Tag: hockey training course

The Best Exercise Ever?

The question is often thrown around:

“If you could only do one exercise, what would it be?”

My Answer: The Deadlift!

An argument could be made that the deadlift is the best

exercise around. This argument is often made for the

squat, which I circumstantially disagree with.

Reasons why the deadlift is better than the squat:

1) Gross amount of muscle mass used

If you’ve ever deadlifted relatively heavy, you know that

the deadlift is one of the most taxing exercises out there.

Specifically, the deadlift works muscles from your calves

through your forearms, including the hamstrings, glutes,

Latissimus dorsi, and posterior shoulder muscles. No

wonder a few heavy reps are so tiring! While the squat

uses a significant amount of musculature as well, it

involves few working muscles in the upper body. Why is

this important? The deadlift is a frequently overlooked

exercise. If you want to put on muscle, performing an

exercise that works a significant amount of muscle groups

and can be loaded heavy is a great way to go about it. If

you want to lose fat, performing an exercise that utilizes

more muscle mass burns a significant amount of calories and

creates a great metabolic disturbance.

2) The specific muscle mass used

The anterior side of the body is too frequently stressed in

many programs. Think about what you see in the gym: Leg

Press, Squats, Bench Press, Biceps Curls, and Crunches.

What do all of these exercises have in common? They all

work muscle groups that can be seen by standing in front of

the mirror! The less respected back-side of the body is

extremely important for athletic performance and daily

functioning. A program focusing on what I like to call

‘Beach Muscles’ (especially in those that spend a

significant amount of time in the car or in front of a

computer) can lead to the shortening of these muscles,

creating a hunched over posture. Furthermore, these types

of programs create a total body imbalance that will

inevitably manifest itself as pain somewhere. Why is the

deadlift different? While some quadriceps work is evident

in the deadlift, the majority of the movement is produced

by movements on the posterior side of the body.

Strengthening these muscles will help begin to correct any

imbalances, allowing you to feel better and play better.

3) Development of force from a standstill

Most exercises involve an eccentric contraction preceding a

concentric contraction. In other words, the ‘negative’

precedes the ‘positive.’ Think of the squat and bench

press. You start at the top, lower the bar under control,

and then explode up. Exercises that work in this fashion

allow for a quick stretch at the bottom of the exercise,

allowing the lifter to take advantage of the elastic

properties of muscle and the stretch reflex (the nervous

system’s response to a quick stretch). This is not the

case in a deadlift. The bar is on the floor and is not

preceded by any loaded negative contraction. This forces

the lifter to produce force at a rapid rate. A slow

production of force will result in a tired lifter and a

sleeping bar! Rate of force development is important for

all athletes and for activities of daily living (walking up

stairs, getting out of a chair, etc.).

4) Core Strength!

Core strength is essential for proper deadlifting. The

majority of the muscles producing the movement force are in

the lower body. The bar is held by the upper body; the

upper body muscles are mostly worked through isometric

contractions(no change in total muscle length). If force

isn’t effectively transferred from the lower body through

the core (all muscles that attach to the pelvis or spine)

to the hands, the bar doesn’t move. Included in these

important core muscles are the spinal stabilizers, which

are often neglected due to the majority of the exercises

being performed sitting or lying down. Lock your back into

a flat position with your shoulder blades pinned back, take

a deep breath in through your belly, squeeze your core, and

pull hard!

If you aren’t deadlifting, consider adding it into your

program. In fact, try replacing the squat with the

deadlift for a few weeks. You may find when you return to

squatting that your strength has improved! The old adage

of your only as strong as your weakest link holds true with

lifting and athletic performance. Strengthen your weakest

link and everything else improves as well!

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Groin Pain 101: How’s Your Range of Motion?

The next step in analyzing groin pain and hip pain is to take a look at the range of motion around the hip. The four primary ranges of motion you want to concern yourself with are hip flexion, hip extension, hip internal rotation, and hip external rotation.

A couple important notes:

While it’s best if you use a goniometer, or some sort of other device, a less accurate “eyeballing” can still give you a lot of valuable information about your athlete.
Check hip internal and external rotation in both a hip flexed (to 90 degrees) and hip extended position. In the hip extended position the hip capsule is taut, so it’s important to look for similarities or differences in range of motion in the two positions as it will provide some insight as to whether the restriction is hip joint position specific, and whether it may be due to bony, capsular, or soft-tissue restrictions.

If you find that your athlete has significantly more hip internal range of motion than external range of motion in both the hip flexed and hip extended position, it’s likely that your athlete has hip or femoral anteversion, which is an anatomical characteristic of the hip that CANNOT be adapted through training. In other words, they will ALWAYS have more internal than external rotation, are probably significant limited in external rotation.

