Sports Nutrition Resource

Earlier this week, we had 7 incredible Hockey Nutrition Tips from Brian St. Pierre. If you missed them, check them out below:

Hockey Nutrition Tips: Part 1

Hockey Nutrition Tips: Part 2

With the off-season upon most of the hockey world, I’m getting a lot of questions from players about how to add muscle mass. A few others want to shed some fat this off-season. I’m glad I’m getting the questions. The off-season is really the time where hockey players can make HUGE changes to their bodies and nutrition is a big part of that.

With that in mind, I want to introduce the best sports nutrition resource out there. Now, I’ll preface this by saying that Brian and I have plans to write a Hockey Nutrition Manual sometime in the near future. Unfortunately, the project keeps getting pushed back because Brian has “more important things” to do like “getting married” and “taking care of his new puppy” (which did a depth jump off a couch and broke it’s leg in the first week they owned it…the puppy was quick to learn Brian’s high intensity training mentality, picture below).

Brian's Dog

We WILL finish the Hockey Nutrition Manual before 2010 ends. In the meantime, there is an absolutely amazing nutrition resource that I think every coach, parent, player, and water bottle should own: Dr. John Berardi’s Precision Nutrition!

I’m still blown away that there are people out there that don’t own this. It’s the single best nutrition resource ever. It amazes me that people hesitate to spend money on this, but they’ll gladly spend hundreds of dollars on supplements. Precision Nutrition isn’t a weight loss guide. It’s not a muscle gaining guide. It’s a SYSTEM that teaches you how to manipulate your diet to achieve ALL of your health, performance, and body composition goals. If you need to gain muscle mass this year, Precision Nutrition will help. If in a couple years you need to shed some fat, Precision Nutrition will help.

The PN System includes: The Success Guide, The Diet Guide, The Quick Start Guide, The Super Shake Guide, 5-Minute Meals, The Individualization Guide, The Measurement Guide, The Plant-Based Diet Guide, The Maintenance Guide, and The Support Guide. It also comes with Gourmet Nutrition, my favorite cookbook!

Check out Dr. Berardi’s Precision Nutrition “Executive Summary”:

Covers everything you need to know about nutrition. Precision Nutrition contains everything you need to get the body you want.
Teaches you how to eat for your goal and your body. We teach you how to develop a custom nutrition plan unique to your physiology.
Written in plain English. We make advanced nutrition research easy to understand – and easy to use, right away.
1 year of 24/7 online support on our private member forum. You’ll need help, and with PN you get it – from our expert coaches and nearly 40,000 fellow members from around the world.
1 year membership to our online library of articles, e-books and software. Access our complete Exercise Video Database and thousands of pages covering every conceivable fitness and nutrition topic in the Member Zone.
Includes more than 25 goal-specific exercise programs by world-class coaches. We had the top coaches in the world develop exercise programs specifically for Precision Nutrition members.
Includes the PN cookbook, Gourmet Nutrition Volume 1. Good, healthy food can be delicious, and in Gourmet Nutrition we show you how.
Results 100% guaranteed. We put our money where our mouth is. If PN doesn’t work for you, we’ll not only give your money back, we’ll buy you another book of your choosing!
$50 off before April 15th! Order today for an unbeatable deal.

If you have questions about this system, please do not hesitate to contact me. This is the exact nutrition system that many of the top strength and conditioning professionals in North America use, and I know hockey players up through the pro levels that use it as well.

Make the smartest investment of your life and check out Precision Nutrition now!

To your off-season success,

Kevin Neeld

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Hockey Nutrition Tips: Part 2

More great nutrition tips from Brian St. Pierre.

If you missed it, check out Hockey Nutrition Tips: Part 1

Nutrition Tip #4

Eat Protein at Every Meal or Snack
Protein is the most satiating of all the macronutrients, meaning it will keep that hunger away longer than carbohydrates or fat. Protein also has the highest Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF), meaning it requires more energy to digest protein than any other macronutrient. It is also the least likely nutrient to be stored as fat. Consuming an adequate amount of protein every day (~1g/lb of bodyweight) will maintain lean mass and help create new muscle tissue.

Key Tips:
•   Women should consume approximately 15-30 grams at every meal/snack.
•   Men should consume approximately 30-50 grams at every meal/snack.
•   Get most of your protein from real whole food. No more than 40 grams of powder.

Nutrition Tip #5

Drink 0-Calorie Beverages
The body doesn’t recognize liquid calories as energy intake, and therefore will not downregulate intake for the remainder of the day. Drinking calories is an easy way to overconsume and gain weight, so sticking to non-caloric beverages will help prevent unwanted weight gain.

