Tag: hockey core strength exercises

My Secret to Instant Strength

The question I get more than any other is “How can I lose weight quickly?”  and/or “How can I lose FAT quickly?”  Last week I revealed my ultimate Fat Loss Secret: Dr. John Berardi’s Precision Nutrition System.  It’s by far the best resource to rapidly losing fat and KEEPING IT OFF.  I couldn’t say enough good things about it.

I don’t know a single person that couldn’t benefit from being stronger.  With that said, there are some great resources on how to improve strength and power.  Way more than on realistic/effective dietary changes.  With that said, in my experience, nothing will lead to more rapid strength increases than listening to Avenged Sevenfold while you lift.  

It’s so simple.  Just put this on, and you’re guaranteed to increase your strength by at least 10%.

If that doesn’t work, check your pulse.

No pulse?  Have a Spike! (but not two…that may kill you)

Spike 4-Pack

Keep working hard…

– Kevin Neeld

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My Hips Don’t Lie

Yup-worst title ever, but it got you this far…

In light of discussing hockey and soccer related groin pain for the last couple weeks, I thought I’d give a personal example that will help illustrate how some of the things we’ve talked about come together.  I’ve had off and on knee and hip problems on the left side.  Basically, I feel extremely unstable at both joints and something just feels off.

I never had any problems with my knee until I took a horrible gravel-related spill demonstrating a double lateral bound into 5-yard sprint exercise (a great drill to teach explosive lateral movement with sharp direction changes).  That brilliant display resulted in:

Nice Knee

Knee hasn’t been the same since.  But I have a history of groin pain on that side and had inguinal hernia surgery on that side as well.  In a nutshell, even with everything I’ve learned about hip and lower abdominal injuries over the last few years, I still thought my left hip was the problem.  

Recently I started high-intensity interval training on a bike.  I found that my hip and knee felt considerably more stable and symmetrical FOLLOWING the interval training.  To give you an idea, I basically fall off the bike, and walk without a knee bend because my quads and glutes are so stiff…but my hip and knee feel better. Hmm.

I did some digging around and some strategic stretching and noticed that my right rectus femoris AND psoas are WAY tighter than the same muscles on the left side.  The psoas is also a lateral rotator of the femur.  Without going into a complex functional anatomy lesson here, basically my rectus femoris and psoas were extremely tight, which resulted in my lumbar spine (the origin of the psoas) pulling slightly to the right, my right femur maintaining a slightly laterally/externally rotated position (which was accompanied by adaptive shortening of the hip lateral/external rotators).  As a result, my left hip was in a slightly medially/internally rotated position, which affected how I walked, leading to a slight hyperextension of my left knee and noticeably asymmetrical movement.  

The Bottom Line: Right Hip Problem Resulted in Left Hip and Knee Symptoms

The fix?  Stretch the hell out of my psoas and rectus on the right side.  Strengthen/shorten my psoas on the left side.  Or, in the interest of saving time while training, do both using the exercise below.


I probably started a bit high in this video, but the idea is that you strengthen/shorten your psoas by maintaining a hip flexion position above 90 degrees, while actively squeezing your glutes on the down side, which facilitates a stretch on your hip flexors.  Better/faster results comes with more time/attention paid to the problem, but if you’re in a time jam, this is a great “bang for your buck” exercise.  

Keep working smart…

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Hip and Core Strength Prevent Groin Pain

An overly bold statement?

Not in light of experimental and “in the trenches” experience.  Research has shown that adductor (groin) strains result from a strength imbalance between the hip adductors and hip abductors (or the muscles that pull the leg toward the midline vs those that pull it away from the midline).  There is also research to support a lack of core strength relative to adductor strength as a risk factor for sports hernias, which can also be a source of groin pain.  How do you avoid these issues?  

Create a balanced muscular strength and endurance profile around the hip and core. 

Adequate range of motion is a piece of the puzzle, but ensuring balanced muscular strength and endurance across the hip and core musculature is paramount to preventing groin pain.  

If you think back to the analysis we went over a couple weeks ago, you should have some information on specific muscular weaknesses and imbalances.  The training to help alleviate these problems isn’t overly complex.

Core Stability

If your athlete has insufficient front plank endurance, add 3 sets of front planks to their training.  A progression might look like:

  1. Sets: I generally keep sets constant at 3, sometimes 4.
  2. Time: Start with 3-4 sets of 20s holds.  Progress your athlete to 30s holds, then 45 s holds.
  3. Exercise Complexity: Start with standard front planks.  Progress to single-leg holds, then marches (alternating which foot is on the ground in a controlled manner).
  4. Exercise Selection: Keep planks as part of a warm-up, but progress to more advanced linear core training exercises such as bar rollouts or bar rollout iso-holds.

