Month: March 2011

Hockey Strength and Conditioning: Training Programs and Off-Season Conditioning

Before I jump into today’s post, I have a couple announcements:

You can now download my hockey speed training manual “Breakaway Hockey Speed” for free if you sign up for my newsletter (look left).
I removed the membership requirement for checking out the videos at Ice Hockey Training so you can now watch them all for free. I did this because I’m not happy with how long it takes the videos to load on each page and I’ll probably be deleting those pages altogether in the next few weeks as we continue to build our video library over at Hockey Strength and Conditioning
Lastly, I have an exciting announcement coming early next week. If you’re a player (or parent) and really want to take your off-season training up a notch, you won’t want to miss it.

On to the good stuff…

It’s been a busy couple weeks at Hockey Strength and Conditioning

To start, congratulations to my friend Jeff Cubos who was recently added to a very prestigious “expert panel” at our site (one that I managed to sneak onto!). I’ve learned a lot from him over the last year and look forward to more great stuff from him in the future.

Sean Skahan, Mike Potenza, and Darryl Nelson have all added really great articles and programs. I especially like Potenza’s contribution to our new “Youth Off-Ice Training Program” section, which caters directly to coaches and parents that are running off-ice training for their kids with little-to-no equipment. You can check them all out at the links below:

Improving Shoulder Mobility from Sean Skahan (Article)

Teaching Circuit Phase 1 from Mike Potenza (Youth Off-Ice Training Program)

Training Around an Injured Arm from Mike Potenza (Training Program for Injured Player)

Beginner Off-Season Strength Training from Darryl Nelson (Training Program)

The reason I’m keeping the article descriptions so short today is because I want to highlight a recent forum “conversation” on off-season conditioning for hockey players. You hear me boast about how good forum conversations can be, but if you never see it for yourself, you may be skeptical. Due to length restrictions, I’ve included the posts from only one member. Fortunately, that member is Jim Reeves, who has an OUTSTANDING reputation for training and developing elite level players.

Jim drops some wisdom on us…

Round 1
I’m not sure I agree with the recommendations given. I look at physical principles as unique qualities to develop in specific ways. Strength coaches are mistaken if they feel they can blend one exercise into the goals of another. Power development is a unique quality, move body weight or weighted implements for speed in finite quantities. Conditioning is workload tolerance. Move your body weight in specific movements within time specific or performance specific guidelines.

The error occurs when your begin to blend power exercises into a conditioning routine. A recipe for disaster. Power is power, conditioning is conditioning. Don’t blend the two, you will get sub-par results in both aspects.

My suggestions would be two fold. On the one hand, you have three weeks to begin a more aggressive off-ice workout workload, but choose basic exercise planes and do not introduce lifts you would not do in-season. ie RFE Split Squats would be out, hip flexors too sensitive to loading in-season. Sounds boring, but it works and no-one gets injured/irritated.

Conditioning is the other element. Target two high intensity sessions per week off-ice in addition to the on-ice sessions they get in the next three weeks. If ice-time is limited, then their on-ice sessions are critical, something you may not have any control over. Bikes are probably best, slide board good in the first two weeks but may not be the best choice in the week before on-ice competition.

Round 2
I always throw up a red flag when someone suggests an Olympic lift as a means of conditioning. The tendency for it to go wrong is too easy and happens too fast to closely monitor as a coach in most situations. These lifts are not meant for conditioning purposes, save them for training an athletes power. Square peg, round hole analogy applies here.

To add to my thoughts, I think that introducing treadmill sprints and hang cleans after a player has just finished their season may be too aggressive for this time of the year.

First, running I find is not very well received in the first couple of weeks of an off-season program, never mind with players who just stepped of the ice the day before. If they were on the ice 6-7 times per week as indicated, then I doubt they have had much in-season running work performed up till this point. Last thing you want to do is run the risk of irritating the hip flexors with only three weeks before the next major on-ice event.

