Month: April 2022

Off-Ice Training Program: U-18

Here’s another sample in-season off-ice training program for youth hockey players from ~15-18 years old (Bantams and Midgets).

A few notes:

✅ This is Phase 2 of the in-season program, so the main exercises have been progressed to over the course of the previous few weeks. The program is designed so the whole team goes through the ‘A’ block together, and then half the team starts on the ‘B’ block, and the other half can start on the ‘C’ block, and then switch.

✅ The general focus of this phase is on developing strength, with an emphasis on eccentric strength on Day 1. The volume for the main lifts is relatively low, particularly for the exercises with 6s eccentrics (e.g. B1/C2 on Day 1).

✅ Day 2 of this week is closer to the weekend games, so the volume stays low, but the intensity remains high.

✅ With every exercise, the primary goal in this environment is on teaching/coaching perfect technique. Loads are only progressed when the athlete demonstrates they can perform the exercise correctly.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. If you’re interested in year-round comprehensive hockey-specific training programs for players at different ages, check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

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Recovery: Breathing and the Autonomic Nervous System

Breathing patterns can have a significant effect on many aspects of an individual’s physical and mental performance, recovery, and overall well-being.

As a result, “optimal” breathing has received a lot of attention in recent years, and there are several courses and certifications centered around teaching people how to breathe better.

While teaching strategies to improve breathing stereotypes can be beneficial, it’s important to realize that breathing is both an INPUT and an OUTPUT.

In other words, altering breathing (e.g., changing the tempo, opening up restricted pathways or improving muscular control to allow for more efficient breath, etc.) can provide a beneficial input into the autonomic nervous system and lead to many desirable down-stream changes.

However, the opposite is also true – common lifestyle behaviors (e.g., insufficient or low quality sleep, high perceived stress, inflammatory diet, alcohol/tobacco consumption, etc.) can lead to changes in breathing strategies and ANS tone.

The reality is that the breathing interventions are not likely to stick if the lifestyle factors are not addressed.

Feel free to post any other comments/questions you have below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. For more information on in- and off-season program design, training and reconditioning for injured players, and integrating sports science into a comprehensive training process, check out Optimizing Adaptation & Performance

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Youth Hockey Training: Periodization

Over the last few weeks I’ve gotten a lot of questions about training phase length and sequencing for youth hockey players.

This image is of the periodization template I put together for a youth organization I worked with in the past.

For that organization, we divided the teams into 3 groups by age: Group A: U-12 (Mites & Squirts), Group B: ~12-14 (Peewees & Bantams), Group C (Midgets).

Group A’s program was more game-based, so we didn’t have a formal periodization model in place.

The focus for Groups B&C are slightly different, but in both cases, we used the first several weeks of the season to establish a foundation of our expectations for the training process – showing up on time, warming up as a group, how to read a training program, fundamental movement patterns, etc. Overall training stress is low while the players acclimate to higher on-ice loads.

Group B transitions back and forth between accumulation (relatively higher volume work) and intensification (relatively lower volume/higher intensity work). This is done primarily as a teaching strategy – allow the players to accumulate “practice” reps and perfect movements before emphasizing load.

Similarly, Group C starts with 2 weeks each of an eccentric and isometric phase, which are used to help the players learn (and the coaches to teach) more advanced exercises by slowing down the motion and strengthening the “sticking point”, respectively.

In general, exercises would progress or transition to a new variation in each phase.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. If you’re interested in year-round comprehensive hockey-specific training programs for players at different ages, check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

Enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Sports Performance and Hockey Training Newsletter!

The Athletic: What keeps an NHL performance coach up at night?

I was fortunate to be featured in a new article that just went up on The Athletic.

The article shares some insight into:

✅ The rigors of the NHL season and how it impacts recovery
✅ A typical practice day for our staff
✅ In-season monitoring strategies
✅ How the performance field will evolve as a result of increased data availability
✅ The psychological impact of players viewing their own recovery data

You can check it out here >> What keeps an NHL performance coach up at night?

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. Get access to PROVEN year-round off-ice training programs specifically designed to improve your speed, power, strength, and conditioning here >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

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Strength Training: Neural Recruitment

Once athletes reach a certain training age, improving maximal strength requires using near-maximal loads.

Loads above ~85% will maximize recruitment of the involved motor units (nerve and connected muscle fibers), and also lead to positive adaptations in rate coding (i.e. the firing frequency of the nerves), both of which lead to improvements in force output.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. If you’re interested in how strength training fits into a hockey-specific training program, check out Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

Enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Sports Performance and Hockey Training Newsletter!