I hope you’re having a great week. My article last week on lateral bound norms sparked a few great discussions on the value (and limitations) of the test, and how that test may be a more, or at least equally, suitable power test for hockey players.
Speaking of power training, my friend Mike Robertson is about to release the 3rd edition of the Elite Athletic Development series he’s been filming with Carolina Panthers S&C Coach Joe Kenn.
As with every good product launch, Mike and Joe are kicking things off by releasing some AWESOME, and completely free, information that I know you’ll enjoy.
As part of the EADS 3.0 seminar, they had Bobby Smith and Adam Feit, two guys that have developed a great reputation in my neck of the woods in Jersey, give a presentation on “all things jump training.” In this first segment, you’ll learn:
Jump training progressions to maximize power development
The most effective set and rep schemes
Specific keys to help maximize an athletes potential
There’s no hard sell here. This is great information that builds off the topic of power development I discussed last week and it’s available to you for FREE.
I’d strongly encourage you to check out the videos, even if you’re just an athlete and want to few simple cues to perform your plyometric/jumping exercises more effectively!
“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.” – Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team
“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with” – Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University
Hockey Power Testing: Where do you rank?
A couple weeks ago I was at the Catapult Hockey Workshop in Denver with a few dozen strength and conditioning coaches from the NHL and NCAA. While there, someone asked me about the Lateral Bound test, one of many “hockey power tests” I really like.
I’ve written about the Lateral Bound Test in the past, but if you missed those articles, you can check them out here:
In short, I think the Lateral Bound Test is more hockey-specific, and provides different (if not better) information than a Vertical Jump.
One of the biggest problems with testing is that most people don’t actually do anything with the information. This is likely the result of people not knowing what a “good” score is for many tests, and the difficulty in assessing one’s true genetic ceiling (e.g. if I’m better than everyone else, is that still as good as I can get?).
With these things in mind, I wanted to share some normative data from the hundreds of hockey players I’ve tested over the last few years. Hopefully this provides a basic target for you to measure your own status, as well as your progress moving forward.
The above table shows the average and standard deviations for different age groups for Vertical Jump, Vertical Jump Power (using Sayer’s Formula to estimate the power based on vertical jump height and body weight), Split Distance, Lateral Bound Distance, and Normalized Lateral Bound Distance (Lateral Bound/Split Distance).
As a quick reminder, the split distance (discussed more in the Testing Power in Team Sport Athletes article) provides different information than simply a leg length test. In the 95 athletes I have leg length AND split distance data for, the two variables shared a correlation of only .163. That number should seem low, but to put it in perspective, leg length had a .103 correlation with percentage body fat.
The table also shows the number of athletes in each age group for each cluster of tests. I actually have A LOT more VJ and Lateral Bound data than this, but I included included VJ data where I also had VJ Power (we haven’t always assessed body weight in certain circumstances) and lateral bound data where I had split distance (this wasn’t part of the early testing procedures).
As a quick refresher, the standard deviation gives a general idea of the distribution of test scores. In a normalized distribution (as these scores were), ~68% of the population will fall within one standard deviation around the average, 95% will fall within 2 standard deviations (i.e. 34.1+34.1+13.6+13.6=95.4), and 99% will fall within 3 standard deviations (i.e. 95.4+2.1+2.1=99.6).
This same data can be used to estimate what percentile you fall in relative to the population. For example, if you’re 18 years old and your average lateral bound distance is 88 inches, you can use the standard deviations to write out these percentages:
50% = 83.6
~84% = 88.6
~97.5% = 93.6
~99.9% = 98.6
So your score of 88 inches would fall roughly in the 84th percentile.
Vertical Jump (left axis) and Vertical Jump Power (right axis) normative data (presented as average +/- 1 standard deviation)
Lateral Bound (left axis) and Normalized Lateral Bound (right axis) normative data (presented as average +/- 1 standard deviation)
As I mentioned in a previous article, one of the benefits of using the lateral bound test is that it provides insight into side to side discrepancies that are otherwise hidden by a vertical jump (in the absence of a dual force plate). While you may think the differences between legs are relatively negligible, of the 446 lateral bound tests I have data on, 88 (19.7%) show a side-to-side discrepancy of 4 or more inches.
This is important because it could be indicative of a power and/or range of motion deficit on one side that may increase injury risk. At the very least, there’s no reason to believe this discrepancy is “optimal” and therefore it may warrant taking steps to normalize balance.