Second, the one area of the body which is almost across the board restricted at the end of a season is a players wrist extension. To catch a clean repetition at high speeds with moderate loads will push this area of their body beyond what it will comfortably be able to handle, again introducing risk where it is not necessary.

Also, if I put a stop watch to any of my athlete’s clean reps, I doubt they will get more than two reps in the interval times suggested. I can think of many other safer “power” exercises which would allow for more repetitions in the given interval time, thus increasing the metabolic demand on the body, which is the intended goal of the session. Or, the athlete will load heavy in order to get some level of fatigue with so few repetitions. Again, introducing risk if they have not been performing hang cleans throughout the season right up till the beginning of this short time off the ice.

I would move toward conditioning modes which achieve the goals of the metabolic and energy demands you are looking for but in safer exercises for this time of the year. In late July after 8 to 10 weeks of an off-season program, substitute weighted jump squats or squat jumps into the suggested protocol and the players will find it is a good conditioning session. 10/10 on the treadmill may be a little slow for only 10 second intervals, maybe closer to 11.5-12mph for most 16+ athletes.

Round 3
As I said above, I would stay away from running right now. Bike or condition on the ice. If twice a week is off-ice for you right now, then add one or two on-ice sessions as well. If you are looking to keep their strength, then strength train. TB Deadlift, Front squat, single leg squats all good options, add in 2-3 hip isolation ex’s and upper body lifts and you have a pretty good day right there. Add power exercises before strength work as you see fit, 2-3 per workout, basic movements like hurdle jumps, Single leg box hops, Med ball rotation and chop throws.

In all honesty I would look hard at mobility and flexibility issues at this point over focusing on power development. You will get more bang for the buck and players will perform better during this short term focus.

Round 4
No, primarily the wrist. Maybe a little bit of pronation/supination loss observed but not much of anything lost at the elbow in my experience. Any loss of elbow range is in guys who focus on the “hunting workout”; all guns and traps!! (editors note: this is hilarious) We don’t get many of those around here.

As for running, I implement a progressive increase in the distances and the length of the shuttles as the initial weeks of our off-season program begins. More stops and starts initially to work on deceleration skills, but I think more importantly the short distances limit the ability to get into a full running stride. The length of the stride increases as the shuttle length increases. We bike a little at the beginning, then progress off the bike and into the slideboard and short shuttles, then lengthen out the shuttles before beginning any acceleration work.

Sled drags are started as a walking/marching speed for the first 8 to 10 weeks, and we do a lot of unloaded acceleration work after the 6th week of the program before looking at implementing resisted sprint work with any resistance.

Round 5
No direct acceleration work for the first six weeks of the off-season. Deceleration is the focus. The distances are increased for both conditioning in the early part of the off-season and for when acceleration work is introduced after the 6 week mark.

Round 6
Yes, we get some players starting at the end of March, I stretch that period out to 8 weeks, versus 6 weeks if they start mid-May. If they start with us at the beginning of July and haven’t been on the ice for quite some time, then they get a fast forward version of 2-3 weeks of deceleration then we start the acceleration work.

But there are always exceptions, for example last year I had one player still playing in the Stanley cup finals, so by the first week of July he was still only three weeks removed from being on the ice. The most important aspect I am trying to respect here is the inability of a player to perform high speed hip extension through a full ROM. I feel the need to eliminate muscular guarding, specific tissue restrictions and re-educate/re-train the muscular recruitment patterns around the hip joint. Shorter shuttles and reduced acceleration work accomplish that goal for me and give the athlete’s body the opportunity to adapt to the workouts before we ask them to move in that manner.

I still strongly belief that the best way to become better at anything is to have good mentors. With this in mind, I look at a Hockey Strength and Conditioning membership (which is only $1!) as an investment in a mentorship with multiple coaches that work with and develop NHL players more so than a traditional “information site.” This situation would not have been possible 10 years ago, and it’s an incredible opportunity for people that train hockey players at any level to learn form the guys that have been doing it the longest, and the best.

