For those of you that don’t know Kim, she’s a BRILLIANT hockey coach that has invaluable insight into improving every aspect of your game on the ice (on-ice work, mental preparation, off-ice training, etc.).

She’s also the author of the ebook  Best Hockey Season Ever, a book I recommend to every hockey player and coach.

Kim and I recently spoke about one aspect of hockey training that can have a HUGE impact on performance that you may be overlooking.

Below is the first half of our interview:

KN: Kim, I’d like to start off by asking you a question that a teacher of mine once asked me: What percentage of hockey performance do you think is mental?

KM: I have two answers to this. In the beginning, when players are still acquiring basic skills, like skating, passing and shooting, that you might be at a 50-50% split between mental and physical. Once players have the ability to play the game without having to consciously think about performing the physical skills, I’d say we shift closer to a 70% mental and 30% physical split.  I’ve played with and against many players who were great practice players – but as soon as they had to think on the move during the course of their game, their skill all but disappears.

KN: I think we all have played with players like that! Considering that such a high percentage of performance is mental, what aspect of hockey players’ mentality do you notice is preventing them from playing their best?

KM: I would say the two biggest challenges for players on the mental side of the game are a lack of confidence and a negative attitude.  The lack of confidence issue I see more in girls hockey than in boys hockey, but it is a big issue in both games.  Players constantly downplay their accomplishments and allow the one or two little mistakes they made overshadow their overall performance.  I had a player score her first goal last season (she actually scored a hat-trick) and yet she was angry after the game because of one stupid pass she made on the power-play.

KM: Players will say things like, “I sucked today” or “I played the worst game ever” when they make a few mistakes out there.  Hockey is a game of mistakes and I can count on one hand the number of “perfect games” I played in my 10-year career.  I always made a few mistakes – the important thing is to move on as quickly as possible and focus on the next shift.  The negative attitude issue is huge in both boys and girls hockey.  It drives me crazy when players say, “I can’t do that”, “I can’t shoot a high backhand”, “I can’t score”.  Using the word “can’t” automatically puts you in a negative mindset and you basically give yourself permission to underperform on that skill.  I’m not saying players need to be 100% positive all the time, but there is never an instance where positivity will hurt you – and negativity always will.

Post your comments below and check back in the next couple days for the second half of the interview!

-Kevin Neeld

One of the major training goals I hear from hockey players and coaches is to improve conditioning.
After all, being better conditioned than your competition will give you the advantage coming down the home stretch of the game.

My coach at Delaware always said, “Men are judged by how they finish!”.

While I’ll make the argument that a quick, explosive, fast team can build a huge lead in the first period and not need to lean on conditioning at the end of the game, I don’t think it hurts to be explosive AND well-conditioned.

With that being said, I don’t really think in-season is the time to DEVELOP conditioning.

The off-season and pre-season is really the time to focus on building a solid foundation of conditioning.

While I think some conditioning is appropriate year-round, it really only takes about 6 weeks for people to get in great hockey shape (overweight athletes may require more conditioning in the pursuit of fat loss).

Once you’re in great shape, most of that can be maintained through on-ice practices if they’re structured the right way, and games.

Adding a significant amount of conditioning during the season, especially when you’re on the ice 4+ times a week, increases your risk of overtraining (and under recovering).

In-season training should focus on improving strength and explosiveness, while actively facilitating recovery (through soft-tissue work, stretching, proper nutrition and hydration, and getting adequate sleep).

Regardless of the time of year, it’s important that you  perform the RIGHT kind of conditioning.

Hockey training expert Michael Boyle just released a great video on conditioning that you should definitely watch.

Click here to hear Coach Boyle talk about how one change in the type of conditioning he did with his hockey players made a HUGE impact.

-Kevin Neeld

On Monday I got a nice present in the mail.

My mentor, colleague, and friend Chris Boyko (Assistant Strength and Conditioning Coach at UMass Amherst) mailed me back my Building the Efficient Athlete DVD set by Eric Cressey and Mike Robertson.

It was like Christmas morning when I opened that. It’s still by far my favorite training resource ever.

Every time I recommend that someone get it, I get the same response: “I’d really like to get it; it’s just so expensive!”.

I’ll save you the mystery; it’s a $200 investment.

It’s certainly not cheap…but it shouldn’t be.

My college tuition and associated expenses were over $150,000 in my combined 6 years of collegiate studies (4 years as an undergraduate at University of Delaware and 2 in grad school at UMass Amherst).

$150,000!!!!

And both of those schools have relatively reasonable tuitions (not $50,000+ a year like some).

Having invested $150,000 and thousands of hours in my education, I can’t help but laugh when people say $200 is a lot.

I learned more practical, instantly usable information in Eric and Mike’s 8-DVD set (that I watched in one day) than I did in all my years at college.

I wouldn’t recommend dropping out of school (at least not yet-I’ll spare my “college education is the biggest rip-off out there” rant for another day), but you’d have to be foolish not to invest in Building the Efficient Athlete.

-Kevin Neeld

After spending last week showing examples of rotational core exercises and how to fit them into part of a progression, I thought it would be a logical time to mention a big change that should occur in-season for hockey players, baseball players, and golfers.

Remember that in all three of these sports, athletes are taking a lot of reps in a rotational pattern in ONE direction.  Assuming the athlete in all three sports is right handed, they’re likely to get a ton of repetitions in a rotational pattern to the left, just from their sport.

From a training standpoint, this is when it’s important to have an unbalanced training program to help maintain structural balance within the body.

It’s really not complicated. In any rotational core exercises, just do one set in the direction you shoot, and 3-4 sets in the opposite direction.

-Kevin Neeld