I say this every year, but once again my friend Joe Heiler from Sports Rehab Expert is putting together an awesome teleseminar series with some of the world’s top professionals in sports rehabilitation and performance training known as the 2016 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar.

Sports Rehab Expert

The series starts this coming Tuesday (March 8th) at 8pm EST, and will feature a new guest speaker each week. The best part is that the interviews are completely FREE.

Each Tuesday Joe will email you a link where you can catch the interviews. You don’t need to be online at the time of the call to get access to it. The interviews will be recorded and available for another 2 weeks from that point.

I like these interviews because they always dive into a lot of content; they’re not just glorified sales pitches. I actually have a playlist on my phone that has a lot of interviews from the last 7 years that I’ll return back to during my drive in from work or on flights.

Register for FREE here >> 2016 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

Possibly because of my unbridled enthusiasm for this series, this year Joe asked me to be a guest.
In the interview we discuss:
  • Why a lot of people are missing the boat when training to prevent injuries
  • Training methods that have fallen out of favor in the last 8 years (including some of the limitations of concurrent periodization, and why tabata’s are ridiculous)
  • Why you should never ask if an exercise is “good” again
  • The biggest challenge I face in coaching athletes
  • The current research on hockey hip injuries, and a case study of how I helped a Division 1 collage player stave off surgery
  • How we set up our business to allow us to successfully implement individualized programs in a group setting
Check out the rest of this year’s line-up!

  1. Charlie Weingroff – developing training systems with Canada basketball, ‘one shot – one kill’ using the SFMA, and the benefits for PT’s and patients of developing an out-of-network practice.
  2. Mike Reinold – creating your practice around your core values, upper quarter assessment emphasizing shoulder elevation, and return to play criteria.
  3. Rob Panariello and Al Vermeil – athletic development hierarchy and discussions on developing movement efficiency, strength, elastic qualities, speed, and more…
  4. Quinn Henoch – mobility and stability requirements for weight lifting, injury prevention in a sport that focuses on loading, and the Jefferson Curl as a possibility for developing spinal resiliency.
  5. Zac Cupples – learning the PRI system, utilizing PRI in professional basketball, repositioning tricks with challenging patients, favorite manual and non-manual techniques, and more…
  6. Kyle Kiesel – Selective Functional Movement Assessment updates, keys to learning the system, finding the key dysfunction,  as well as an update on the research and his treatment of athletic low back pain.
  7. Mike Voight – developing the Titleist Performance Institute (TPI) model, the role of the SFMA, mobility/stability requirements for swinging a club, common injuries and solutions, and more…
  8. Mike Robertson – growing IFAST and valuable lessons learned, finding that ‘sweet spot’ between hard training and injury prevention, as well as some favorite correctives and hard core lifts.

Register for FREE here >>2016 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

As I’ve said in the past, this is my favorite time of year. For the 7th consecutive year, my friend Joe Heiler from Sports Rehab Expert is putting together an awesome teleseminar series with some of the world’s top professionals in sports rehabilitation and performance training known as the 2015 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar.

Sports Rehab Expert

The series starts Tuesday, January 27th at 8pm EST, and will feature a new guest speaker each weeks. The best part is that the interviews are completely FREE.

Each Tuesday Joe will email you a link where you can catch the interviews.  You don’t need to be online at the time of the call to get access to it. The interviews will be recorded and available for another 2 weeks from that point.

The speakers always deliver great content, as Joe asks really good questions. In fact, I still have some of these interviews saved on my computer from years ago and re-listen to them pretty frequently.