For those with groin pain and hip pain, I also lie them on their back and slowly move their hip into flexion, adduction, and internal rotation (think of pushing their knee toward their opposite shoulder). This is the provocative test for CAM impingement. If this is painful and or extremely restricted, it’s likely that they have some sort of hip impingement issues, which are typically accompanied by hip labral tears. Again, you aren’t diagnosing anyone here, just getting an idea of what the problem is to understand your training limitations and what to communicate to an athletic trainer, physical therapist, physician, etc.

To test hip extension range of motion, lie them on a table so that their knees can drape off the end. Have them pull both of their knees to their chest, then straighten one leg out and lower it as low as possible.

If the back of their thigh stays above the table, they likely have a shortened iliopsoas complex. If the back of their thigh touches the table, but their knee doesn’t bend very far, they likely have a shortened rectus femoris (one of the quadriceps muscles that acts to flex the hip AND extend the knee). If their thigh seems to pull out to the side, they likely have a shortened tensor fascia latae (TFL). It’s not always this straight forward, but understanding these things is a good starting point. Typically these “restrictions” adapt to a well-structured flexibility/mobility routine after a few weeks.

Lastly, to assess hip flexion range of motion, have them perform quadruped rocking. Set them up with their knees on the ground immediately below their hips, with their hands on the ground immediately below their shoulders. They should have a neutral lumbar spine and their eyes should be looking straight down on the floor. Have them use their arms to provide a slight push as they shift their hips straight back to “sit on their heels” while MAINTAINING A NEUTRAL LUMBAR SPINE! All caps for emphasis. Note the hip flexion angle that their lumbar spine begins to move. Have them perform 8-10 reps and see if they get more range of motion. According to a conversation I had with Shirley Sahrmann a few months back, if they meet restriction at the same point in the range after 8-10 reps, it’s likely that it’s a joint structure limitation and not adaptable through training, meaning that’s all the range they have, and will ever have.

Now you should have an idea of the nature of their injury, their posture, and their hip range of motion. We’re starting to make some progress!

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Groin Pain 101: Posture Analysis

Continuing on yesterday’s discussion on the groin injuries that plague hockey and soccer players…The second step in analyzing an athlete’s groin pain is to do a crude posture analysis. I don’t advocate strength coaches or sport coaches pretending to be physical therapists, but there are some pretty basic posture assessments that sometimes provide a lot of insight into the nature of groin pain (and other hip and knee pain for that matter).

It’s usually best if you can just snap a few photos and do this analysis at home to avoid the awkwardness of staring at your athletes intently while they stare back at you impatiently. But if you can’t do that, have your athlete stand BAREFOOT in front of you. It’s VERY important that they are barefoot as shoes can have a profound effect on posture. You’re going to want to look at them from the front, each side, and the back.

The two primary things you’re looking for are hip and knee position. Look for an anterior pelvic tilt (top of hips forward compared to bottom). This is usually accompanied by an increased curvature of the lower back. You’ll also want to note any rotation, meaning if one side of the hip seems to be in front of the other, or lateral tilt, meaning one side is higher than the other. Of course, it’s important to make sure their feet are aligned evenly to avoid faulty foot positioning throwing off your analysis.

The next thing to look for as femur positioning. Because this is difficult to do, a reasonable estimate of femoral rotation can be obtained by looking at the knee. While it’s possible that your athlete has externally rotated femurs (compared to a ‘neutral’ position), that’s not usually the case. Typically athletes, especially females, will have noticeably internally rotated femurs, meaning their knee caps will appear to point in. I’ve found it’s easiest to pick this up from the back. As a word of caution, sometimes this doesn’t mean they have internally rotated femurs. It’s also possible they have excessive antetorsion of the femur (the bone itself is twisted-think of grabbing the top and bottom of the femur and twisting in opposite directions). There are many potential causes of this, that are well beyond what we need to go into today, but I thought I’d let you know about it so you weren’t too quick to jump to conclusions.

It’s also worth checking out your athletes shoes (which they shouldn’t be wearing) and/or the bottoms of their feet. Extra wear on the inside of their shoe/foot (think big toe area) may indicate that they over-pronate (think foot rolling in too far), which can be related to excessive femoral internal rotation.

That’s it for today. The best way to familiarize yourself with these things is to practice. Scan all your athletes for these things and see if you can start to pick up on subtle (or not so subtle) posture faults.

The next stages of groin pain assessment get a little more interesting…I promise.

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“Groin” Pain 101

At least once a week I get a question from an athlete, parent, or coach involved in soccer or ice hockey about “groin” pain. I put groin in quotations because the groin is often referred to as one muscle, although the injuries people refer to as groin strains typically involve several, usually the adductor brevis, adductor longus, pectineus, TFL, and/or iliopsoas complex (although the term “groin” could technically include the adductor magnus and gracilis, these muscles aren’t typically the ones that cause pain).

