Month: May 2018

Optimizing Adaptation and Performance Seminar

Today I have news that I’m extremely excited to share with you.

James LaValle, Mike Potenza, and I are doing a new seminar this Summer called Optimizing Adaptation and Performance.

The one-day seminar will be hosted at Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning in Woburn, MA on Saturday July 14th, 2018. We just found out that the seminar has been approved for CEUs from the NSCA as well.

The seminar will dive into topics spanning the entire performance continuum, including:

  • Using blood markers and physiological goals to drive different nutrition and supplementation interventions to enhance adaptation, maximize performance, or facilitate recovery
  • Efficient ways to use assessment and monitoring data to improve individualization of training and recovery methods within a team environment
  • Effective program design strategies used to retain performance qualities and allow for recovery during times of increased competitive demand and stress

As a brief intro to the speakers…

James LaValle is one of the world’s leading experts in clinical pharmacology. In addition to consulting with collegiate and professional teams, Olympic athletes, and major pharmaceutical and nutrition companies like Bayer, CVS, Rite Aid, P&G, Helsin, and Thorne Research, he has authored 16 ebooks and 20 books including his most recently book, Your Blood Never Lies, and his best seller, Cracking the Metabolic Code. He was also selected to direct the Pro Football Hall of Fame state of the art performance and health rejuvenation facility at the Institute for a Hall of Fame Life in Canton, OH. James specializes in using blood markers to create an individualized plan to nutrition and supplementation. Despite an incredibly accomplished resume, he could very well be the best kept secret in sports performance.

Mike Potenza is entering his 13th year as the Director of Strength and Conditioning for the San Jose Sharks, which he joined after working at Wisconsin, Harvard and Colgate. He was also the Director of Performance for two United States Air Force Pararescue teams within the National Guard Bureau, overseeing performance testing, program design and implementation, establishing reporting metrics on injury trends, resource usage and team readiness, as well as directing the physical therapist and orthopedic manual therapist for the forces. In both settings, Mike is heavily involved with directing rehabilitation and reconditioning efforts to help bridge the gap between acute rehab and a full return to elite level performance/competition.

Click here for more information: Optimizing Adaptation and Performance

Needless to say, it’s going to be an awesome day. There is an incredible amount of education and experience behind the methods we’ll discuss at the seminar. Simply, the strategies you’ll learn work, and they’re incredibly powerful.

You can find a full itinerary below:

The overarching goal of the day is to provide you with a comprehensive model of athlete performance, including the assessment and analysis tools, as well as programming, recovery, nutrition and supplementation strategies to best serve the individual needs of today’s athlete.

I’m personally excited to hear James’ and Mikes’ presentations. With an in-house lunch, and a round table discussion to end the day, I also think a lot of the best exchanges will come through discussions with the audience.

In short, this will be a great opportunity to learn powerful strategies to help your athletes, get CEUs, and network with other sharp professionals within the field.

I hope to see you there! Feel free to email me with any questions or post them below.

Click here for more information: Optimizing Adaptation and Performance

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Top 3 Mistakes in Training Youth Athletes

Today marks the release of Mike Boyle’s newest product: Complete Youth Training

When I ran Endeavor Sports Performance, much of the way we designed our programs for youth athletes was guided by things I had learned from Coach Boyle. In short, he’s had a profound impact on how I view the training process.

This is a great resource (for coaches, sports training professionals AND parents) that addresses many of the most impactful misconceptions of training youth athletes, and how following popular advice will absolutely lead to blunted long-term performance.

Given his 25+ years of experience training kids, I asked him to put together a quick post highlighting the three most common mistakes he sees in training youth athletes. Check out the article below:

Click here for more information >> Complete Youth Training

Top 3 Mistakes in Training Youth Athletes by Mike Boyle

A friend asked me to try to sum up what I considered the top three mistakes in training young athletes, so after giving it some thought, here goes:

Mistake 1- Seeing kids as mini-adults. 

I’m amazed at how many trainers will write or email and talk about the troubles they are having getting into the youth strength training market ( think 11-14 yrs old).  I always say something along the lines of “what does your program look like” and I constantly hear back about all the latest ideas. Breathing, corrective exercises, screening etc.

My response is always the same. Kids don’t need that stuff, they need the weight room basics. Much like elementary school is about reading, writing and math, training kids is about throwing, sprinting, jumping and lifting. I love the KISS principle. Keep It Simple Stu_ _ _.

Kids want to move and have fun. Breathing, screening and corrective exercises are neither fun, nor particularly useful for kids.

Mistake 2- Not Seeing That Practice Covers a Lot of Bases

I was discussing agility with Jim Kielbaso from the IYCA the other day and my comment was “we don’t do much agility.” As coaches, we have to remember that most of these kids are practicing 3-5 times a week, but get no strength work, no power work and no speed work. We need to, as I like to say, fill the empty buckets. The agility/change of direction bucket is getting filled at practice, but the strength, power and speed buckets are usually empty.

In addition, practice takes care of conditioning. I think there is no need for conditioning with kids, and that lots of what we try to do just makes kids slower.

Think speed. Read Tony Hollers Feed the Cats.

Mistake 3- Thinking that Talking is Coaching

Kids don’t want to hear you talk. I have a ten second rule. I don’t want coaches talking for more than ten seconds. I really like the John Wooden idea:

Do this, not this, this.

Show them what you want them to do, don’t tell them. Show them what not to do and then, show them the correct technique again.

Then, let them do it. Kids learn through doing, not through listening. That’s tough for coaches to hear, but it’s true.

The best teacher is a great demonstrator.  The best learning comes from doing.

 

Click here for more information >> Complete Youth Training

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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

Get Ultimate Hockey Transformation Now!

Year-round age-specific hockey training programs complete with a comprehensive instructional video database!

Ultimate Hockey Transformation Pro Package-small

Get access to your game-changing program now >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation

“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University