It’s been an exciting week. Our off-season hockey group at Endeavor is growing quickly as players return back from their junior and pro teams. We’re doing some different things in terms of assessment and program individualization, which means a lot more work for me, but will ultimately be a process that provides better results for the players and interesting data in terms of tracking specific adaptations to various program design strategies.

Two nights ago, just over a week after returning from working at their Pre-World’s Camp in Lake Placid, NY (where they were playing Miracle on loop in the lobby…which was awesome), I watched in a quasi-permanent state of cardiac arrest, as the US Women’s National Team reclaimed the world championship in a great battle with rival Canada. I’ve seen these two teams compete against each other 4 times at this point, and every game is incredibly competitive and exciting. It’s a great rivalry, and one that I think will help grow the women’s game worldwide.

Capping things off, I found out this week that the editing is now complete for my new DVD “Optimizing Movement”, which should be available in the near future. The DVD dives into exactly what assessments I’m doing for our incoming athletes, how we use this assessment to systemize a corrective approach, and how all of this drives our program design. This is really just the tip of the iceberg so keep your eye out for more information in the near future. I’m also in the final stages of completing an exciting project that I’m hoping to announce by the end of the month.

With all of that in the background, I haven’t had as much time to write as I’d like. Having just hosted PRI’s Pelvis Restoration course at our facility last weekend, several ideas related to PRI have been on my mind recently and will likely be topics for future posts. As PRI gains in popularity, their information will naturally be met with more questions, and likely more skepticism. I think this is a good thing in the long run as it allows us all to grow from the discussion. I think a lot of the misconceptions about their information are driven by people with only a partial understanding of their perspective, and either an opposition to PRI evangelists or a generally evangelical affiliation for another seemingly conflicting educational resource. I’m a bit of a continuing education junkie and am interested in learning from a wide variety of resources, but I hesitate to subscribe to any extreme as I believe strongly that all information is in some stage of evolution and the excessively enthusiastic support for any paradigm is likely to be misguided as this evolution takes place.

With that said, Patrick Ward wrote two outstanding posts recently that I want to share with you. I always enjoy Patrick’s perspective because he’s a relentless learner, has a great filter, and respects the complexity of the human ecosystem. He, whether aware of it or not, has become a great mentor for me as I continue digging further down this rabbit hole. I’d encourage you to read these two articles, slowly, as well as all the comments beneath the second article. Lots of great stuff here!

1. More on the Physiological Buffer Zone – Aerobic Fitness & Functional Movement Screen
2. Postural Restoration Institute Course Review

Patrick discusses the idea of the Physiological Buffer Zone in his presentations included in the Strength In Motion DVD set.

That’s a wrap for today. As always, please post your comments below!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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