Tag: hockey core strength exercises

Hockey Goalie-Specific Training

The needs of an ice hockey goalie are very specific. They need to:

· Be exceptionally powerful through the hips, especially in lateral and diagonal movements

· Be quick through the upper body, notably in independent arm actions

· Maintain a large amount of joint range of motion

· Be able to maintain a squat-like position for extended periods of time

On the surface, many of these qualities seem similar to other players. However, relatively speaking, the demands of players are more continuous. Goalies are usually required to move explosively, then rest, move explosively, then rest. Even when they’re extremely active, they aren’t usually required to repetitively move explosively in continuous actions. In other words, explosive lateral movements are usually followed by periods of maintaining a squat position or by a whistle (complete rest).

In the next couple days, I’ll go into more detail on hockey-specific jump training and goalie-specific conditioning.

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Athletic Development vs. Strength and Conditioning

I recently started training a very talented goalie, with high aspirations. Her goal is to prepare herself physically to tryout for the Olympics.

With this in mind, I think I should point out that I, as an athletic development coach, do not have any illusions of off-ice training making anyone Olympic-worthy. On-ice talent is by far the most important thing, for goalies and players. Having said that, within any given talent range, maximizing your athletic potential will certainly help you stand out on the ice.

I’m reminded of something Brijesh Patel said to me when I visited him at Quinnipiac a couple months ago. He just started this year at Quinnipiac, so I was interested in how he addressed a large new group of athletes. That conversation lasted about an hour, but one thing he said really stuck out: He told his athletes that he had no intention of making them better hockey or basketball players, but that his job was to make them better athletes.

I couldn’t agree more. That’s one of the reasons I prefer the label “Athletic Development Coach” instead of “Strength and Conditioning Coach”.

Athletic development encompasses qualities other than being strong and in good shape, notably movement quality, which is essential in all sports.

Keep checking back. I’m going to spend some time on training goalies as I think athletic requirements between goalies and other hockey players are often overlooked.

– Kevin Neeld

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The Knee Pain Program

The main areas this program was meant to address are:

1) Improving soft-tissue quality of the muscles in the hip and thigh

2) Improving ankle range of motion

3) Strengthening the hip external rotators and abductors

4) Using isometrics (and one dynamic exercise-the reverse lunge) to strengthen the lower body

Foam Roll Circuit: Anterolateral Hip, Quads, Lateral Thigh

1 x 30s each position on each side

Lacrosse Ball Circuit: Lateral Glute, Posterior Glute

1 x 30s each position on each side

3-Way Ankle Mobility

1 x 5 each position on each side

A1) Side Lying Hip Abduction/External Rotation Hold

Week 1: 3 x 20s hold each

Week 2: 3 x 25s hold each

Week 3: 3 x 30s hold

A2) Split Squat Iso-Hold w/ Toe Pull

Week 1: 3 x 25s each

Week 2: 3 x 30s each

Week 3: 3 x 35s each

B1) Close Stance Glute Bridge Hold w/ MiniBand

Week 1: 3 x 20s hold

Week 2: 3 x 30s hold

Week 3: 3 x 40s Hold

B2) 3-Way Squat Circuit: Knees Out, Hands Behind Head, Hands Overhead

Week 1: 3 x 10s each

Week 2: 4 x 10s each

Week 3: 4 x 10s each

C1) Lateral MiniBand Walk

Week 1: 3 x 6 steps each

Week 2: 3 x 8 each

Week 3: 3 x 10 each

C2) Reverse Lunge

Week 1: 3 x 8 each

Week 2: 3 x 8 each

Week 3: 3 x 8 each

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The Problem with Physical Therapy

Those of you that know me personally know that I hold physical therapists in a very high regard. I’m fascinated by the education they receive. They truly are the only profession that is taught how we move, and expected to be able to apply their knowledge in a way to manipulate human movement in the interest of health.

Unfortunately, recently I’ve been hearing from several people that have gone to multiple physical therapists with no luck. I don’t want to throw physical therapists under the bus, but it’s frustrating when I ask people what they did at physical therapy and the answer comes back “Ice, stim, and stretches” every time. Stretching I’m okay with. Ice and stim treat symptoms, not causes.

If these modalities don’t provide long-term results, then why do PTs use them? Simple. Insurance! PTs are given a very limited number of visits to make someone feel better. Ice and stim reduce pain rapidly, so people feel better. The underlying problem is likely still lingering (unless a little rest was really all someone needed), but they feel better, which is pretty important.

But there needs to be a happy medium. Something between treating symptoms and treating the cause. Of course, the best way to treat an injury is to avoid it altogether. I’ve spent countless hours reading physical therapy texts to try to improve my understanding of human movement for just that reason. If you can spot movement abnormalities before people get hurt, you can probably save them the hassles of rehabilitation.

My next post will have the program I put together for the girl with patellofemoral syndrome and chondromalacia. Stay tuned!

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Hockey Knee Pain

One of the things that became painfully clear after a year working with a collegiate women’s hockey team is that females are plagued by knee injuries. The demands of the game and consequent injuries are considerably different between college men’s and women’s hockey. What I learned, though, is that many injuries that I heard about weren’t the result of anything hockey related.

At the beginning of the season, several girls complained about feeling a slight strain of their quads and hip flexors while sprinting. That doesn’t seem uncommon, except it was over 30 minutes into the session after an overly comprehensive warm-up, core work and jump training. It was also about 10 yards into a 30-yard sprint. In my experience, most muscle strains occur further out than that. I was perplexed. After some questioning, I learned that ALL of the girls with those complaints regularly ran for distance regularly or were consistently involved in spinning classes. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Some soft tissue work, anterior hip stretches, and posterior hip activation and strengthening cleared that up. A long discussion on the potential benefits (e.g. increase energy expenditure) and risks (anterior hip tightness, various overuse injuries, chronic knee, hip, and lower back pain) associated with spinning classes and distance running also helped them understand why they feel the way they do.

Recently, one of the girls told me about knee pain she’s had that has prevented her from running. She had actually been to a couple doctors and physical therapists and learned she had patellofemoral syndrome (which seems to be a garbage term for knee pain that is tossed around as much as shoulder impingement), and chondromalacia. None of her therapy time had lead to any long-lasting improvement in her symptoms.

I’m not going to delve into all the reasons females have a difficult time surviving the stresses of running, but the primary causes of these difficulties are a wider pelvis and just being weak. As you might imagine, this story has a happy ending. Three weeks after starting a program I put together, she ran for 45 minutes pain free. I don’t necessarily condone her decision to jump right back into a long run (and she knows that), but was pretty thrilled she was able to go for that long without any pain.

Check back in with me this week. In the next couple days I’ll be discussing the reason why many people don’t have long-term success with physical therapy. I’ll also be posting the exact program template that I gave the girl with the knee pain. She’s been running consistently over the last month or so without pain, so hopefully you can pick up on a thing or two from it that may help you or someone you know. As always, I’d be interested in hearing your feedback.

Keep Training Smart

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