Tag: continuing education

A Valuable Coaching Lesson

This Summer I’ve been fortunate to work with a group of highly motivated hockey players pursuing various levels of professional hockey.

Last week one of my guys said something that stuck with me. Something that I wrote about in my Off-Ice Performance Training Course.

He said something that went like:

“I hate Wednesdays. This day is BRUTAL. I can’t even complain to you though because I know you’re doing it all too.”

So what’s the big message here?

I put that group through tough training sessions. Need a partner to push you through it, tough. Need to take a look inside yourself and see if you’re mentally strong enough, tough. Tough.

And I know how tough they are because I do every single training session, exactly as written. My athletes know that. They respect that.

Coaches that preach, but don’t do (or haven’t done, in the case of some of the older coaches) rarely have the respect of their players.

Think about it-Would you want to be bossed around by some lazy loud mouth with a whistle?

I’m not saying every coach needs to follow the same training program as their athletes, but every coach should be setting a good example.

Athletic development coaches should stay fit.

Youth sport coaches should maintain and seek to improve their skill levels in that sport.

And last, but not least, nutritionists should not be fat (I’ll save that rant for another day).

Train your athletes hard. Train yourself harder.

-Kevin Neeld

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Is Time Magazine Trying to Kill You?

Last week, one of the athletes I train approached me about an article he came across in Time Magazine.

My reaction to his comments was: “You have to be kidding me.”

I was going to blast the article and the complete lack of social responsibility Time Magazine showed by printing the article.

This is just ANOTHER example of a staff writer for a magazine completely misinterpreting research and putting together a story of lies with a catchy title to attract an audience.

Effective journalism, yes. Effective lifestyle advice, no. In fact, printing articles like this is dangerous and essentially says that Time Magazine weighs you reading their article more than your life (or at least your quality of life).

I don’t want to waste too much time on this crap.

John Berardi took a more level-headed approach to commenting on this article.

Find out what his response was to the “Exercise makes you fatter” slogan of Times Magazine.

-Kevin Neeld

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Everything You Need to Know About Testes

This isn’t going to be nearly as crude as you’re hoping for.
…but it got you this far didn’t it?

Performance nutrition expert Dr. John Berardi, along with the help of Dr. Bryan Walsh, put out these two posts that do an awesome job explaining the cause and results of hormone imbalances in both men and women.
As a man, I found this first post (and the two videos with it) to be very enlightening. If you’re a fan of testosterone boosting supplements, this is a must watch for you.

Men: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/testosterone-replacement
As a man, I found this second post (and the two videos with it) to be very…I got nothin. I made it about 3 minutes into the first video and realized that the only things I’ll ever know about women is that they are all different, but equally confusing.
I still recommend you check out the link though. Maybe you’ll have better luck than I did.

Women: http://www.precisionnutrition.com/female-hormones

– Kevin Neeld

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I Can’t Get it Up

Luckily, I’ve never had this problem.

Other guys aren’t so lucky.

When I switched the way my hockey guys do bird dogs after watching a video that Nick Tumminello put out, I’d say about ½ the guys I train either really struggled or couldn’t lift their leg at all.

Watch the video below to see Nick demo the exercise that leaves most guys saying “I can’t get it up!”

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Position Specific Hockey Training

After a life of playing forward, I was moved back to defense for my first two years of college hockey. Occasionally I would get an opportunity to jump back up to forward for a couple shifts. What an eye opening experience that was! Since I was rarely tired playing defense, I was surprised to feel so gassed after a few very short shifts at forward.

But it makes sense when you break the game down:

In the offensive zone, forwards are usually in a state of constant movement and battle, defensemen are usually camped out at the blue line (sometimes cutting in to the net) and goalies are looking for their significant others in the stands.

In the neutral zone the situation is usually pretty similar as forwards are running exchanges, defensemen are holding their blue line or making small range escapes to make a pass and the goalies are at least somewhat aware that a hockey game is being played.

In the defensive zone, wingers are holding down the top of the circles, while the center and defensemen are in a state of organized chaos to break the puck out, and the goalie is in a semi-squat position for an extended period of time.

The result is that different players at different positions have very different conditioning demands.

Is it always possible to conditioning players of different positions differently?

No. Many times there isn’t enough manpower or resources to do this.

Generally speaking, I think defensemen and goalies don’t need to be as highly conditioned as forwards. It would be reasonable to swap out some conditioning work for players at these positions in favor of more strength work, core work, and/or short distance explosive sprint work with relatively longer rest periods.

After all, if your defensemen are quick and break the puck out rapidly, they probably won’t spend a lot of time doing anything but sitting at the offensive zone blueline and making a few cuts to the net anyway.

– Kevin Neeld

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