Blogs

In making workload or recovery recommendations, it’s important to consider the timeline of the anticipated training/recovery response. Recovery recommendations are often made with minimal consideration for the primary goal of the training phase or time an athlete has before they need to be recovered. ???? For example, cold water immersion can help reduce soreness/fatigue, increase […]

The Alternating Crossover Run is an exercise I’ll integrate into our pre-practice prep and as a main exercise in speed development blocks.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Kevin Neeld, PhD (@kevinneeld) It’s a great option […]

Improving lower body strength is the foundation for being able to adopt lower skating positions and generate maximal power with each stride. The Forward Sled March is an effective option for developing lower body strength while also emphasizing: ✅ Single-leg strength✅ Concentric “push” dominant pattern✅ Horizontal force production (pushing “back”) View this post on Instagram […]

If general warm-up and mobility work doesn’t open up sufficient range of motion, it’s possible the athlete needs to “create” motion by adding length to the tissue. A key stimulus for adding sarcomeres in series (i.e. length to a muscle) is to hold a stretched position for 2+ minutes. The “Box Quad PNF” allows players […]

We often hear about the importance of building an aerobic base early in the off-season to help establish an ability to better tolerate higher training volumes moving forward. The reality is that the characteristics of the “base” should be specific to the athlete AND to future training phases.For example, the “aerobic” base for a marathon […]

A 2013 study from Philippon et al. found that over 1/3 of 10-12 year old hockey players have a structural change in their hips that limits hip flexion range of motion. Roughly 1/2 have hip labral tears. To your success, Kevin NeeldSpeedTrainingforHockey.comHockeyTransformation.comOptimizingAdaptation.com P.S. For more information on how to assess movement and integrate specific strategies […]

Great post on taking a broader view on ankle mobility from @timlebbossiere. Give these 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. From TIm: One of the things I’ve strived to get better at over the years is finding meaningful ways […]

The Alternating MiniBand Elvis is another exercise we integrate into our prep work.           View this post on Instagram                       A post shared by Kevin Neeld, PhD (@kevinneeld) There are a couple things this exercise can help accomplish: 1️⃣ Help athletes […]

Over the last 10 years, there’s been a wide-spread emphasis on “high intensity interval training” to improve conditioning in team sport athletes. Recently, there’s been more attention paid to the importance of repeat sprint ability (i.e. clustered maximum efforts with incomplete rest before longer periods of lower intensity activity or complete rest), either as the […]

The 90-Degree MiniBand Step-Out is an exercise we’ll integrate into our prep work both in the off-season and during the year. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kevin Neeld, PhD (@kevinneeld) The goal here is to teach the player to “hold strong” on the front side knee as they open-up in the […]