Month: January 2011

2011 Hockey Strength and Conditioning

As I mentioned on Wednesday (2011 Hockey Development Predictions), the hockey community can expect some pretty significant changes over the next 12 months. I also mentioned in that post that one of the most “simple” ways to improve on-ice performance is to follow a well-designed training program. In this regard, I don’t think you’ll find a better resource than HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com.

Since the site’s opening last year, I’ve personally made relatively substantial changes to my programs and coaching methods based on information I attained from the site. There aren’t any other hockey-specific resources out there that I can attest to with the same enthusiasm. With that said, there are always ways to make the site better. Yesterday, Anthony Renna (the technical brains behind the site), Mike Potenza (San Jose Sharks), Sean Skahan (Anaheim Ducks), our newest addition Darryl Nelson (U.S. National Development Program), and I spent an hour on the phone discussing how we could make the site better for you.

Here’s a glimpse of what you can look forward to in the near future:

  • A MASSIVE exercise video library. This was a feature that people really liked about my Hockey Training Expert site before I merged it with Hockey Strength and Conditioning, and we’re bringing it back! With this, you’ll get access to a ton (200+) exercise videos divided by training category (e.g. warm-up, speed, etc.). This is a huge pain in the ass to do so it will take time, but we will get it done!

Anthony, after adding 300 separate video pages and linking to all them on one page with specific categories.

  • A recommended equipment page so those of you in charge of making equipment decisions can easily find the products that we use in videos or reference in articles.
  • Lastly, we’re planning on adding youth off-ice training programs. The rationale behind this was simple. People with advanced academic backgrounds can pull a lot of information from the training programs and progressions that we post currently. But these aren’t always “season-relevant” and many of the people responsible for youth off-ice programs either don’t have the academic background and/or the equipment to implement similar strategies in their environment. The goal of these new programs is to provide minimal equipment programs that coaches can print off the web and put to use immediately. All the exercises will have videos too so there’s no confusion there. I’m more excited about this than any other aspect of the site because I think it will be a HUGE help to the thousands of coaches and players out there that want to train, but don’t have the necessary means to do so in an optimal fashion.

2011 is going to be an exciting year for hockey AND Hockey Strength and Conditioning. Head on over to the site and sign up for a year membership. With the content on the site already, the brain power on the forums, and the changes we’re making moving forward, we’re truly revolutionizing hockey training. You owe it to yourself to be a part of it!

Click the image below for more information about Hockey Strength and Conditioning!

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Did you remember to sign up for this? 2011 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

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2011 Hockey Development Predictions

2011 is going to be a big year, not just for me personally, but also for the entire hockey community. As hockey continues to rapidly increase in popularity around the world, so too will the attention paid to QUALITY development systems. With that in mind, here are my top 3 hockey development predictions for the new year.

3) The rapid death of “select camps”
Select tournaments and camps have undergone an incredible growth over the last 10 years. From a business standpoint, the people that run these camps can make a killing by having hundreds of kids attending their tryouts, selecting the team they knew they’d take anyway, and overcharging those players. It works the same way for hosting select tournaments (hence why so many of these “elite only” tournaments have more than doubled their team base over the last several years).

In reality, these camps IMPAIR development more than they expose talent. Because most of these camps take place in the off-season, players put too much focus on on-ice work in the forms of games and practices, and not nearly enough focus on off-ice training and on-ice SKILL work (e.g. skating technique and specific puck handling skills).

Fresh off their 14th hockey camp and 11th hockey showcase, these players are energized for the start of the new season…

The truth is that most players get more than enough exposure during their season. Instead of attending these camps, a player could make drastically more progress by training hard to make a better team the following year. Ultimately, the better the team you’re on, the more exposure you’ll get. There are a few exceptions to this rule (exceptional players in remote areas such as the southeastern United States may need to play in ONE or TWO of these camps/tournaments to get enough exposure to move away from their home and play for a better organization, once they reach an appropriate age to do so), but this likely doesn’t apply to over 75% of the players that attend the camps in the first place.