Side planks would follow a similar progression.  The only difference is if you notice a side to side imbalance during the screening.  In this case, you’d want your athlete to perform their first set on their “good” side, then have them perform 3-4 sets on the other side.  Remember, if you add a balanced training program to an unbalanced athlete, you get an increasingly unbalanced athlete.  The key is to CREATE balance, but catering to your athletes needs.  If they have a lagging side, a program with 1 set on the good side and 3-4 sets on the lagging side will usually help create the balance that will keep them healthy.

Hip Strength

A lack of hip external rotation strength and hip abduction strength can be addressed using:

  1. Side-lying hip abduction w/ external rotation holds
  2. Glute Bridge with MiniBand (Shoulder width stance, hips abducted)
  3. Glute Bridge with MiniBand (Narrow hip width stance, hips externally rotated)
  4. Lateral MiniBand Walk
  5. Backward Monster Walk
  6. 1-Arm 1-Leg DB Stiff-Legged Deadlift (DB in hand opposite to foot on ground)
  7. All single-leg exercises

As mentioned above, if your athlete is noticeably weaker on one side, do NOT train both sides equally.  Have them do 1 set on their good side, and 3-4 sets on their weaker side.  Since some of the above exercises are bilateral by nature, an imbalance will dictate which exercises you include and which you don’t.  Or at least make sure you include one exercise that addresses the imbalance and any others to reinforce the strength bilaterally.

As for hip flexor and adductor strength, thing can get a little more complex there.  Luckily, I’ve already written in depth on this issue.  Rather than regurgitate everything I’ve already written, go ahead and check out my articles at SBCoachesCollege.com.  Part I has a lot of the hip mobility exercises I talked about last week, so it might be a good review.  Part II has the hip flexor and adductor strengthening exercises and progressions that are more relevant to this weeks topic.  I have to give Mike Boyle, Brijesh Patel, and Shirley Sahrmann most of the credit for the ideas and exercises that went into these articles and into my hip-specific analyses and programming.  They came up with most of this stuff, I just found a way to plug it all together into a system that works well for me.  Hopefully it’ll makes sense to you and you’ll have success implementing it with your athletes.

Keep working hard.

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NEVER Forget This!

Several years ago, Mike Boyle introduced me to this concept.  From time to time I get so caught up in my work that I forget to make time for anything else.  Rereading this often helps me remember those things that are truly important in life.  Hopefully it’ll do the same for you.

Big Rocks
“When things in your life seem almost to much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar…and the beer.”

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.  When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls ( your big rocks, what you fundamentally believe). He then asked the students if the jar was full.  

They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.  He shook the jar lightly.  The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls.  He then asked the students again if the jar was full.  They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar.  Of course, the sand filled up everything else.  He asked once more if the jar was full.  The students responded with a unanimous “yes.”

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand.  The students laughed.

“Now,” said the professor, as the laughter subsided, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.  The golf balls are the important things–your family, your children, your health, your friends, …”The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else–the small stuff.

If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued, “there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.  The same goes for life.  If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.  Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.  “Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter.  Set your priorities.  The rest is just pebbles and sand.”

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented.

The professor smiled. “I’m glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of beers.” 

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Functional Hockey Isometric Training

Isometrics (producing muscular force without a change in total muscle length…think of pushing against a wall) are probably one of the most effective, and under-utilized forms of training.  Other than wall sits (which is a stupid exercise in my opinion), many hockey players never use isometric training at all.

I love isometrics.  

I think they’re great for:

  1. Building sport-specific work capacity.  
  2. Building strength in a specific range of motion (isometric strength transfers about +/- 10-15 degrees from the joint angle that the exercise is performed.  For example, holding a squat position with a 90 degree bend at the knee and hip would produce increases in muscular strength for knee and hip angles from about 75-105 degrees.) 
  3. Building MENTAL strength and toughness, as nothing slaps you in the face like pushing/pulling as hard as you can against something that won’t move.
  4. Altering the stimulus to your body during a periods of high frequency training or during a deload period.  Fatigue is contraction-type specific, meaning the mechanism of decreases in force production differs depending on whether the contraction is dynamic (concentric and eccentric), or static (isometric).  Because all these contractions are used in ice hockey (and in life for that matter), I think it’s important to improve the body’s capacity to handle these loads.

Last night I came across a great exercise from Cal Dietz, the University of Minnesota Hockey Strength Coach.  While, semantically, I may disagree with calling this a deadlift (which I think requires a greater loading of the posterior chain-e.g. glutes and hamstrings), I still think it’s a phenomenal exercise that all players would benefit from.  You could also perform several variations of this exercise, such as having the bar across the athletes shoulders (set between two sets of pins so that they can get under the bar, resting on the first set of pins, and push up against the second set of pins set a few inches higher).  

Another variation would be to perform a an overhead pressing movement against pins from the same position.  The great thing about this variation is that it’ll necessitate full body force transfer.  If you push harder with your upper body than your lower body, you’ll just sink.  Having said that, there’s no excuse (other than poor core stability and strength) for not being able to match overhead pressing force with leg drive force, even from this position.

Enjoy the video…

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