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Congrats to the U.S. Women’s Ice Hockey Team for getting off to a great Olympic start!

In an effort to get more incredible contributors to Hockey Training Expert, I’ve been talking a lot with hockey coaches and instructors with hundreds of years of combined experience.

Hockey players and coaches recognize the benefits of having a fast team. When it comes to individual skill, nothing is more important than speed. This is EXACTLY why I put together “Breakaway Hockey Speed”, so players and coaches could learn to how develop game changing speed, and get access to the exact drills that I use with my players.

Breakaway Hockey Speed

Breakaway Hockey Speed is a 25-page manual that outlines how to change your body position to maximize the power of your stride and reveals the truth about which stride pattern is better: short choppy strides vs long powerful strides (this will surprise you!). Breakaway Hockey Speed includes 6 Linear Speed Drills, 15 Transitional Speed Drills, and the information you need to integrate a comprehensive speed training program into your current training program.  This manual is exactly what you need to become faster and more explosive on the ice! Speed is your 1st key to ice hockey success.

This is a FREE gift for everyone that signs up for Hockey Training Expert before Friday!

Click here to sign up now!

Hockey Nutrition 101

All the speed in the world won’t matter if you don’t give yourself the fuel to use it. Proper nutrition is the most commonly recognized, but least practiced aspect of high level athletic performance. My colleague and friend Kim McCullough wrote Hockey Nutrition 101 to give you practical information on how to improve your diet to improve your performance. Kim brilliantly discusses how proper eating and hydration can have a huge impact on your performance, recovery, and overall development. Hockey Nutrition 101 gives you all the tools you need to figure out what you should be eating/drinking, how to make simple changes in your current diet, and how to track your intake so you can monitor your new high-performance diet! Proper diet and hydration habits are your 2nd key to ice hockey success.

This is a ANOTHER FREE gift for everyone that signs up for Hockey Training Expert before Friday!

Click here to sign up now!

Mental Performance Package

Now you have the tools to develop incredible speed and give yourself the fuel you need to dominate. You’re one step away. Most players recognize that between 50-90% of their performance is mental. Most players admit that 0-10% of their training time is spent on mental preparation. Kim McCullough developed ANOTHER incredible resource for you, the Mental Performance Package, that gives you step-by-step instructions on how to develop the focus and confidence of a champion. This is your 3rd and final key to ice hockey success!

Guess how much this incredible resource will cost you? NOTHING! This is a ANOTHER FREE gift for everyone that signs up for Hockey Training Expert before Friday!

Click here to sign up now!

P.S. For only $9.95/month you get these THREE incredible bonuses IN ADDITION to the customized hockey training programs, hundreds of innovative hockey training exercises, incredible articles and access to some of the greatest minds in ice hockey player development. Joining Hockey Training Expert is a NO BRAINER and you know it. Stop dragging your feet and join our dedicated community today!

Click here to sign up now!

The snow by Endeavor, the facility in Sewell, NJ that I work at, is out of control! Luckily we were able to sneak in yesterday morning to get a quick lift in before NJ officially went into a “state of emergency” and it was illegal to be on the roads.

With the launch of my new hockey training membership site this week, a lot of people are curious about what the site has to offer them. Check out the “Top 3 Reasons You Should Join Hockey Training Expert.”

1) Customized Hockey Training Programs
I think of training programs as a roadmap to success. If you aren’t following something structured you aren’t making the progress you could be. In other words, you’re wasting time and energy getting worse results. Hockey Training Expert has custom-written training programs for hockey players of all ages: Pee Wees, Bantams, Midgets, Junior/College, and Pros. You can’t find that anywhere!

The only problem with writing programs for people all over the world is that some players have access to different equipment than others. Not an issue! That’s one of the reasons I made sure the site had a forum, so you can personally contact me with any questions you have about the programs and I could give you the best answer possible based on your situation.

2) The World’s Largest Collection of Effective, Innovative Exercise Videos
Over the last 10 years, I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on CDs, DVDs and books, and countless hours volunteering under brilliant strength coaches and gaining a ton of personal experience with hockey players at all levels. Throughout that time I’ve come across and developed exercises that I rarely see other coaches using that just flat out work. I could easily compile a DVD series of all these exercises and sell it for $199, but I don’t want to do that. It’s hard enough to get access to quality information. For $9.95/month, you get continuous access to videos of the most current, effective exercises out there. You can’t beat that!

3) Constantly Growing Database of Incredible Hockey-Specific Information
I’m lucky to have such a diverse list of “experts” as contributors to the site. Hockey Training Expert hosts some of the most brilliant strength and conditioning coaches in the world, experts that specialize in both men’s and women’s hockey, experts on different training practices for players of different positions, and experts on proper nutrition and supplementation for hockey players.

In the next week, I’ll be adding three new experts: One is a great physical therapist who will provide great information on how to prevent and accommodate hockey-related injuries; one is a master of individual skill work and team systems; one has helped place countless athletes in Prep, Junior, NCAA, and Pro programs where they can flourish.

I promise to make this the ultimate site for hockey players, to make sure EVERYTHING you need to succeed is available to you through the site.  You can’t find that anywhere else!