Unfortunately, addressing groin pain is far from simple, as it almost never involves isolating a single problematic muscle and strengthening (or lengthening) it. Typically the pain is a result of a combination of factors including movement impairments, causative or resultant muscle weakness, overly long muscles, and anatomical abnormalities. Complicating the issue, groin pain can actually be referred from trochanteric (lateral hip), sacroiliac (where the spine meets the hips), lumbar (lower back), and lower abdominal issues, meaning the site of the pain may not be the site of the problem.

This week I’ll go through the things that I look for when an athlete reports with pain in/around the inner thigh or inguinal crease area. The first step, before moving into any physical analysis, is to get a better idea of the nature of the pain. A few questions to ask your athletes include:

When did the pain/discomfort start? Was there a specific incidence that caused it?
Where is your pain located?
What does the pain feel like? Dull aching, sharp, radiating, etc.
What types of exercises/movements cause pain? Is the pain immediate or does it come afterwards?
Describe the intensity of the pain. On a scale from 0-10, 10 being unbearable excruciating pain, where would you rate your pain when it first comes, a couple hours later, the next day, etc?
How long does the pain last?

Getting answers to these questions will provide some insight into the location, severity, and nature of their injury/pain. If the injury/pain seems sufficiently severe, my recommendation is to not let them practice/play. Odds are we’re just making the injury worse by allowing them to push through it (albeit-this is very much a judgement call). I also find these questions make it easier to communicate with athletic trainers and physical therapists, who, when available, should be a go-to resource whenever an athlete reports an injury.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow I’ll get into more of the specific physical assessments.

Happy Monday.

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Fat Loss Program-Week 4 Results

This week was…different. Gym was closed on Monday and Wednesday so I went 4 straight days (Tuesday-Friday) instead of Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Wednesday I did 100 rep chin-up and 100 rep push-up tests in the shortest time possible. That was probably the worst feeling ever-Everyone should do it once…no one should do it twice.

An older guy in the gym approached me last week and said something about doing a bench press rep test at my body weight. Apparently they were collecting data on it. I didn’t do it for him that day because I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep the night before and didn’t want to throw off his data, but I was curious this week (although I probably felt worse), so I gave it a shot. I weigh just under 170 at this point, so I did 170 as many times as possible. Not my specialty.

And against all my stubbornness, I decided it was time to start doing some form of consistent conditioning. Since I was on the road with my hockey team, I decided to hit the bike in the hotel Saturday night and this morning. I understand now why people quit exercise programs so early (at least those that involve conditioning). Energy systems work isn’t so bad after a few weeks, but getting started from scratch blows. Luckily I’ve been doing some circuit training on both my lower and upper body days. Otherwise I might still be on the floor next to the bike at the Holiday Inn in Kingston, Rhode Island. I gotta get back to the Super Bowl. Training program below.

Jan 27, 2009
A1) Back Squat: 3s Negative: 135 x 5; 225 x 3; 315 x 2; 335 x 2; 345 x 3 sets of 2
A2) Bird Dog Hold: 3 x 15s each
B1) Stiff-Legged Deadlift: 225 x 4; 315 x 4; 325 x 4; 335 x 4; 345 x 4
B2) Front Plank March: 4 x 20s
C1) 1-Leg Squat:3s Negative: 3 x 6 each
C2) Glute Ham Raise: 3 x 10

Jan 28, 2009
A1) Chin-Up 100 rep Marathon: 18 mins 20 secs
B1) Push-Up 100 rep Marathon: 6 mins 13 secs
C1) Side Plank: 1 x 60s each; 2 x (2 x 30s) each

Jan 29, 2009
A1) Front Squat: 135 x 5; 185 x 3; 205 x 3; 225 x 3; 245 x 3; 255 x 3
A2) Side Plank w/ Abduction Hold: 3 x 15s each
B1) DB Back Leg Raised Split Squat: 2 x 65 DB 3 x 6 each
B2) 1-Arm DB 1-Leg SLDL: 40 DB 3 x 6 each
B3) Bar Rollout: 3 x 10
B4) Stability Ball Hamstring Curl: 3 x 12

Jan 30, 2009
A1) Bench Press: 135 x 5; 170 x 21; 205 x 7 + Help; 205 x 5
A2) I, Y, T Holds: 1 x 30s each
B1) 1-Arm DB Row: 85 DB x 6 each; 90 DB 2 x 6 each
B2) Standing Cable Chop Left to Right Only: 50 lbs 3 x 8
B3) 1-Arm DB Push Press: 50 DB 3 x 6 each
B4) DB Hang Clean-to-Curl Eccentric: 2 x 40 DB 3 x 6
B5) Bird Dog: 3 x 8 each

Jan 31, 2009 30 Min Low-Medium Intensity Bike RIde
Feb 1, 2009 30 Min Medium Intensity Bike Ride

-Kevin Neeld

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