Click Here for the best in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Try HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com for 7 days for only $1! It’ll be the best dollar you’ve ever spent.

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Leadership In Hockey

When I was growing up, the captains on my teams were always the best players. Having trained several dozen youth players over the last couple years, it doesn’t seem much has changed in that regard. The most skilled/talented players are awarded “letters” and the rest of the team tends to look to those players for answers.

I never questioned this growing up, but I do now. Unfortunately many of the more skilled players completely lack any semblance of leadership ability. In a team setting, leadership means:

Attentively paying attention to the coach when he/she is speaking
Being in the front of the line to start drills
Encouraging teammates when they need it
Saying and doing the things that will make the TEAM better
Having INTEGRITY

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard so-called leaders say things like “we lost 7-2, but I had our two goals!” To be clear, I never under-recognize individual achievement. It’s these small “wins” that build confidence in a player. I also understand that youth players are, well, just kids, and that they haven’t always learned the importance of self-sacrifice for the greater good of a larger group.

Instilling Leadership Values in Players
That said, I think leadership qualities can and should be taught and reinforced. As coaches, it would be helpful to place a greater focus on habits than outcomes. For example, if a slow player is working extremely hard, commend the work ethic instead of the outcome (mediocre speed). Giving the players responsibility and holding them accountable also goes a long way. In an off-ice training setting, I had the captains on one of the peewee teams I trained run the warm-up for the second half of the year. I made it clear that they were expected to know it inside and out and to run the team through it, smoothly. And they did.

If you’re a coach, try to find ways to encourage your players to take responsibility for their own success and to reward habits, instead of outcomes. Reinforcing these things will not only make your players better at hockey, it will likely make them better citizens and functioning members of society in the future.

Becoming a Leader as a Player
If you’re a player, know that integrity is the number one requisite to being a leader of any group. Integrity, simply, is doing the right thing whether someone is watching or not. Players that joke around, but then work hard when the coach is watching are usually hated by their teammates, regardless of how talented they are. Be the player that is recognized for always doing the right things, constantly working hard, and making those around you better, and you’ll always be regarded as a leader.

It’s also important to know that not every leader will have a letter on his/her jersey, and that different teammates will look for different things in leaders. On a personal note, my final year at Delaware, I was the captain of our team (quite an honor). We had one assistant. Realistically, we could have had 3 “C’s” and 3 or 4 “A’s”. There was a lot of character on that team. After talking it over with the assistant captain, we agreed to not put letters on our jerseys at all. The thought was that we were a TEAM of leaders. While we had some responsibilities and expectations that other players didn’t, I frequently looked to other players for leadership or motivation.

Manliest mascot ever…

A few players in particular really stood out to me:

Every practice ended with “over backs”, which is just a brief conditioning drill skating between boards width-wise. Every practice, regardless of how terrible I felt, I lined up next to my friend Joe, because I knew that, regardless of how terrible he felt, he was going to go 100% every time. To me, THAT is leadership (not surprisingly, he was the captain the following year).

We had another player, Ben, that was probably the best penalty killer I’ve ever played with. I’ll never forget one game, where he went down to block a shot and took it in an unprotected area. He was hurt. He was slowly getting back up to his feet, when he picked his head up to realize that, oddly, the puck had bounced off him right back to the defenseman who took the original shot. The defenseman immediately wound up to take another shot, which Ben immediately dropped back down to block, again, taking it in an unprotected area (a different one). It’s not a glorious job, but it helps a team win. That behavior is contagious. Nothing makes other players want to sacrifice to help the team succeed more than watching a teammate sacrifice to help the team win. THAT is leadership.