Click here to sign up now!

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Don’t forget about the bonuses! If you sign-up today, you’ll get THREE incredible bonuses. I’m only offering these bonuses to the fast action takers; they won’t last long!

Bonus # 1: Breakaway Hockey Speed

Discover the secrets to the number one question most players ask: How do I get faster? This 25-page manual from Hockey Training Expert founder Kevin Neeld outlines how to change your body position to maximize the power of your stride and reveals the truth about short choppy strides vs long powerful strides (this will surprise you!). Breakaway Hockey Speed includes 6 Linear Speed Drills, 15 Transitional Speed Drills, and the information you need to integrate a comprehensive speed training program into your current training program.  This manual is exactly what you need to become faster and more explosive on the ice!

Bonus # 2: Hockey Nutrition 101

Proper nutrition is the most commonly recognized, but least practiced aspect of high level athletic performance. Kim McCullough’s Hockey Nutrition 101 is an INCREDIBLE resource for hockey players and coaches. Kim brilliantly discusses how proper eating and hydration can have a huge impact on your performance, recovery, and overall development. Kim gives you all the tools you need to figure out what you should be eating/drinking, how to make simple changes in your current diet, and how to track your intake so you can monitor your new high-performance diet!

Bonus # 3: Mental Performance Package

What percentage of your performance is mental? If you’re like most players, you’ll say anywhere from 50-90%. But how much of your training time is dedicated toward improving your mental performance? If you’re like most players, you’ll say anywhere from 0-0%. Kim McCullough’s Mental Performance Package gives you step-by-step instructions on how to develop the focus and confidence of a champion!

Click here to sign up now!

I recently caught up with Maria Mountain, another great mind in the world of hockey training. I asked her if she’d put together an article for you on goalie training.

Check out the article below. I always love articles with material that is instantly usable. This is definitely one of those!

Three new ways for hockey goalies to improve hip flexibility.

Look at any of the spectacular saves from the highlight shows and you will see hockey goaltenders displaying their great hip flexibility.  Does this happen by chance?  It shouldn’t.  If you want to steal more wins for your team, then you must have amazing flexibility, so here are my top three stretches to help you make those impossible saves.

Standing Groin Stretch

If you are a hockey goaltender, then hopefully you are not making many saves from your butt, however if you look at goalies stretching routines, they spend much of their time sitting down with their feet in a wide ‘V’ position to stretch their groins.  I am not saying that is a bad stretch, I just think it can be better by taking the athlete into a standing position.

Seated Hip Internal Rotation

If you play with the butterfly style, then you need hip internal rotation which means you must stretch your hip external rotators.  The stretch I will describe below is an active stretch meaning that the hockey goalie will contract his hip internal rotators to help him stretch his hip external rotators.

• Begin by sitting on a trainers’ table or your kitchen counter with your knees right against  the edge of the counter.
• Pull your feet and knees together.
• Sit up tall.
• Try to keep your knees touching as you pull your feet apart (keep the knees bent to 90 degrees).
• Pull the feet outward for five seconds and then relax.  Perform 15-30 repetitions.

Self Myofascial Release with the Foam Roll

Any of you goalies out there stretch your hips but find that your flexibility still doesn’t improve?  Frustrating isn’t it?  The problem may not be that your muscles are tight at all, but rather your fascia may be stuck.  Fascia is the connective tissue that surrounds every muscle and every individual muscle fibre.  It can get tight or get bonded down to the underlying muscle and unless you actually get the fascia moving you will have trouble making gains through traditional stretching.  If you do not have a foam roll, get one.  If you are serious about your sport then you should have one.

Now, check out the video below so you can learn exactly how to do the stretches described above and learn more about how hockey goalies can implement foam rolling to increase hip flexibility.

Maria Mountain, MSc, CSCS is the owner of Revolution Conditioning and a professional fitness coach who is trusted by hockey players to help them compete at levels beyond their expectations while reducing their risk of injury.  Her training methods have been proven at all levels from the NHL to AAA.  If you are a goalie looking to take your game to the next level visit www.ultimategoalietraining.com or get your free 5-Part Hockey Training Insider’s Report at www.hockeytrainingpro.com.

Hockey is by far the most physically demanding sport out there. If you’re an athlete/coach of another sport, here me out before you send me hate mail.

I DON’T mean hockey players need the highest level of anaerobic or aerobic conditioning. I DON’T mean that hockey players need to be the strongest. I DON’T mean that hockey players need to be the most coordinated.

I DO mean that when you consider every aspect of athleticism, hockey is the most demanding sport. Think about it: All of the hand-eye coordination necessities of sports like lacrosse and basketball are present in puck handling in hockey. All the metabolic demands of most team sports are present in hockey (although there are some obvious slight differences between more aerobic-based sports like soccer and basketball and between more strictly anaerobic-based sports like football). All the strength requirements of high-speed contact team sports are required of hockey players.

So what sets hockey apart? All of these physical demands are tacked on top of mastering the art of skating-maneuvering on a thin metal blade with a forward-backward rocker and side-to-side hollow. Skating is an incredibly challenging activity by itself. Need proof? Throw an athlete from any other sport on a pair of skates and watch them learn (read: fall…hilariously).

