Tag: Athletic Development Resources

Hockey Strength and Conditioning Update

It’s been one of those weeks over at Hockey Strength and Conditioning where the forums have really been hopping. There are a couple great discussions worth checking out on a few of the articles and programs posted recently, as well as a thread I started on Vitamin D (I’m curious to see how many programs are monitoring this closely with their players).

San Jose Sharks Strength and Conditioning Coach Mike Potenza posted an article titled The Best Nutrition Book on my Shelf which really struck a chord with me. As I continue to learn about nutrition, it becomes increasingly apparent how overly complicated some “sources” make it (e.g. media, government, etc.). Potenza’s article does a great job of outlining a few extremely important things that everyone should be aware of. Great read.

Click Here >> The Best Nutrition Book on my Shelf

Anaheim Ducks Strength and Conditioning Coach Sean Skahan posted a video of a full body mobility exercise called Toe Touch Squat with Alternating Arm Reach. Mobility exercises like this also serve as great opportunities to assess your athletes’ limitations. This exercise should help shed some light on whether an athlete has restrictions in ankle dorsiflexion, hip flexion, thoracic extension, and thoracic rotation. It also provides an opportunity to observe how the athlete moves their weight as they perform the initial movement toward the floor, which will likely be indicative of their ability to load their posterior chain. Just a few things to keep in mind when watching this video from Coach Skahan.

Check out the video here >> Toe Touch Squat with Alternating Arm Reach

There was a problem with the program that Darryl Nelson posted last week. if you weren’t able to access it, you can check it out now here:

Click Here >> Off-Season Strength Training Program

Details on the best hockey training seminar ever are now available. I’ve been to the Boston Hockey Summit the last two years and it’s been fantastic. It’s a great opportunity to network with other like-minded people and to learn from some of the smartest minds in performance enhancement. I’ll definitely be going again this year; the line up is pretty incredible. Check out the link below for more information:

You can’t miss this! >> Boston Hockey Summit

Lastly, I posted my video of the DB 1-Leg Reverse Deadlift last week. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s worth taking a look. After posting the video I got an email from someone, which (I’ll paraphrase) basically said “I understand the marketing appeal of bringing new things to the forefront, but is new necessarily better?” I thought it was an outstanding question and I always love getting emails from people that shows me they’re actually thinking. My response below:

“Trust me when I say that I don’t write anything just for the sake of “standing out.” I know that may be considered bad marketing my some, but I’d guess that I share your sentiments that there is a difference between quality information and just “controversial” or “different” information.

With regards to the video, the 1-leg DB deadlift isn’t the next coming of exercises; it’s simply another tool for coaches to incorporate into their programs. As you likely know, deadlifting patterns reinforce a proper hip hinge pattern and effectively load and strengthen the posterior chain (hamstrings and glutes). Hockey players tend to move with more “quad dominant” patterns, so putting in a slightly greater amount of posterior chain work into their programs can help restore and maintain balance across the hip and knee. As with all single leg exercises, the 1-leg DB deadlift will also necessitate quite a bit of strength in the form of stabilization/control from the lateral hip musculature, as is required during skating and any single-leg positions/maneuvers on the ice.

Unfortunately, with a website like mine there is an underlying assumption that people are familiar with the material I’ve written in the past, which more times than not will likely be a false assumption. With that said, I can’t rewrite a “why I think single-leg training is safer and more effective for hockey players” preface to every post I write that references lower body training. While that may be good for some newcomers, it will likely bore and annoy people that have been with me for a while. I hope this makes sense.

You’re absolutely correct that new doesn’t always mean better. This is an exercise that I’ll incorporate in the same vein as a 1-leg RDL or 1-leg stiff-legged deadlift (I use these two names interchangeably, so within my definition the SLDL still includes a slight knee bend). My goal in presenting it on the site is to expose other coaches to it that may not be familiar with it. Ultimately, this is the fastest way to get feedback to determine if other think it’s a mainstay or not.”

Hopefully that clears up any questions that you may have had!

If you aren’t a member, go check out what you’ve been missing by clicking the link below. If you are a member, go check out all the content I mentioned above and hop on the forums to comment on the threads!

Click Here for the best in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Remember, it’s only $1 to try HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com for the first week. You will never find more hockey training content anywhere for $1, and it’s only getting better. I’ll throw in a bonus offer-Register for $1 so you can check out all the content, and I’ll buy you a coffee (or protein shake?) the next time I see you. Can’t beat that!

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Dumbbell 1-Leg Reverse Deadlift

Any bilateral lower body exercise can be manipulated to create a single-leg variation. In other words, back squats, front squats, deadlifts, and stiff-legged deadlifts all have a single-leg counterpart. I like some of these single-leg exercises more than others.