Players need to recognize that leaders come in multiple forms and play multiple roles on a team. EVERY player can be a leader, and not every leader needs to wear a letter. In fact, I’d recommend that no leaders do. You may find the team is more cohesive that way.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Three Things Every Hockey Player Should Own

After hearing the same questions from hockey parents and coaches over the last couple years, it occurred to me that I should just do a quick write-up.

Endeavor Sports Performance is like a playground for strength and conditioning coaches. We have a lot of equipment that people have never seen or used before. Over the last couple years, I’ve gotten the same question from coaches and parents, that usually goes something like:

“Where can I get one of those…?”

While quality training and facilitating recovery doesn’t always necessitate lots of fancy equipment, there are a few cost-effective pieces of equipment that I think every player should own. We get all of our stuff from Perform Better, so if you’re outfitting a facility or just want to pick up a few things, I’d look to them first.

Hockey Training Equipment that Every Player Should Own

In no particular order:

MiniBands
I’ve probably bought over 30 of these in the last few years (they snap with the volume of use they get at Endeavor). They’re so cheap and allow us to do a variety of exercises that I feel are absolutely essential, such as lateral miniband walks and backward monster walks. When they snap, we use them for band-resisted no money drills. When they snap again…we throw them out. They can also be thrown around a beginner’s knees during squatting and deadlifting movements if they have a difficult time controlling hip internal rotation to utilize Gray Cook’s “Reactive Neuromuscular Training” concept. Not bad for $2!

Click here for more information on MiniBands

Val Slides
To be honest, I didn’t have a lot of experience with these until I spent the week last Summer with Mike Potenza at the Sharks prospect camp. At Endeavor, we don’t use them because we have slideboards to do all the exercises we’d use Val Slides for, but slideboards are extremely expensive (for most players). While I wouldn’t recommend duct taping Val Slides to your feet and trying to slide between two walls in the house, Val Slides do allow you to do a number of other slideboard-based exercises like, reverse, lateral, and diagonal lunges (great for lower body strength, hip stabillity/control, and adductor strength), bodysaws, alternate arm jigsaws, 1-arm push-up with reaches, and army crawls. In a nutshell, they allow you to do about a dozen great core exercises that aren’t possible without them.

Click here for more information on Val Slides

Foam Roller
In my mind, this is the most important piece of equipment on this list. EVERY player should have one of these and should bring it with them on all road trips. Most of the parents I interact with at Endeavor end up asking where to buy one because their kids can appreciate how much better they feel after they use it. I think stretching is important, but nothing will help stretching be more effective than using one of these beforehand. They come in a bunch of different sizes, but I really only recommend buying the 3 foot long 6 inch circular ones. If you don’t know how to use these yet, buy one and learn. It’ll be the best thing you do for yourself.

Click here for more information on Foam Rollers

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Three Things I Wish I Told You Months Ago!

Monday’s post dove into some of the common misconceptions about elite hockey development (and athletic development in general for that matter), with cameo appearances from a young Tom Brady and Sidney Crosby. In case you missed it, you can check it out here: Random Hockey Development Thoughts

Writing that post made me think about a couple other things that I probably should have told you a long time ago.

Endeavor Internships

First, and probably most time-relevant, we’re currently accepting applications for interns at Endeavor Sports Performance this summer. A few people have hopped on the forums at Hockey Strength and Conditioning (which is an awesome use of the very talented/experience audience on the site) and inquired about good hockey training internships. We have 3-4 spots available. Last year we drew interest from people ranging from local universities to Canada to Australia.

Our past interns have gotten a lot out of their experience with us. On top of being surrounded by passionate people that continually want to learn and get better (both coaches and athletes), our off-season hockey group includes a wide variety of skill (on- and off the ice). I know it’s a lot “sexier” to work with NCAA D1 and professional athletes and that’s what most interns are looking for. In truth, these experiences are great for networking (and general exposure), but probably not as good for coaching. Athletes at these levels tend to move extremely well and don’t require a lot of coaching, just some simple cuing.