Despite the limited surface area of the skate blade on the ice, I think many hockey players are making a huge off-ice training mistake. More on this soon…

-Kevin Neeld

I remember a conversation I had with Michael Boyle last Summer about grip strength. To paraphrase, he was joking about how ridiculous it is for hockey players to spend so much time doing wrist curls when they’re legs are so weak they’ll never get to a puck anyway.

The take home message is that you’re likely to get all the grip strength you need from other exercises. As an example, let’s look at Mike. Although he’s withered away to a measly 205, he’s kept his deadlift around 600 lbs. He’s doing a high rack pull in this video. Think he needs to do wrist curls?

If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been trying to post more videos recently. I love videos. If pictures are worth a thousand words, videos are worth one hundred BILLION words. I’ve read entire articles with detailed exercise descriptions that made no sense to me. Then I’ll watch the 30s of accompanying video and it all becomes clear.

If you’re like me and would rather watch a movie then read the book, you’ll love MyFitTube.com. It’s a membership site where some of the most respected experts in the industry post exercises, exercise progressions, and teaching descriptions. It’s a great investment.

This is another exercise training core control in an anti-rotation pattern while also strengthening your back. You should be squeezing your butt hard on your back leg. Notice that you’re co-contracting your butt and opposite side latissimus dorsi (read: lat), just as you would in sprinting or skating.

Building off the exercise I posted the other day, this is another dynamic movement that trains core control. The idea is that you minimize the rotation of your trunk while catching the ball. You can progress this exercise by having your partner throw the ball slightly further away from your shoulder. You could also make the throws back to your partner more explosive, but the exercise is designed to teach core control and anti-rotation, not explosive power. There are plenty of other exercises for that!

-Kevin Neeld

I think work capacity and alternating periods of static holds and explosive movements are essential training strategies for goalies.

I do some traditional interval training on a bike with goalies, like I do with all hockey players, but I have a greater emphasis on iso-holds. I usually use a squat iso-hold, or a split squat iso-hold with toe pull (raising the heal slightly on the lead leg and pulling the ball of the foot into the ground to activate the hamstrings to a greater extent).

Another idea I stole from Brijesh Patel is to alternate static holds with explosive movements. For instance, hold a squat position for 10s, then perform 3 max effort vertical jumps. Land and hold the squat position for another 10s, then perform 3 more jumps. Go through this cycle three times, for a total of 30s of holds and 9 jumps. This must be done with caution and your athletes must have a good understanding of proper and safe movement. A safer variation is to do it on a slideboard. Maintain a squat position on one side for 10s, then perform 3-5 rapid “back and forths” then stop and hold the squat position, etc. If done correctly, this is about as goalie-specific as it gets.

Skating treadmills have become big business, hailed as the cure for slow hockey players. A look at the research shows that hockey players tend to increase their stride frequency on a skating treadmill compared to on-ice training, probably because of the increased friction of the skating treadmill surface. That makes sense. The take home is that for any given skating speed, you’ll have to turn your feet over quicker on a treadmill than on ice.

Random tangent: Growing up, I remember hearing lots of coaches emphasize the importance of lengthening your skating stride. I don’t disagree with this coaching cue at all, but thought it is necessary to present that research on different stride types has shown that those utilizing short/choppy strides, on average, were just as fast as those using longer strides. Obviously, for any given speed, utilizing shorter strides will require a higher stride frequency, but some people are just wired that way. With more experienced hockey players, I’m less likely to try to change their stride type than I am improve their edges and overall athleticism.

I’ve learned to be skeptical about cure-all solutions. The skating treadmill is a tool, with specific uses. If you’re considering paying to use a skating treadmill, consider the following things:

1) Do you have a good forward skating stride?

2) Are you comfortable on both your inside and outside edges moving forward and backward?

3) Can you quickly change directions while skating forward AND backward?

4) Can you quickly pivot between forward and backward skating?

5) Have you done anything to improve the strength/power of your legs and hips?

Truthfully answering these questions is extremely important. Here’s why:

The skating treadmill is an EXCELLENT tool to help hockey players perfect their forward skating stride and to get a ton of medium and high speed repetitions in to reinforce the new movement pattern. Unfortunately, I suspect that most people just throw their hockey players on the treadmill and don’t do much to coach the QUALITY of the movement. If used properly, I think the skating treadmill can be effectively used to improve skating stride and forward skating speed.

Unfortunately, the skating treadmill will do very little for most of the aspects of skating used commonly in games. Consider questions 2, 3, and 4. You won’t be on your outside edges or transitioning from forward to backward skating on a treadmill.

Once you perfect your skating stride, the key to speed is to drastically improve your muscular size and power. This can be done at the same time as skating treadmill training, but it’s important not to overlook. Most elite level hockey players have legs the size of tree trunks. This not only implies lower body strength and power, but means that a large percentage of their body weight will be in their lower body, decreasing their center of mass, improving their stability, making them harder to knock off the puck. See how these all go hand in hand?

- Kevin Neeld

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