Key Tips:
• Best non-calorie choices are water, tea (white, green, oolong, black, rooibos, yerba mate), and black coffee.
• Some fruit juice is ok in moderation, but only pure juice, no added sugar.

Nutrition Tip #6

Drink Your Calories
This goes completely counter to Tip #5, but if you are purposefully trying to gain weight, drinking calories is an easy way to sneak in extra calories without actually having to eat and chew much more food. Blending up real food is my favorite option. These smoothies can be all the difference in gaining that much wanted muscle.

Key Tips:
• Blend real food such as cottage cheese, fruit, nuts and some protein powder.
• Experiment, have fun with it, and enjoy the results.

Nutrition Tip #7

Choose Full-Fat Versions
When trying to gain weight I see far too many people eating fat-free cottage cheese, Greek yogurt and skim milk. These are inferior choices to the full-fat versions for caloric intake, and they are not inherently less healthy. In all actuality they actually contain more nutrients (like vitamin A) and the fat helps the absorption of these nutrients.

Key Tips:
• Choose whole milk, 4% fat cottage cheese, and whole fat Greek yogurt when appropriate.
• Eat plenty of nuts, extra virgin olive oil, and fish oil to balance the increase in saturated fat intake (which isn’t a bad thing!)

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Hockey Nutrition Tips: Part 1

Whenever I have a question about nutrition or supplements, I always call the same person. My friend Brian St. Pierre is the Nutrition Consultant and a Strength and Conditioning Coach at Cressey Performance in Hudson, MA. He’s truly one of the brightest young minds in sports nutrition today and really “gets it” in terms of being familiar with the research AND knowing how to implement strategies to help his athletes succeed.

A while back, Brian sent me some AWESOME nutrition tips that I wanted to share with you. The first three tips are below. Check back throughout the rest of the week for more great hockey nutrition information.

Nutrition Tip #1

Eat Real Food!
It may seem trivial or vague, but if you sat back and really took stock of the food in your home, you would probably be shocked to realize just how much of it qualifies as a food product, not actual food. Increasing the amount of real food, defined below, and decreasing the amount of food products you consume is the easiest thing you can do to improve your nutrition and health. It doesn’t require counting calories, worrying about nutrient timing, calculating macronutrient percentages, or any of that, and it will have a far greater impact on your health.

Real Food Conditions:
•   If you couldn’t hunt, fish, pluck, grow, or ferment/culture the food, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
•   If it wasn’t food 100 years ago, it probably isn’t food today.
•   If it comes in a box or a plastic wrapper, it probably isn’t food, it is a food product.
•   If it contains lots of industrial vegetable oil (canola, cottonseed, soybean, safflower, sunflower, etc) and/or added sugar/high fructose corn syrup, it probably isn’t food, it is a food product.

Nutrition Tip #2

Eat Food as Close to its Natural State as Possible.
Eating food that has been produced in a sustainable, animal, plant and environmentally friendly manner will not only have a profound impact on your health, but the health of your food and the health of the planet. Choosing food from local, seasonal and sustainably grown sources, like farmer’s markets, ensures that you know exactly where your food is coming from, who is producing that food, and exactly how it is produced.

Natural State Conditions:
•   Eat meat, eggs and dairy from pastured/grass-fed animals.
•   Eat full fat versions of these foods for the greatest profile and absorption of nutrients.
•   Eat produce from local, seasonal, and sustainably grown sources.

Nutrition Tip #3

Eat Vegetable and/or Fruits at Every Meal or Snack
This is the easiest way to meet your minimum of 5 servings of fruits and veggies per day. I would go so far as to say the minimum should be 7-10 servings. Maximize your health to maximize your performance. You will drastically increase the amounts of powerful phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber to optimize your nutrition.

Key Tips:
• You don’t need a side salad with every meal. 1 serving will do just fine.
• 9 baby carrots, 2 celery sticks, and small pieces of fruit are all equivalent to one serving.

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Breaking in to the Strength and Conditioning Industry

Last day to save 25% on all hockey training products at Ice-Hockey-Training.com!

If you missed the details, check out why I want you to save money:

http://www.KevinNeeld.com/2010/birthday-sale-25-off-all-ice-hockey-training-products

Another great post from Endeavor’s newest addition David Lasnier. Forgive his grammar. He is French.