In the case of a single-leg deadlift, I’ve experimented with a few different variations (e.g. barbell loaded, no toe touch, w/ toe touch). I’ve found that loading the exercise with a barbell doesn’t allow the athlete to shift the load posteriorly in a manner that allows them to load their hips. Similarly, with the “no toe touch” variation, athletes tend to perform a movement that more closely resembles a squat than a deadlift. Check out the video below:

Dumbbell 1-Leg Reverse Deadlift

A few execution pointers:

Shift your hips back as you reach for the floor with your foot
Keep your shoulders back and chest up
Let the weights pass closely by both sides of your front leg knee
Think of pulling through your front leg to return to the top
Keep your chin tucked throughout the movement

This exercise can also be performed with a single dumbbell in the hand of the back leg side. This variation creates an increased emphasis on the diagonal connection between the hip and opposite shoulder.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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What Football Does Right

In writing last week’s post on what it takes to be a Modern Strength Coach, I failed to mention that strength and conditioning for sports largely began with football. Because of this, there is (or at least has been) a high proportion of strength and conditioning coaches with a football background.

In general, the hockey community largely frowns upon football’s influence on strength and conditioning. I hear from players all the time, “you know, he’s a football guy.” The implication is that the “guy” is a stereotypical meathead who emphasizes moving more weight at the expense of everything else. Naturally, I disagree with that philosophy, and there are inherent differences between the demands of football and hockey, but I think football has done something right that no other sport, including hockey, has done to this point.

The football guy?

From my work at Endeavor Sports Performance, I’ve had an opportunity to interact with athletes in every major sport, including (in no particular order) hockey, soccer, lacrosse, football, baseball, softball, basketball, field hockey, and tennis. Of those, the ONLY sport where the coach emphasizes the importance of strength and conditioning is football. Most other sports don’t even consider it a piece of the puzzle. While I think hockey is coming around, a lot of the high school hockey kids we see are more interested in lifting for “flex appeal” than performance improvement (and the even less sexy “injury resistance”).

This isn’t to throw hockey players under the bus; I think the more serious ones get it. The glamor muscle emphasis is more indicative of the high school culture in general than anything else. However, when we ask our football athletes what they do with their teams, there is an emphasis on movements like power cleans, deadlifts, squatting, bench pressing, and heavy rowing. Albeit, this is far from the perfect program, but this is certainly more on track than the majority of other sports. At least football is:

Lifting weights (resistance training)
Emphasizing getting stronger
Focusing on complex multi-joint movements
Training consistently

To be honest, most of these kids aren’t terrific lifters. In other words, they haven’t been taught technique sufficiently, and there IS likely an over-emphasis on moving more weight at the expense of proper movement patterns. But it’s hard to blame the coaches; their background is in football, not in designing and implementing strength and conditioning programs. With that said, at least football has internalized the importance of strength training. It’s not a “if I have time for it” thing; it’s a must.

Football: Maybe it’s not so bad after all?

The truth is that it’s equally valuable, or should I say equally necessary in all other sports. The thing I always come back to is that EVERY professional and NCAA D1 collegiate program has a strength and conditioning coach, because it’s a necessary part of an athletic development program. It’s best practice. Hopefully youth sports programs will start to get the picture. Even if they fail to see the performance enhancement benefit, it’s hard to argue against the injury resistance benefit of training. I can’t help but wonder what would happen to the youth incidence of adductor and hip flexor strains, low back pain, ankle sprains, and ACL tears if every program set aside two hours a week to get some training in. Wouldn’t it be worth that time to avoid career- and life-limiting injuries? Don’t we owe our youth best practice?

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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This Week at Hockey Strength and Conditioning

A few great additions to the site this week:

Anaheim Ducks Strength and Conditioning Coach Sean Skahan wrote an article called Reap the Benefits of Proper Stretching. If you’ve stayed current with the scientific research behind stretching, you know that it’s been a controversial topic for the last decade or so. As with any debate, there are people on both extremes. Some say you must stretch; others say it’s a complete waste of time (this comes as a surprise to most people in the hockey world). Much of the discrepancy lies in what people are thinking of when they hear “stretching” and when various stretching strategies are used. Sean does a great job of describing different kinds of stretching and if/when they’re appropriate to use.

Check it out >> Reap the Benefits of Proper Stretching

Darryl Nelson, the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the U.S. National Team Development Program, posted an off-season hockey training program. With the off-season rapidly approaching for most youth programs, I thought this was a timely addition. As I’ve mentioned in the past, there is a ton of value to be gained from seeing how other coaches design programs. In most cases, it’s not appropriate to take the program and use it “as is”, but you can pull ideas about exercise selection, order, and pairing, and other program design strategies from seeing how successful experienced coaches design theirs.

Hockey Training Program Here >> Off-Season Strength Training Program

My friend Maria Mountain has been a welcomed member to the Hockey Strength and Conditioning community. This week she posted an article entitled Top 5 Take Homes from my Weekend with Dr. Stuart McGill that I think anyone working with hockey players should take a few minutes to read. In the article, Maria describes several big-picture messages she gathered from Stuart McGill, one of the world’s leading researchers on low back injuries. As these are injuries that effect an overwhelming majority of both the hockey and general populations, it’s imperative that we do everything we can do understand how to avoid them. Maria’s article will get you started on that path.

