Month: May 2022

Commitment Continuum

Stumbled upon this picture the other day of the “Commitment Continuum.” This was something Dr. Colleen Hacker shared with USA Hockey’s Women’s National Team, and serves as a powerful tool for all team sport athletes to self-evaluate their own commitment.

The off-season is a time when players in all sports can completely re-invent themselves through training. Taking a few months to dial back the volume of sport work and increase the attention on improving raw physical capacities (speed, power, strength, conditioning, movement efficiency, etc.) can change the course of an athlete’s career.

There is a small segment of athletes that will OBSESS over training. Some will COMMIT fully. Many more will just show up and do the work; they’ll comply. The rest, frankly, will get left behind.

Where do you fall on this continuum?

Being fully committed means different things at different ages, but if you’re >13 years old and have aspirations of fulfilling your athletic potential, you should be following a structured training program, at least 2-3 days/week in the off-season; 4-5 days/week if you’re competing at U-18 levels or above.

If you’re a hockey player and need help with programming, check out the link below.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it or tag a friend in the comments section so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. If you’re OBSESSED with making this your best off-season ever, check out the comprehensive hockey-specific training programs for players at different ages here: Ultimate Hockey Transformation.

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

3 Exercises to Improve Hip External Rotation

One of the primary goals of the early off-season is to re-establish full joint range of motion and control.

A consistent (i.e. daily) focus on hip mobility work during the season can help players maintain their range of motion throughout the year; however, for players that are NOT consistently doing this work, it’s normal to lose 10-15 degrees of hip rotation during the season.

With this in mind, I asked @fittywithschmiddy to share 3 exercises to help improve hip external rotation. This is a great supplement to the 3 exercises to improve internal rotation she shared a few weeks back, so if you missed those, check out this link: 3 Exercises to Improve Internal Rotation

Notes from Emma:

1️⃣ Always Start with Controlled Articular Rotations as an assessment and warmup for joint care (see previous video).

2️⃣ 90/90 Base Position Hip External Rotation PAILS/RAILS.

Here we can either:
a. Open up capsular space
b. Improve control of current range of motion through positional isometrics

Protocol: Lean forward to find stretch on posterior side OR find a position you want to increase control. Hold a passive stretch for 2 minutes. After 2 minutes, start a PAILS effort: Drive down into floor with ankle to knee, building up to 75-100% max tension for 10s. Then transition to a RAILS effort: Attempt to lift your ankle off the ground and hold to find more external rotation and hold for 5s.

✅ Start with 2 sets of 2 cycles of PAILs/RAILs on each side.

3️⃣ 90/90 Hip External Rotation Passive Range Holds

Protocol: Use your hand to help pull your foot as high as you can (without pain) while maintaining your posture. Let go, and try to actively maintain that position. Hold here as long as you can and then slowly lower the foot down.

✅ Start with 1-2 sets of 6 reps/side.

4️⃣ Hip External Rotation Hovers

Protocol: Here we are adding active control to the capsular space we just worked hard to open up in the previous exercises. Similar position to the previous exercise, but now we’re using the block as a target to move the foot over. The higher the foot, the more external rotation at the hip.

✅ Start with 1-2 sets of 6-8 reps of 5-second holds per side.

Give these a shot, and as always, feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it (or tag a friend that needs some hip mobility work) so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. For more information on how to assess movement and integrate specific strategies to improve mobility and movement quality in training, check out Optimizing Movement. Don’t have a DVD player? Send me a note through the contact page after you checkout here Optimizing Movement and I’ll get you a digital copy of the videos!

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

Speed Training for Hockey: 3-Year Anniversary

Hard to believe it’s been 3 years since Speed Training for Hockey was released.

When @fitness_pollenator and I sat down to map out the book, our goal was to put together a comprehensive resource that details all of the factors that can improve a player’s speed, written specifically for youth players, parents, and coaches.

We included a 12-week off-season training program to both illustrate how all the pieces fit together into a cohesive training plan, and to provide readers with a program they can follow to start making immediate improvements. We also included a comprehensive video database of all the exercises referenced in the book, so readers know exactly how each exercise should be performed.

Over the last 3 years, we’ve received great feedback about Speed Training for Hockey from players, parents, coaches, performance specialists, and rehab professionals alike.

✅ If you’re interested in grabbing a copy, you can find the book on Amazon, or check out http://SpeedTrainingforHockey.com (which also has more information about the book).

✅ If you already have a copy, feel free to share your thoughts about the book in the comments section below, or tag a friend that you think would benefit from grabbing a copy.

???? We appreciate all your support over the last 3 years, and look forward to hearing from more players about the results they get from using the Speed Training for Hockey program this off-season!

Feel free to post any comments/questions below.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. For comprehensive hockey training programs to improve your speed AND repeat sprint ability, check out: Speed Training for Hockey

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

Performance Testing: Youth Hockey Norms

The first question players ask after going through any form of performance testing is either “How’d I do?” or “Is that good?”

Every player presents with unique physical characteristics that either help them perform at a desired level or prevent them from doing so.

While there are a lot of individual considerations in interpreting testing data, it’s helpful to have an understanding of where you stack up relative to other players at your age and playing level.

This table has normative values for off-ice testing (power and strength testing) performed on male youth hockey players. The players were primarily from Tier I organizations.

This should help players to quickly identify areas of strength, and areas where they may be lagging behind the pack, which can then be used to influence their training programs.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please tag a friend in the comments below or 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!

Lateral MiniBand Skater Walk

This is an exercise we integrate into our warm-ups to help reinforce a low skating position and strong push-off.

A common problem you see in less efficient skaters is that they adopt a wider stance and their stance leg collapses inward slightly, which causes the player to ride their inside edge, and create more friction on the glide leg, which ultimately slows the player down.

Similarly, a lot of players will make the mistake of over-reaching with the front leg, when the emphasis should be on pushing the ground away through the back leg.

I’ll cue players to think of their front knee, hip, and shoulder pushing against a wall, while the back leg pushes.

The band creates a slight inward pull on the knee, which the player can actively pull against to reinforce the foot/knee/hip/shoulder alignment we want from a stance leg in skating, but the focus on keeping the knee straight also makes it feel less natural to reach with the foot compared to when the front band is around the ankle. If you reach with the foot with the band in this position here, the band rolls up the leg, which doesn’t feel great. Once the player understands the motion, the band can be slide down to the ankle.

Typically performed for 3 sets of 8-10 reps/side

Give this a shot, and 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. For comprehensive hockey training programs to improve your speed AND repeat sprint ability, check out: Speed Training for Hockey

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