In contrast, younger athletes need A LOT of help (turns out sitting on your ass for 22 hours a day isn’t great for building athleticism), and it’s the practice you get coaching these athletes that really helps you understand how to use efficient coaching techniques, change your language based on the athlete, and ultimately to become a better coach. Because we have players ranging from Tier II youth PeeWee programs to those in pursuit of permanent NHL roster-spots, you get the best of both worlds.

In addition to experience, the other two main reasons to pursue internships are to network and potentially pursue employment. Since I’ve joined Endeavor, we’ve had 6 interns. We hired 4, one went on to pursue a different career path, and another had a job lined up for immediately after his internship and is now going back to school in pursuit of his DPT. If you’re interested, go to the link below to read more information and to download the application. You can email the finished ones to me or fax them to Endeavor at (856) 269-4153.

>> Endeavor Sports Performance Internships <<

Endeavor Sports Performance Website

I’ve alluded to this in the past, but I do a lot of writing for the Endeavor site. Because we work with athletes in all sports, the writing tends to discuss sports other than hockey (although I do write about hockey too), general athleticism, and research related to performance enhancement. If you don’t work with hockey players and/or just want more of the good stuff, I highly encourage you to go over to Endeavor’s site and check out the blog:

>> Endeavor Sports Performance Blog <<

And follow us on youtube:

>> Endeavor Sports Performance YouTube Page <<

You’ll get all sorts of great stuff…like how to eat fruit, functionally:

…Never give a Canadian a camera

A few noteworthy posts to get you started:

The Truth About ACL Injury Prevention

High Quality Breakfast for Teenage Athletes

Long-Term Athletic Development: Training Youth Athletes

Strength and Conditioning Programs for Youth Athletes

Why Every Athlete Should Get Hurt…Once

USA Hockey’s ADM (American Development Model)

The more I learn about what USA Hockey is doing with their new ADM the more I support it. Since I started playing, it seems like the American development model has simply been wrong. We play way too many games, we practice too little, and most practices don’t make good use of the ice to enhance skills. There is a reason why, in general, the NHL’s most skilled players are consistently from overseas. From what I understand, Canada is similarly “backwards” in their systems, but hockey is so much more popular there that more talent seems to rise through the ranks, possibly despite the overall development structure.

This certainly isn’t to undermine the jobs that the thousands of coaches in both countries are doing, only to say that we need a better development framework so that new coaches have better plans and philosophies to draw from and so we can be more consistent in our teachings across the country. Naturally, I’m also of the opinion that off-ice training is a necessity, not a luxury, at least not for players that are serious about pursuing elite levels. USA Hockey has done an outstanding job of “righting the ship” so to speak. If you aren’t familiar with the ADM, you can read up on it here:

>> USA Hockey’s ADM <<

If you’re coaching, I urge you to look into this and do your best to begin implementing these concepts immediately. On an international level, it seems that the US has found some success because of their heart, not because they have comparable talent to their Canadia, Russian, Finnish, and Swedish competitors. I think, if coaches and parents buy into what USA Hockey is providing in the ADM, we’ll start to see the U.S. dominate internationally because of improved skill sets. Of course, if everyone takes the “what we’re doing now is fine” approach, we’ll simply continue to tread water.

It’s up to us to make a change! I’m in. Are you?

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Random Hockey Development Thoughts

First things first. I want to personally thank you for continuing to come here to read up on various aspects of hockey development and for your help in spreading the word about this site. Last week, the site hit a milestone that a year ago I would have thought was impossible: over 10,000 visits in the previous 30 days.

If you’re involved in some aspects of fitness or business, this number is probably staggeringly low. However, for a hockey-specific training and development site with an array of content ranging from basic exercises to advanced scientific theory, I’m psyched! A year ago it was less than half that and growing extremely slowly. As I’ve said in the past, this site exists because of you. As you continue to help spread the word and communicate with me about what you want to me to write about, the site will continue to evolve into a better resource for you.

