Lateral Movement: Hip Stability & End Range Strength

One thing a lot of athletes struggle with is maintaining a stable pelvis while pushing laterally.

It’s common to see the torso bend back toward the pushing leg in exercises ranging from Lateral MiniBand Walks to Lateral Bounds and lateral cutting in transitional speed work.

While there’s a time and place for emphasizing this type of “bend”, more often than not it’s causing the athlete to lose time/speed by creating a lag between the push-off and the body moving laterally through space.

One simple way to start to address this is with the Lateral Wall Push exercise in this video.

The goal here is to keep the torso upright by maintaining wall contact with the hips and shoulders and to use the outside leg to “push the floor away” to generate maximum push-off force.

This set-up can be used in a couple different ways – either to: 1️⃣ emphasize push-off strength at different hip angles (more upright = less hip abduction) or to 2️⃣ focus on end-range strength, starting as deep as possible and shifting slightly deeper as range of motion opens up from rep to rep.

The feedback from the wall will help the athletes isolate motion at the hip while maintaining a level pelvis, which creates a foundation for them learning how to push laterally without folding over the back leg.

Typically performed for 4-8 reps of 5s holds.

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

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Winning Culture

The picture below is a throwback to (2012?) USA Hockey Women’s National Team Camp in Blaine, MN.

Great memories working with this group alongside @michael_boyle1959, @anthonydonskov, and @smcstrength.

Yesterday I shared a quote from the @hph_podcast discussing how testing can be used to both drive and assess a groups commitment and culture. You can check it out here >> Testing & Culture

The above picture is an excerpt from my book Speed Training for Hockey, and shows the progress one of the Women’s National Team players made through an Olympic cycle. Most notably – the player added 8″ to her vertical jump and substantially decreased her on-ice acceleration/sprint time.

Incremental gains made consistently over time leads to substantial, career-changing progress.

One of the key features of a winning culture is that the players are continuously pushing for the next level. When enough players adopt this mentality, it becomes the dominant voice in the room – the expectation for the group.

Performance testing certainly isn’t the only barometer for this type of commitment, but it is a simple, effective way of establishing standards, reinforcing expectations, and providing an opportunity for players to own an area of their performance that is COMPLETELY within their control.

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

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Acceleration vs. Max Speed

There are several notable differences in the stride pattern and muscular contributions of acceleration and max speed – both in running and skating.

I shared some of the differences in skating characteristics in previous posts that you can find by clicking on the #SpeedTraining highlight on my instagram account.

The images above are taken from a terrific research paper written by @kenclarkspeed and his colleagues exploring the relationship between acceleration and max speed at the 40-yard dash at the NFL combine.

The top graph shows the acceleration profiles of athletes ranging from the slowest to the fastest. Notice that the shapes of the curves are very similar, just shifted up or down for faster or slower max speeds, respectively.

When the acceleration curves are displayed as a percentage of the max speed reached, they are almost identical (bottom graph).

This was one of the key findings of the study – that max speed could very well be a primary limiting factor for acceleration.

In other words – if your goal is to improve acceleration (i.e. “first step quickness”), there is still a place in your program for maximum speed work.

In implementing max speed work, it’s important to recognize both the characteristics of max speed you’re training to improve, and the characteristics of the athlete. For example, many hockey players are not efficient runners. As a result, increasing sprinting distance or speed is likely to also increase injury risk. Running extended sprints (e.g. 40-60 yards) or extended flying sprints (e.g. 10-20 yard build, 15-20 yard flying sprint) may be effective at increasing maximum speed, but the risk isn’t worth the reward.

Two alternatives:

  • Emphasize maximum speed work on the ice, where the patterns are both more specific to the end-goal, and safer for the athlete
  • Perform max speed work on an Assault bike, where the required movement skill is low, and the athlete can focus entirely on maximizing the output.

In both cases, it’s appropriate to use similar methods as sprinting (e.g. longer duration maximum output efforts (4-6s), and flying sprints to allow players to reach and sustain max speeds).

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

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Transferring Single-Leg Strength to Sport

Training single-leg strength in a variety of patterns is one of the keys to having strength improvements transfer to the dynamic environment of sport.

This video is of a 1-Arm DB 1-Leg Lateral Slideboard Lunge, a supplementary exercise that serves two primary purposes:

1️⃣ Develop single leg strength, with control against competing lateral forces
2️⃣ Develop eccentric strength of the adductors in a lengthened position

These qualities are important for most team sports, but have particularly value in hockey in both developing strength in sport-relevant patterns, and improving durability by minimizing injury risk to the adductors resulting insufficient stiffness or end-range strength.

Holding a dumbbell in the opposite hand helps drive a weight shift and a slight rotation of the torso over the stance leg, both of which help load the hip.

A few key coaching points:

✅ Set-up with the majority of the weight on the outside leg (think 80/20).
✅ The outside leg should be actively pushing down into the ground through the entire range of motion.
✅ As the hips drop, the dumbbell should move toward the outside leg.
✅ Keep downward pressure into the board with the straight leg throughout the rep to maintain active tension through the adductors.

Typically performed for 2-3 sets of 8-12 reps OR 6-8 reps with a 3-5s eccentric.

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 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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Curiosity, Humility, and Success

Great quote from my friend @dmcconnell29 in an interview he did with @fergus.connelly for the @teamsportmasterclass.

The most successful people I know in the performance and rehab fields have continued to learn, grow, and evolve throughout their career.

They recognize there’s always more to learn, have the curiosity to pursue new information, and the humility to change their methods when appropriate.

The most successful athletes I’ve worked with possess the same characteristics. They’re constantly looking for ways to grow their game – whether that’s improving specific physical attributes (speed, strength, repeat sprint ability, etc.), honing specific skills (in hockey. – edgework/puck protection through traffic, one timers from specific areas on the ice, tipping pucks in front of the net, finishing from in tight, etc.), studying opponent tendencies (on individual and team levels), or improving supporting behaviors (nutrition, supplementation, sleep, etc.).

They have the curiosity to ask questions, the humility to recognize/identify gaps in their game, and an unwavering desire to improve.

They do this despite their past success.

The reality is that no one will ever have it all figured out. There is always opportunity for growth.

And pursuing this growth may very well be the key to sustained success.

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

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

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