The last thing I wanted to look at is how these tests vary by position. For those of you that like to look at raw numbers, I’ve included the sample sizes, averages, and standard deviations in the table below.
For the rest of you, let’s just take a look at a few line graphs that simplify the message.
Vertical Jump by position. Note that goalies lag behind forwards and defensemen until ~18 years old.
Lateral Bound by position. No notable differences between positions at any age group.
Lateral Bound Distance normalized to Split Distance. Once again, goalies are considerably lower than position players, but now it’s consistent across all ages.
There are several different ways to look at this position-specific data. Starting with Vertical Jump, it appears that goalies lag behind everyone else until Juniors/College. From personal experience, I think there are two major reasons for this: A) Goalies tend to over-emphasize flexibility training and under-emphasize…well, any other form of training, and B) At younger ages, it’s pretty common for the fattest and/or least athletic kid to get throw in net. I think most goalies would do better to put a great emphasis on training for speed, power, and strength IN ADDITION to their flexibility work at younger ages.
When we look at Lateral Bound distance, the raw numbers are difficult to interpret because we don’t know if differences are the result of leg length (unlikely), hip structure (possible), and/or flexibility (likely) differences between positions, or true power output differences. This is clarified by the normalized lateral bound graph. Here, the goalies are again significantly behind the other positions. In fact, at younger ages, their normalized values are barely over 1.0, which is the “I can jump as far as I can fall” threshold.
Again, I would argue that most goalies would benefit from improving the focus on their speed/power training in conjunction with their flexibility training. However, I also think it’s important to appreciate the nature of the position, and recognize that the goal isn’t necessarily to make all of the positions identical. The optimal ratio for most goalies is likely still below position players; however, goalies may feel more reactive on the ice if this gap is narrowed.
Wrap Up
The most important part of testing is to provide yourself with a baseline measure so you can track progress over time. Simply, if you beat your last test, you’re headed in the right direction. However, many players are interested in how they compare to others in their age group, and understandably so. After all, if you improve from worst to slightly better than worst (I call this “less bad”), it’s not nearly as meaningful as climbing into the “above average” category. With this in mind, the above normative values can be used as a guide to assess where you rank in terms of power production. Hopefully you can use this information as motivation to not just train harder, but also train smarter.
“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.” – Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team
“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with” – Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University
Hockey Training Interview
Emily and I leave for Italy on Wednesday for 10 days, but before we leave I wanted to let you know that Joe Heiler recently released the interview we did as part of his 2016 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar.
In the interview, we discussed a lot about the evolution of my training philosophy and preventing hip injuries, including:
How I first got interested in addressing movement quality in our training programs
How to balance movement capacity training with “performance” training
Why Tabata’s are stupid (or at least a misnomer)
Keys to building (physically and psychologically) resilient athletes
Common hip injuries and what we’re doing to prevent them
A case study of a NCAA D1 college player that cancelled his hip surgery
This is just a snapshot. Joe also posted an article I wrote on developing explosive power for hockey. All of this is available for FREE right now. I’m genuinely not sure when he’ll pull this down, so check out the link below to get access today.
“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.” – Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team
“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with” – Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University
3 Biggest Core Training Mistakes Most Athletes Make
Mike Robertson recently released his new “Complete Core Training” product, and is offering it at $50 off this week only.
As I mentioned to those of you on my newsletter list, I had a chance to review Complete Core Training and thought it was excellent. It’s a great blend of the “whys” and “hows” so you have a complete system of how to train the core, but also know why the system was developed.
I have a lot of respect for Mike. In fact, over the last 5 years, I’ve read his work more consistently than anyone else in the field. He’s constantly looking for ways to improve his programs, and (importantly) he actually trains people on a daily basis, so you know his ideas have been real-world tested.
I asked Mike to write a guest post on the 3 biggest core training mistakes most athletes make, which he graciously agreed to. Check out the post below, and if you have any questions, please post them in the comments section below!
3 Biggest Core Training Mistakes Most Athletes Make by Mike Robertson
For 16 years now, I’ve trained athletes of all shapes and sizes.
From little Johnny, the kid who will never play high school sports, up to pro athletes in the NFL, NBA and MLS, I’d like to think I’ve seen a lot of good (and bad) training.
It should be obvious, but an athlete can’t train like a bodybuilder.