Random Thought 1: After my post last week on my Soft-Tissue Stress Overflow Theory, I got an email from a parent with a few kids that we’ve trained at Endeavor that read:

Her coach is so old school and is demanding at 12 years old that they only play soccer. Otherwise they aren’t committed to the team. Yeah we’ll, we’re on our third kid. Nice try but we aren’t buying it. Hopefully your article will help the parents of the first borns not to believe that stuff and feel like their kid is going to be behind other kids or not “make it” because they haven’t given up their life to a travel team.

This example doesn’t pertain to hockey, but I think we all know there are hockey coaches out there like this. With every year that passes I gain an increasing appreciation for the importance of active recovery. Playing sports certainly plays a large part in developing the personality and characteristics of our youth. Things like courage, confidence, leadership, and teamwork are all life-skills that people develop through sports that will benefit them in other aspects of life. That said, sports should be a piece of a kid’s life, not all of it. Coaches, in all sports, need to remember that there’s more to life than playing sports.

Son. It’s time you stopped messing around with those “other sports” and really started focusing on hockey.

Random Thought 2: Last week I had a meeting with the president of a local youth hockey organization about a year-round development plan I had worked on. We had a great meeting. Luckily he and the coaches within that organization recognize and appreciate the importance of training as it pertains to developing elite level hockey players. They also know that it’s not a quick fix solution, but a long-term process. Because Endeavor is a private training facility, we get a lot of the “make my kid faster yesterday” parents. I wish more understood that short-term improvements in performance can be expected, but that shouldn’t be the goal. Especially with younger athletes, performance doesn’t matter nearly as much as instilling proper training habits and reinforcing proper movement patterns.

Random Thought 3: At this meeting, the idea of testing was brought up. I still whole-heartedly believe that doing performance testing with middle school and most high school athletes is completely senseless and it amazes me that so many people disagree. It is UNARGUABLE that athletes at this age are maturing, and at different rates. We’ve all seen PeeWee, Bantam, and Midget teams with players that look like giants AND players that look like they’re too small to be on the same ice. What do you think is going to happen if you compare the test results of someone that develops early and somewhat that develops late? The early maturer wins, every time. What is this system rewarding-rapid maturation? Even if you’re only comparing testing results within an athlete to monitor individual progress, which is a much more valid and desirable approach, it’s still impossible to rule out what proportion of gains are related to training and what is the result of natural maturation. Athletes naturally get stronger and faster as they get older. We need to remove the emphasis on testing and improve the emphasis on training.

“I don’t care how good you say this Crosby kid is. His 40 time was below our team average; I can’t take him.”

Random Thought 4: Over the last year I’ve gotten some hate email about some old posts I had on the NHL combine (NHL Combine Testing Results and NHL Combine Test Results Revisited). I should probably write an article about this, but I haven’t made the time to do it. It’s not just the NHL combine that doesn’t make sense to me; the NFL one is just as bad. Last week Stephen Paea broke the NFL combine bench press test record by pressing 225 lbs 49 times. This is an amazing feat, but what does this test even tell us? Is it a strength test? Not if he’s doing over 8 reps. Is it an endurance test? Maybe in this case. Do any of these things even matter as it pertains to on-field performance? Not likely. Check out the top performers in NFL combine tests from the last 10 years. How many of those guys are NFL stars right now? A few, but certainly not enough to justify the “if you do well on this test than we’ll pay you lots of money” approach that the NFL has taken, a direction that youth sports is mimicking. The most important test is how players perform on the ice, NOT how strong, fast, or well-conditioned they may look off the ice.

This guy doesn’t look like he’d finish near the top of the pack for waterboys in combine testing. Yet, he’s an inevitable hall of fame quarterback. Maybe there’s more to success than just strength and speed for Mr. Brady?

That’s all for today!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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