Register for FREE here >> 2015 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

Check out this year’s line-up!
  1. Charlie Weingroff – Motor skill acquisition and long term development, movement competency, and high performance programs
  2. Donald Chu – The foremost authority on plyometric training discusses potential benefits, progressions, injury prevention, and more
  3. Derek Hansen – Speed development qualities, hamstring injury mechanics and running rehab, front side vs. back side mechanics
  4. Mike Cantrell – Exploring the mechanics behind sports hernia, FAI, and shoulder impingement through the PRI lens.
  5. Rob Panariello – Single limb vs. bilateral training, Olympic lifts during performance training and rehab
  6. Phil Plisky – Injury risk/prevention research, the state of current prevention programs, UE stability testing, and what’s new with the SFMA.
  7. Gary Gray – Applied Functional Science (AFS) and it’s principles, functional soft tissue transformation, and functional movement screening systems
  8. Linda Joy Lee – Thoracic Rings Approach and the Integrated Systems Model, finding the meaningful task and primary driver
  9. Sarah MottramKinetic Control system, understanding the biomechanics of normal and abnormal function, and motor control retraining of uncontrolled movement
  10. Chris and Jennifer Poulin – PRI principles in sports performance and injury prevention programs

Register for FREE here >> 2015 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!

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Year-round age-specific hockey training programs complete with a comprehensive instructional video database!

Ultimate Hockey Transformation Pro Package-small

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

It’s that time of year again! My friend Joe Heiler from Sports Rehab Expert puts together a yearly teleseminar series with some of the world’s top professionals in sports rehabilitation and performance training known as the Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar. As I’ve mentioned to you in the past, this quickly became one of my favorite resources because:

  1. The speakers are amazing every year
  2. It’s completely free to listen

Sports Rehab Expert

My commute to work is significantly shorter than it used to be (commuting to South Jersey from Baltimore was a grind), but I still spend about 6 hours per week in the car. I was convinced very early in my career that if I was going to spend any appreciable amount of time in the car (in this case, ~300 hours/year…on work commuting alone), I would make the most of this time by listening to interviews, audio books, etc. so I could continue learning even while sitting in traffic. This teleseminar series features many of the world’s foremost experts in the full spectrum of performance enhancement. In past years I’ve picked up great tips about assessments, corrective exercise, exercise selection, and programming considerations in general. Maybe more importantly, there is inherent value in listening to how successful professionals approach their work. I’ve gone back to several of the interviews from years past and listened to them multiple times.

I don’t know if this series really gets better and better every year or if Joe just happens to pick a speaker line-up that closely follows my current interests, but the group he has for this year is unbelievable. Check out who will be on the calls:

  1. Ron Hruska – PRI philosophy, goals, and teaching/training the squat pattern
  2. Val Nasedkin – Omegawave technology and the sciences of recovery and readiness
  3. Andreo Spina – Functional Anatomy Seminars, Functional Range Conditioning, BioFlow Anatomy, and more
  4. Phil Plisky – Injury prediction and prevention, the Y Balance Test, and when to return to play?
  5. Mark Comerford – Kinetic Control system, understanding the biomechanics of normal and abnormal function, and motor control retraining of uncontrolled movement
  6. Gray Cook – the history of the Functional Movement Screen (FMS), research and injury prediction, and developing effective training programs
  7. Linda Joy Lee – the Thoracic Rings Approach and the Integrated Systems Model, finding the meaningful task and primary driver
  8. Kyle Kiesel – the evolution of the Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA), and the importance of a movement model to guide assessment and treatment.
  9. Kevin Wilk – Shoulder evaluation and treatment strategies, dynamic stabilization for the shoulder, and what does the research and clinical experience say about treating scapular dyskinesis and GIRD.
  10. Charlie Weingroff, Patrick Ward, and Nick Winkelman – Strength and Conditioning Roundtable: Advances in training and performance.

Typically there are a few talks that I’m especially interested in, but this year i can honestly say I’m looking forward to all of them. If you’re at all involved in rehabilitation, training, or coaching industries, I would encourage you to sign up for this series. You will absorb a ton of incredibly valuable information, and it’s 100% free!