2) Greater focus on skill work
Skill works seems to have found it’s way out of most youth organizations. This is the result of both an overemphasis on winning AND a rapid increase in the number of youth programs without a parallel increase in the number of qualified coaches. Regarding the former, winning is an important part of the game, but unless a coach’s job depends on it (and even then, alternative means should be considered), winning should not be pursued at the expense of skill work and individual development. Regarding the latter point, this is certainly not to bad mouth the hundreds of fathers and former players that have stepped up to fill the coaching void. It’s only to point out that it takes a special ability to be able to recognize, teach, and reinforce proper skill development progressions, and the number of people that can do that are quite limited. This is why, much to the surprise of hockey parents, I’ve recommended that some of the players I interact with take skating lessons with skating coaches with a primarily figure skating background. The truth is that these coaches tend to have a better understanding of the importance of edge work and single-leg stability. This isn’t to say that all figure skating coaches fit this description, but those with a history of working with hockey players tend to be excellent.

With the rule changes made several years back, hockey is more of a speed and skill game than ever before. Hockey development programs and organizations need to adapt if they want to produce elite level players. In the states, USA Hockey is on the right track with their new ADM initiative; it’s up to us now to learn about it and constantly reinforce it with the players we have access to.

Skill demonstration for Flyer’s fans (the last one is amazing)



1) Increased emphasis on training using a program
As more players train, the improved results of players that follow a well-written program will become increasingly apparent. As it is, we’ve had players at Endeavor that tell us they’ve made more progress in as little as a couple weeks training with us than they have in several months training on their own. In somewhat less extreme cases, most of the players we train in the off-season hit the ice in September and say they’ve never felt better in their lives. Think about that.

Our training certainly isn’t EASY, but the idea that a player can revolutionize his performance by following a well-written training program is quite SIMPLE. Get the program, get the results; it doesn’t get any more simple than that. The largest barrier to this, naturally, is that not everyone can get access to quality training programs. Well, I should say the largest PERCEIVED barrier is that everyone doesn’t know they can get access to quality training programs. For this reason, I think membership sites that provide this information will really take off in the new year. For strength and conditioning coaches that work with hockey players (in a high school, college, junior, professional, or private setting), you’d have to be crazy not to have a membership to HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com at this point. Not only are several programs from different coaches provided on a monthly basis, but you have access to many of the top coaches in the world to ask them questions about your own programs and situations. It’s the single best resource for you.

Click here to get access now >> Hockey Strength and Conditioning

For those involved in hockey training, but that don’t have the expertise or desire to write their own programs, Body By Boyle Online is an extraordinary option for you. There is a ton of content on there, which is nice for the intellectually curious, but more suited to your needs, there are constantly updated done-for-you training programs with videos of all the exercises. All of the content at both sites is available for an incredibly nominal monthly investment, considering the overwhelming impact this information can have on a player’s development!

Click here to get access now >> Body By Boyle Online

That’s a wrap for today. If you think I missed something, please comment below!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. If you haven’t yet, go sign up for the 2011 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar. It’s ABSOLUTELY free, and the speakers are world-class. Sign-up now so you don’t miss any of the presentations; they start next week!

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Top Hockey Development Posts of 2010

With 2011 officially upon us, I can’t help but reflect on what a great year 2010 was. A few of the highlights:

  1. We had an extraordinary Summer at Endeavor (awesome to watch Eric Tangradi score his first NHL goal and Colby Cohen play his first NHL game).
  2. I was able to make a trip out to San Jose to spend some time with my friend Mike Potenza, and another trip down to Raleigh to meet Pete Friesen and attend his Physio-Fitness Summit (which I recapped for a HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com article).
  3. My Ultimate Hockey Development Coaching Program was not only a big success, it was a lot of fun to do. The thing I like about doing “interviews” is that I pick up a lot of new stuff too. Joe Heiler, Jeff Cubos, Brijesh Patel and Jared Beach’s talks were especially enlightening to me, but I’ve heard great feedback about all the other talks as well.

