) Static/dynamic balance is the ability to maintain balance when moving steadily or when stationary, such as walking, sitting and standing.
2) Proactive balance is the ability to anticipate a disturbance and remain stable, such as recognising a see-saw (teeter) and understanding that it is going to move in a certain way.
3) Reactive balance is the body’s ability to react to an unexpected disturbance, such as a slip or fall.
Most healthy adults have good static/dynamic, proactive and reactive balance.
Reactive balance is the most relevant to us as this is generally what is needed for our dogs to recover from slipping when turning sharply or hitting the dogwalk at an angle and almost falling. This is when they are likely to sustain an injury and we obviously want to prevent that.
Reactive balance relies on good proprioception and good body awareness (I class these as two separate things- see previous blog posts). As our canine athletes will already have good proprioception, we can’t enhance this but we can improve body awareness.
When I devise conditioning programs for agility, flyball or any other explosive, dynamic sport, I focus on improving muscle strength, neuromuscular efficiency and core stability to improve overall performance.
So a few months ago, when researching the use of instability equipment (such as wobble cushions and peanut balls), I was very interested by the results from the human strengthening and conditioning studies.
Most studies looking at muscle activation use electromyography (EMG).
Electrodes are placed on the muscles and the electrical activity is measured whilst they are performing a movement.
The majority of the studies showed that muscle activation is increased when using unstable surfaces compared to stables surfaces. This makes sense because when using an unstable surface, more muscles are required to stabilise the trunk and maintain balance.
However, increased muscle activation doesn’t necessarily mean a better result.
Many muscles act in antagonistic pairs, such as biceps brachii and triceps. The main muscle performing the movement is the agonist and the opposing muscle is the antagonist. For example, if the biceps contract, the triceps will elongate. Antagonist muscle pairs help to maintain body or limb position and control rapid movements.
We also have synergist muscles, which aid the agonist muscle by fixing and stabilising it around the joint. In the example of the biceps/triceps antagonistic pair, the synergist is the brachialis muscle.
When instability is added, the agonists, antagonists and synergists all activate as a protective mechanism to prevent injury. The contraction of the agonist and antagonist muscles at the same time acts to stiffen the area being challenged.
Because both muscle groups are contracting, the agonist muscle produces a lower than normal EMG. This is because the body is focussed more on bracing itself and maintaining balance, than producing a maximum force output.
Zemkova et al. (2012) and Chulvi-Medrano (2010) studied muscle power output and force production when weightlifting on stable and unstable surfaces. They found that when the exercise was performed on an unstable surface, the performance was significantly reduced.
Furthermore, Behm et al. (2015) performed a meta-analysis on several sets of data and found that training using unstable equipment had no significant benefits to muscle strength, power output and balance performance compared to training on stable surfaces.
Anderson et al. (2014) studied muscle activation in humans whilst performing squats on a stable and an unstable surface. The unstable surface squats resulted in a 10% decrease in agonist muscle activation but they concluded that it may have some use for core activation* (although no significant difference was found).
*Reed et al. (2012) found that increasing core strength through instability training did not directly improve athletic performance.
Training often on unstable surfaces can lead to artificial stability. This is stability that only applies to working on that surface and does not translate to performance gains in your dog’s sport. That time would be better spent doing more sport specific activities.
A better approach perhaps, is to try and add instability to the movement on a stable surface. Is the exercise alone enough to produce the desired affect or do you need to add in the lifting of a single front leg for a down-to-stand transition? How about the dog performing ipsilateral stands? Or maybe we need to change the surface we train on?
Sand is classed as an unstable surface but training on sand is very different to working on a piece of instability equipment. If you’re due to compete on sand, my advice would be to train on sand. It’s all about specificity. More mechanical work is done on this surface due to the depth and softness, which cannot be replicated with equipment.
“Sand is a viable unstable surface to use in both training and rehab. Just like any surface it has some limitations. The primary downside is that the softness of the sand significantly slows everything down. It dampens the elastic response, which is both a plus and a minus. It is a plus because it develops good concentric strength response. It is a minus because it negates elastic response, so it is not real life” (Gambetta, 2012).
The extra mechanical loading required for working on sand increases the stretch-shortening cycle (for more about this, read my blog on plyomterics) and therefore reduces the maximal force output required for explosive performance. However, it does reduce the concussive forces through the shoulders when landing, so can be a useful surface for jump training.
I digress, this is not a post about sand training. Back to instability equipment!
The see-saw (teeter) is a common piece of unstable agility equipment and involves movement in a single plane. This requires a good degree of core stability and balance but as mentioned before, stability learnt on an unstable platform such as a donut or peanut, will not transfer to this piece of equipment but instead create artificial stability in all planes.
Human studies tell us that instability equipment can be a very useful tool for rehabilitating patients with neurological deficits and I certainly do use it for this purpose. There are also studies that show it can significantly benefit very young or old individuals by improving proprioception and neuromuscular communication. Therefore, it may be useful for puppies and young dogs being introduced to the foundations of agility or their chosen dog sport.
However, after looking at all the literature, it seems it is not so beneficial for elite athletes and may even be detrimental to performance.
Therefore, I still don’t think I’m going to rush out to buy some instability equipment for my conditioning training…even if they do come in very aesthetically pleasing colours.
For the full bibliography, please visit my blog where you can also sign up to receive all my blog posts direct to your email.
www.ecvetphysiotherapy.com/blog