Enter David:

This post would be for those looking to make it in the strength and conditioning world in the first place. I know that from an outside perspective, it might look like a cool job to work with athletes on a daily basis and helping them get to the next level; and believe me it is. I know a lot of people who want to make it in this industry when they first get into College in Exercise science or kinesiology. But the truth is a lot of them don’t know that it takes a lot of dedication and the process takes a certain time.

Beside from having good grades in College and pursuing continuing education, there is a lot more one needs to do to make it in this industry. Here are a few tips to help you make it in the strength and conditioning business.

– Make contacts. Go out there in seminars and introduce yourself to other strength coaches and trainers. Make sure that the successful guys out there know who you are and that you trying to make it as strength coach. These are the ones who might help you get an internship; they might refer you some athletes/clients if you live in a different region; they might even let you know about job opportunities.

– These same guys know a lot. There is a reason why they are so successful. They know a lot about strength and conditioning, but they also know a lot about the business itself. So don’t be shy to pick their brain and ask questions. They have been around for a while, so they probably know a lot more than you do.

– Internships. That is a key to making it in this industry. Most of the time you won’t get paid for them, but you need to let everyone know that you are dedicated to getting more experience and making a name for yourself. This is a necessary process if you wish to make it someday. Go out there, bust your balls and someday you’ll be rewarded.

– On a related note, when doing internships, never forget that the goal is to gain experience. It is not to let others know how much you know because quite frankly they probably don’t care. I’ve seen too much people getting out of College without any experience and thinking they know everything. You need to realize that theoretical knowledge will only get you so far. Years under the trenches are worth so much more knowledge than what you will ever learn in College. So do me a favour and respect that. So the next time you go on an internship or chat with a knowledgeable Strength coach, listen. Stop talking and listen to what he has to say, because he knows a lot more than you do.

– Be kind and polite. It may sound obvious for some, but unfortunately not enough people get that. People will always help out more somebody who’s kind and polite and they will be more willing to give out some of their time and answer questions. And I’m not only talking about the strength and conditioning business here….this would apply in general in a thing called Life!

Hopefully, I’ve helped some of you out there who wish to make it as Strength and conditioning coach. Be patient, listen, don’t be afraid to give some of your time and be polite and you will sure be rewarded someday.

David Lasnier

Enter Kevin:

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Top 5 ways to get on my good side:

1) Read everything I write, even if it sucks.
2) Email me from a computer, not a blackberry, ipod, iphone, ihome, icar, irobot, etc.
3) Take time to learn about my system before impressing your own thoughts.
4) Be humble.
5) Be coachable.

At the risk of sounding “preachy”, I expect the same from myself. Before I interned at Cressey Performance, I read EVERY single article Eric wrote. Every one. Since Eric writes in his sleep, his collection of articles was in the triple digits. It goes a long way in understanding why a coach does what he/she does and shows you’re serious about your career/education.

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

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High Load/Low Load Programming

A quick reminder that today is THE LAST DAY to get access to all the incredible hockey training information at HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com for $1!

Everyday at Endeavor I see people doing “rotator cuff” exercises. I’m not against doing some cuff work, but people often make a fatal mistake-they load too heavily!

Your body has amazing adaptive powers. If you use heavier weights, you’ll recruit larger muscles often at the expense of the muscles you’re targeting. Consider these two examples:

1) Exercises involving glenohumeral (“shoulder”) external rotation are usually performed to the rotator cuff muscles that assist in external rotation (teres minor, infraspinatus). If the load is too heavy your posterior deltoid will take over and imbalances around your shoulder are exacerbated.

2) High load core exercises (e.g. rollouts) can become very rectus abdominis (the “6-pack” muscle) dominant, sometimes at the expense of the transverse abdominis. The same is true for teaching people to “fill up their belly” with air to stabilize their spine without teaching them to pre-tension their core first. The problem with this is that the rectus doesn’t attach to the spine or share the lumbodorsal fascia connections that the transverse abdominis and obliques do, meaning your core strength may not create the spinal stability you’re looking for.

One of the things I’m starting to include in more programs these days is intentional low load exercises like:

-Alternate DB Row (intention: stimulate spinal stabilizers)
-Standing Belly Press (intention: stimulate “inner core” in anti-rotation pattern)
-Alligator Breathing (intention: teach diaphragm breathing)

I love helping people get strong, but I think low load training is necessary to improve stability and overall movement quality. After all, if stabilizers aren’t doing their jobs the larger surrounding muscles need to split attention between creating stability and demonstrating strength/power. The key to strong, powerful, efficient movement is appropriate joint stability.

Keep training smart!

Kevin Neeld

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