They can’t just do random core training exercises and hope it will carry over to sport.
As such, here are three of the most common mistakes I see athletes making with their training. Enjoy!
Mistake #1 – Not Using Contextual Core Training Exercises
Now I know what you’re thinking here:
What does “contextual” even mean?
Contextual simply means that the body postures and positions you’re using for your core training have some carryover to sport.
Sure, there’s probably a time and place for general work where you’re in a prone position, lying on your back, etc. But at some point in time, you need to get comfortable being in positions that are similar to your sport.
In sport you’re often in a split- or parallel-stance position. From this posture, can you effectively control your abdominals?
Lateral 1/2 Kneeling Cable Chop
If not, you’re missing the boat. You need core and pelvic control to get the hips in the right position.
If you can’t control these areas, that inability to load your hips will lead to excess (or inappropriate) stress in the abdominals, lower back, and hips.
So developing stability and control in specific positions is crucial. But what other mistakes are we making?
Mistake #2 – You’re Not Bridging the Gap
Too often, we assume that if we’re including core work in our program that it will automatically carryover to other aspects of our training.
You might be crushing your core with random, isolated exercises, but we can’t assume that it will magically carry over to speed, power and strength development.
Using contextual exercises is a start, but from there, we need to further bridge the gap by taking those postures and positions into the rest of our training.
For example, I love reactive med ball work in a tall- or half-kneeling position where you rapidly throw and catch a medicine ball. It’s great for creating stability and control, as well as developing a small degree of upper body power.
But from there, we need to take that and flesh it out. We need to make it a true power exercise, versus a lower level stability and control exercise.
This is where you take that rotational med ball throw and make sure that you’re able to control and appropriate position your core in a high speed/high power/high force environment.
Split Stance Med Ball Scoop
It’s just a standard progression, but it’s something I find many coaches ignore. Their athletes look great when they’re doing the low load/low velocity work, but when it’s time to bring it all together, their athletes fall apart.
Think of this as a slow evolution. Dial in the stability and control first, especially in postures and positions that focus on appropriate core position and control.
Then, move to bigger exercises, but continue to reinforce proper posture and mechanics.
Make sure they’re controlling their core and pelvis.
Make sure they’re loading the hips (and not the lower back).
And as this is all starts to smooth out, take your foot off the brakes and let them be athletic!
Mistake #3 – Not Including Alternating Work in the Program
I’ll admit my bias up front: I’m a huge fan of PRI. And one thing that PRI talks about incessantly in their work is the concept of alternating function.
We know that the lumbar spine has a limited degree of rotation available to it. In fact, the entire lumbar spine combined only has 10-15 degrees of rotary capacity!
So while our goal should be to maintain that lumbar rotary capacity, the real end game here is better rotation up top.
Athletes need to be able to rotate, and some of the primary areas to unlock this are the hips, shoulders and thorax. Whether you are running, skating or swimming, the ability to effectively rotate your thorax is crucial for keeping you healthy and improving performance.
I’m a huge fan of half-kneeling and split-stance work my athletes, because I know that core and hip stability are crucial. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the end game.
The end game is to give them stability and control through the hips, pelvis and core, while giving them the ability to rotate freely up top.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
As you can see, my hips are square throughout, but I’m driving rotation through my thorax.
One of my favorite cues (which I believe I stole from Mike Cantrell) is to have the client/athlete focus on their sternum, or chest bone. Imagine there’s a laser on there, and you are trying to point the laser to the right and left.
Doing this will ensure that they are getting their rotation through the thorax.
Summary
I don’t claim to have all the answers for what ails athletes, but these are three of the most common mistakes I see.
If you can create more context with your programs, if you can bridge the gap from isolated to integrated movements, and if you can incorporate more alternating activities into your training sessions, I think you’ll be light years ahead of the competition.
“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.” – Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team
“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with” – Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University
Hockey-Specific Speed and Power Training
Last week, I hopped on the phone with Joe Heiler to do an interview for the 2016 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar. If you haven’t signed up for the series, go do that now. It’s completely FREE, and every year the speakers deliver great content.
As is almost always the case in these types of interviews, Joe sent over a list of topics for us to dig through…and as is ALWAYS the case…I got hopped up on coffee and ended up going on a long-winded rant about hockey hip injuries, what imaging does and does not tell you, how I approach the screening and program design process, and the outcome of another case study of a kid limping into our facility convinced he needed surgery immediately.