  4. Along those same lines, the launch of HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com was particularly exciting. When I was growing up as a player, it was nearly impossible to get access to NHL coaches, players, trainers, etc. Now, the internet has made this exceptionally easy. The fact that you can now make a nominal investment and get immediate access to the guys that have help develop elite level hockey players at all ages doesn’t only appeal to me as a professional, it excites me as a former player. And the networking possibilities are unreal. When I was a senior at the University of Delaware, I wrote a letter to every US-based NHL Strength and Conditioning coaches inquiring about internship opportunities. While I wasn’t able to grab an internship out of their effort, there were a few NHL Strength Coaches that called me and spent some time giving me advice on how to break into the industry (Mike Kadar, who is now with the Pittsburgh Penguins was especially helpful). At HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com, you can post an inquiry on the forum and get responses from many of the top hockey strength and conditionign professionals in the world (including several that work in the NHL or with NHL players). Awesome.
  5. Emily and I made the move from Baltimore to Philadelphia at the end of August. My commute to Endeavor has dwindled to measly 25 minutes from what was a grueling 2 hour trek. It’s still enough time that I can go through an audio book every week, but short enough that I don’t need to wake up at 5:30 and drink 3 coffees and a spike just to make it to work (awake) by 8:30.

And finally, I’ve gotten terrific feedback on many of the posts on this site over the last year. It’s certainly come a long way from when I first started a few years back. As you continue to spread the word about this information to people you know, I continue to get more feedback to cater the content to your interests.

With all that said, here are the top Hockey Development posts of 2010!

7. Hockey Injuries: Sports Hernia Case Study

6. Hockey Training Tip to Prevent Shoulder Injuries

5. Hockey Training with the Vertimax

4. Randy Pausch, Will Smith, Kevin Neeld?

3. Video Reveals Secret to Developing Elite Level Hockey Players!

2. No One Conditions Alone

1. The Truth About Sidney Crosby

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. If you haven’t yet, go sign up for the 2011 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar. It’s free, and the speaker line-up is incredible!

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!

2011 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

It’s that time again. Last year my friend Joe Heiler (the brains behind SportsRehabExpert.com) hosted the best free sports performance teleseminar series I’ve ever heard of. It was loaded with great, usable information from some of the world’s top professionals in strength and conditioning, physical therapy and athletic training. Now he’s back, with a better line-up than ever.

Check out this list of presenters:

  1. Sue Falsone – PT Athletes’ Performance
  2. Ron Hruska – PT, Postural Restoration Institute
  3. Dr. Mike Leahy – Sports Chiropractor and inventor of ART
  4. Thomas Myers – ‘Anatomy Trains’ author
  5. Brian Grasso – IYCA
  6. Greg Roskopf – Muscle Activation Technique
  7. Brian Mulligan – PT – Mulligan Technique/Joint Mobilizations with Movement
  8. Dr. Warren Hammer – Chiropractor, Graston Technique Instructor, Fascial Manipulation
  9. Dan John – Strength Coach, author ‘Never Let Go’
  10. Gray Cook – PT, FMS

I’ve personally learned a ton from Sue Falsone, Ron Hruska, Thomas Myers, Brian Grasso, and Gray Cook so I always enjoy hearing them speak and picking up some new info. The other presenters I’m not as familiar with, but am equally as interested in their talks. Many of these presenters are inventors or instructors of manual therapy techniques that I fully support. I’ve found professionals with that type of background tend to have a profound understanding of how the body works and how to manipulate it to optimize performance. This always makes for an interesting discussion.

Having heard every second of last year’s interviews, I would have gladly paid $100+ to listen to all of them…but I didn’t have to.

You will survive another day…

Like last year, Joe is allowing you to register to listen to all the interviews for absolutely free. Joe’s a great guy, but that’s not the only reason why he gives away all this great info. Many times, people go over to the site to register for the teleseminar, realize how much other incredible info is at SportsRehabExpert.com and end up signing up for a membership. It’s a win-win.

I’ve known Joe and been a member at SportsRehabExpert.com for a little over two years at this point and have really enjoyed the content he’s put together. Here’s what I want you to do:

  1. Go to this link and register for the 2011 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar
  2. While you’re there, peruse around the site for a bit and check out some of the stuff he has to offer. If you think there’s some good stuff that you can integrate into your training programs, then register for a trial membership (it’s only $1 for 14 days!)

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Go register! It’s completely free. If you can’t make some of the calls, no biggie. There’s nothing to lose, but a ton of great information to gain! Register here now >> 2011 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!