Kevin Neeld — Hockey Training, Sports Performance, & Sports Science

Core Exercise to Improve Hockey Shooting

The other day I posted a video of a Falling Side Lunge Sprint Start, which was the end of my lateral sprint start progression. The video below is one of the final stages of our horizontal power progression. This progression is designed to help hockey players use their hips to create and control rotational power.

I learned this exercise from Mike Potenza in a series of videos he posted at HockeySC.com. As a quick plug, if you still haven’t checked out the site, you need to. The quality of information continues to grow (and will); I’ve personally learned a great deal from people like Mike Potenza, Mike Boyle, Sean Skahan, Cal Dietz, Matt Nichol, Maria Mountain, and Devan McConnell and I know you will too.

Check out the Side Standing Med Ball Scoop with Partner Toss video:

As the bearded hockey player learns to catch, recoil, and accelerate the ball forward, you can throw the ball a little harder to increase the decelrative stress. Ideally, the player should keep their arms straigtht and the ball should br thrown toward their back hip in the same line that they’ll need to coil back in. In otherwords, don’t throw it at them; throw it almost in a parallel line to their orientation. Make sure the player is rotating their hips fully around on each throw.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Kevin Neeld

Kevin Neeld Knows Hockey

Kevin has rapidly established himself as a leader in the field of physical preparation and sports science for ice hockey. He is currently the Head Performance Coach for the Boston Bruins, where he oversees all aspects of designing and implementing the team’s performance training program, as well as monitoring the players’ performance, workload and recovery. Prior to Boston, Kevin spent 2 years as an Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach for the San Jose Sharks after serving as the Director of Performance at Endeavor Sports Performance in Pitman, NJ. He also spent 5 years as a Strength and Conditioning Coach with USA Hockey’s Women’s Olympic Hockey Team, and has been an invited speaker at conferences hosted by the NHL, NSCA, and USA Hockey.