At Endeavor, most of our hockey guys have been getting a lot more ice time over the last few weeks than they had been all Summer. I think it’s important for hockey players to take a few months away from skating on the ice (at least vigorous skating; some technique work is still okay), to give their bodies time to recuperate from the unique stresses hockey places on them.
Having said that, as our players started to make this transition, it was important I made some changes to their training programs. A few notable changes:

1) No more off-ice conditioning. After 10 weeks of hard conditioning off the ice, I decided to dial things back a bit for two reasons:  1) They were skating hard on the ice so they were getting hockey-specific conditioning that way; and 2) prolonged high intensity conditioning is the most threatening aspect of a training program regarding overtraining your players. It would be tragic for players to enter the season in a borderline over-trained state.

2) Drastically less lower body lifting. Prior to the pre-season program switch, my hockey players were performing around 8 lower body lifts a week. Now they have just a contrast pair (Back leg raised split squat paired immediately with a split squat jump) and partner eccentric hamstring curl on Day 1 (usually Monday) and a reverse lunge (front squat grip) paired with a slideboard ab rollout on Day 3 (usually Wednesday).

3) Along with the decrease in lower body lifting came a substantial increase in speed work. Physically speed work can be viewed as low load high velocity training. I think it’s appropriate to transition to less strength work and more speed work during the pre-season to help reinforce using your improved strength to maximize your speed potential. Transitioning to more speed work also gives players a mental break from the heavy lifting.

-Kevin Neeld

In a recent newsletter I talked about how important it is to understand functional anatomy and human movement.

I gave the example of a D1 hockey player I worked with over the summer that “tweaked his hamstring”.

After he answered a barrage of my questions and I analyzed his movement a bit, I was able to determine that it was the short head (SH) of his biceps femoris (one of the 4 “hamstring” muscles).

Who cares?

This is actually really important because the SH is the only hamstring muscle that isn’t a hip extensor.  This means I could still have him load a hip extension pattern (think stiff-legged deadlift) without further aggravating his “tweak”.

The outcome?

Continued progress despite a minor injury.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have my athletes continue to develop despite having a minor injury than have them sit out completely or just push through it and delay healing.

-Kevin Neeld

The other day I mentioned a list of great resources.

I’m embarrassed to say I left one out that would greatly benefit my hockey audience.

Those of you that have been long-time readers know I’ve spoken highly of Kim McCullough before.

She’s the ONLY resource I can rely on to consistently put out great hockey-specific information.

I regularly read her blogs and subscribed to her newsletter so I can stay current on everything.

If you’re involved with the game of ice hockey at all, click here to visit Kim’s site.  Get all the free information from her you can and definitely sign up for her newsletter.

I promise you’ll benefit from her material. I know I have.

Click here to take the first step toward fulfilling your ice hockey potential!

-Kevin Neeld