Check it out >> Top 5 Take Homes from my Weekend with Dr. Stuart McGill

Click Here for the best in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

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Modern Strength Coach

Happy Groundhog Day! Hopefully Bill Murray won’t see his shadow so we stop getting dumped on with all this snow!

For whatever reason, my ’99 Saturn is pretty good in the snow. Although, if you looked at it, you’d probably be wondering what is holding it all together. Last week on my drive back home from Endeavor, I stopped on the side of the road to help out a van that had swung off the road into a ditch. As I approached, I saw that there were two guys trying to push it up the small bank as another hit the gas. I hopped in behind the van on the left side to help push. About 4 seconds later, the van hit an icy patch, slid a few inches to the right, and I got blasted in the face with mud from the back tire. The next 15 minutes was filled with more of the same, but eventually we were able to push it out. The moral of the story is twofold

If you see someone stuck on the side of the road, do what you can to help. Not everyone is okay on their own and most people don’t want to shell out the hundreds of dollars to be pulled a few feet by a tow truck.
When abiding by “1”, opt to push in the middle…it’s much cleaner.

Over the last couple weeks I’ve been told on multiple occasions that I look like “that guy from Modern Family.”

What?! I’m not a red-head. I’m not gay! (Not that theres anything wrong with that)

The concept of the show highlights, as the title alludes to, the structure of the modern family in America. Having heard this comparison for the 3rd time in a few weeks and having just re-listened to Alwyn Cosgrove and Mike Boyle’s State of the Industry got me thinking about the structure of the “modern strength coach.”

In the development of a strength and conditioning professional, the commonly assumed path seems to be:

Get a degree
Get a certification
Get a job

This was probably a great route when the profession first came to fruition, but now that’s only a piece of the puzzle. Because the field is so young, information is changing constantly. As a result, there are few (if any) academic programs that provide an adequate educational background, as a lot of the information in textbooks is overly narrow-focused or outdated. Similarly, I don’t think there’s a great single certification out there. While the CSCS is still the gold standard for people involved in training athletes (hopefully this is changing), I know quite a few CSCS certified people that I wouldn’t let train my dog.

This isn’t to say that an academic background and certification aren’t part of the equation, only that they are limited in their ability to continually prepare an individual for the requirements of this profession. In other words, these things are just the first step in a never-ending journey of continuous education. A “modern strength coach” needs to be well-versed in recognizing proper movement and movement impairments. They need to be able to quickly teach and cue exercise technique, using varying language to most effectively convey this information to specific individuals. They need to have sufficient knowledge and professionalism to communicate with sports medicine professionals of other specialties, including manual therapy, physical therapy, and orthopedics. Similarly, they need to build a referral network of these professionals to best serve their clients. They need to know how to motivate their clients, when to be a coach, and when to be a friend, and how to build a success-oriented atmosphere.

StrengthCoach.com: Go here to stand on the shoulders of giants!

All of this stems from a foundational in-depth understanding of functional anatomy, the neuromuscular system, and biomechanics, coupled with a sound comprehension of strength and conditioning methodology and programming, and finally, with countless hours of experience. This is certainly no easy task, which is why the drop-out rate in our profession is so high. So how do you stay on top of everything to keep up with modern changes? I think Mike Boyle said it best in his “State of the Industry” talk:

“Watch, read, and attend.”

This means watch as many DVDs as you can, read as many books as you can, and attend as many seminars as you can. I’d also add in to observe as many other professionals as possible, seek out and learn from great mentors, and surround yourself with as many like-minded people as possible.

I’ve been fortunate to learn from some of the best. I’m permanently indebted to Mike Boyle (who has been training athletes for longer than I’ve been alive) and Eric Cressey for all the guidance they’ve provided me over the last few years, and am incredibly thankful to have other mentors like Chris Boyko, Brijesh Patel, Sean Skahan, Mike Potenza, and most recently Charlie Weingroff to help guide me along the way. Nothing I’ve done in the past or plan to do in the future would be possible without those guys. The collective wisdom of this group is astronomical.

One slice a day keeps the ego away

Regardless of what you do, it’s likely you’ll have more people telling you why you can’t or shouldn’t than telling you why you can or should. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is key for your development, and for your sanity. Doing things on your own is tough. When I first started at Endeavor, the rest of the training staff was pretty much gutted, leaving me on my own. As I’ve slowly rebuilt a staff I can trust, I continue to get the same feedback from them, that they love being here because everyone is so passionate about the field. In truth, I’m lucky to have them around. Being surrounded by passionate people helps keep you motivated; it also broadens the range of information you’re exposed to as everyone has different backgrounds and seeks out different information.

I’ve learned a lot in my first few years in the field, but more than anything I’ve learned that I’ll never stop learning; that’s what makes this so much fun. Mike Boyle once said “I’m not young enough to know everything.” I think there’s a profound wisdom in those words.

The modern strength coach, amongst other things, is ever growing.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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