That is to say, we didn’t get an opportunity to talk about speed and power training, topics I’m equally passionate about. With that in mind, I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few important considerations for hockey-specific speed and power training.
Hockey-Specific Speed and Power Training
Hockey is really an interesting sport because it lives across the entire strength-speed to speed-strength, or what I refer to as the high-load low-velocity to low-load high-velocity continuum.
Skating in open ice and shooting are two examples of where training the middle to higher velocity ends of that continuum are really beneficial, but when players are delivering or accepting contact or battling for pucks in corners, they really need the high load, low-velocity end as well.
From a training standpoint, we’ve always used sprints from a variety of starting positions, plyometrics, med ball throws and Olympic lift variations as part of our speed and power efforts. If you view these purely from a speed of movement standpoint, Olympic lift variations will fall closer to the strength-speed/power side of the curve, plyometrics will live in the power/speed-strength area, and med ball throws and sprint work will fall closer to the speed end of the continuum.
Obviously, the load you use for all of these exercises, but especially the Olympic lifts, can shift where you are on the curve. With the O-lifts, if you’re near your max load for any given lift and rep range, you’ll be closer to the strength-speed side of the curve.
Similarly, different starting positions can slightly shift the emphasis. For example, 1/2 kneeling starts require more force to get up and out of the start, and will therefore be slower than standing variations (2-point, side standing, etc.). This isn’t a bad thing, but if your training day is geared toward maximal velocity and 1/2 kneeling positions look slow, it may be worth shifting to a standing position.
Both of these variations have a place in off-season programs, but this version will lead to quicker initial accelerations. Video taken from Ultimate Hockey Transformation
Top End Speed Work isn’t Hockey-Specific
The nature of skating requires a few special considerations. It’s easy to see that hockey requires a lot of movement in the frontal and transverse planes, so training should reflect that.
It might not be quite as obvious, but the ground contact times are drastically longer (leading to a larger impulse – the cumulative amount of force produced over the duration of a stride) in skating compared to running.
I’ve talked a lot about why I don’t think the overwhelming majority of ladder drills should be considered speed training for anyone, but especially hockey players. Moving the feet really quickly without moving the body very far is not speed training.
But I also don’t think top end speed sprinting drills, which are characterized by more of a rapid sweeping motion, are even remotely specific to the long duration pushing motion of skating.
Appreciate both the cadence of Bolt’s strides as well as how long his foot is on the ground
Note how much longer Larkin’s skate is in contact with the ice compared to Bolt’s foot, and how much slower the cadence is.
Longer duration and max speed sprints carry a higher injury risk for almost every athlete, but hockey players are typically terrible runners, so the risk of something breaking is even higher.
Shorter duration acceleration drills are much more specific to the hockey stride and also carry a drastically reduced injury concern. I can count on exactly zero hands the number of quad and hip flexor strains I’ve seen in sprints under 20 yards.
Programming Considerations
One of the biggest changes we’ve made since I first started is we’ve moved to more a block periodization model from a more concurrent model a few years ago. This simply means that if we have a training phase or training day within a phase with the primary target of influencing speed-strength, the entire training day we’ll be designed around that quality, so we may use methods like contrast training and low load lifts performed for as many reps as possible within a set time frame.
We’ll also keep our conditioning consistent with the energy system focus of the day, so athletes may be running series of short sprints with long rest intervals, whereas in the past there wasn’t that level of continuity. In the past, players may have had a high dose of sprints or med ball throws in the beginning, then grinded through some heavy lifts, and then, depending on the time of the off-season, done more lactic-based conditioning.
The block periodization approach sends a clearer message to your body about how you want it to adapt and therefore will lead to larger increases in the target quality. This is especially important for athletes with a higher training age that are passed the “everything works” phase of their development.
Wrap Up
Hockey challenges an exceptionally broad range of athleticism. When developing speed and power, it’s important to consider the full spectrum of the force-velocity curve. Specific areas of the curve can be targeted using a block periodization approach, based on the specific needs of the individual. Off-ice speed training programs should be designed with a full understanding of the uniqueness of the skating stride and the specificity that will lead to the best on-ice transfer, as well as the methods that carry the lowest injury risk.
Vertical Jump (left axis) and Vertical Jump Power (right axis) normative data (presented as average +/- 1 standard deviation)
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