Month: April 2009
Hockey is a High Velocity, High Contact Sport… At Any Age
Attitude: Can You Teach Toughness
What do you think?
My New Favorite Exercise
Single-leg high force reduction followed by an explosive lateral or diagonal bound, followed by another single-leg high force reduction. I love it. You can progress this exercise by adding a high knee before the forward lunge (so you’ll be decelerating from a higher height, adding to the amount of force you’ll need to reduce) or by adding a weight vest.
I’ve always wanted to name an exercise after myself, so I changed these from: Lunge to Lateral Bound to: Neeld Bounds. Not nearly as descriptive and I’m sure someone else has thought of it, but I’m running with the fantasy that I made it up.
– Kevin Neeld
Movie Appreciation Series: 1
I have two weeks to finish up my research on motor unit synchronization and get ready to present it. Free time is at an all time low, which means it’s a perfect time for Movie Appreciation Week. It may not be what you think. Each video will have a theme that somehow relates to performance training or ice hockey. Also, it’s playoff hockey time; you should all be growing out your playoff beards…no exceptions.
Day 1:
Technique…Every couple days I’ll come back to my apartment to the faint sound of heavy metal or someone yelling in Russian. My friend Mike spends about half of his time reading about neuroendocrinology, and the other half watching squat videos on youtube. Regardless of his social problems, this video is impressive. If only we all had this hip mobility.
Hockey Conditioning For Goalies
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.