Click here to register >> 2014 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

The series starts next week (January 28th) so make sure you register today!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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Every year my friend Joe Heiler from Sports Rehab Expert puts together an outstanding teleseminar series, which he calls the “Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar“, with many of the industry leaders in the full spectrum of athletic development. Since its origin, this series has become one of my favorite times of the year, as I get some terrific material to listen to on my commutes to and from work everyday. Each year there are 4-5 seminars that I listen to over and over and over because there is so much quality content packed inside (or I’m not smart enough to digest the content after a single listen…).

Sports Rehab Expert

It sounds cliche to say the speaker line-up gets better and better every year, but…I think the speaker line-up gets better and better every year. Or, at least, Joe continues to do a great job of finding extremely bright speakers to best compliment speakers in previous series and/or cater to the current interests of his community at Sports Rehab Expert. This year is no exception. Take a look at this year’s line-up:

  1. Dan John – discusses ‘Intervention:  Course Corrections for the Athlete and Trainer‘ including goal setting, training the 6 basic movements, proper exercise progression, and more…
  2. Dr. Mark Cheng – talks about Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), acupuncture vs. dry needling, combining TCM with corrective exercise, kettlebells, and the martial arts.
  3. Diane Lee – one of the foremost experts on the lumbopelvic-hip (LPH) complex, discussing assessment and treatment using her Integrated Systems Model, and putting it all together to rehab and train athletes.
  4. Mike Voight – discusses the 4×4 matrix of the Selective Functional Movement Assessment (SFMA) to train motor control/stability and enhance movement.
  5. Dr. Evan Osar‘Corrective Exercise Solutions for Common Hip and Shoulder Dysfunction‘ including breathing pattern corrections, the importance of joint centration, and more…
  6. Jason Glass – Rotational power slings for golf and other rotation sports, screening rotational athletes, common injuries and prevention, and best training methods.
  7. Robert Butler – researching the pillars of Functional Movement Systems including pain and effects on motor control, injury prediction and the FMS, and more…
  8. Neil Rampe – using the Dynamic Neuromuscular Stabilization (DNS) and Postural Restoration Institute (PRI) systems in professional baseball, identifying and addressing asymmetries.
  9. Charlie Weingroff – discusses principles from his Training=Rehab and How to Make a Monster seminars including soft core vs. hard core training, using DNS principles and joint centration, using the SFMA to target dysfunction.
  10. Dr. Mark Scappaticci – discusses his Functional Integrated Therapy (FIT) system including Fascial Abrasion Technique and Functional Integrated Needling, treating painful and non-painful dysfunction, and working with elite athletes.
  11. Kelly Starrett – talks about the unique challenges of working with CrossFit and other athletes that push themselves to the limits, the importance of joint mobility, tissue quality, and movement, plus a whole lot more…

I’m really looking forward to every speaker, but I’m particularly excited to hear Diane Lee (whose information I’ve come across on multiple occasions in my pursuit for a deeper understanding of what leads to the hip and low back injuries so common in ice hockey), Charlie Weingroff (who I’ve learned a ton from in the past and have a great deal of respect for), and my friend Neil Rampe (who could very well be the smartest person in the training industry that you’ve never heard of).

As always, the teleseminar is completely FREE to register for. Just click the link below and enter your name and email address so Joe can send you updates about the times of the calls and you’re all set!

Click here for more information or to register >> Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar

Enjoy!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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A few weeks back I briefly mentioned that I’ve been working with a lacrosse player with femoroacetabular impingement (FAI). I’ve written quite a bit about FAI in the past, and the posts seem to attract a lot of attention, probably because so many athletes (and especially hockey players) suffer from related symptoms and haven’t had much success in traditional rehabilitation approaches. If you’re new to FAI, I’d highly encourage you to quickly breeze through these previous posts, which discuss a bit about what FAI is, how prevalent it is among hockey player and general populations, and what can be done to train around it:

  1. Training Around Femoroacetabular Impingement
  2. Hockey Hip Injuries: FAI
  3. An Updated Look at Femoroacetabular Impingement

I’ve received several emails requesting to see the video that I posted at Hockey Strength and Conditioning of the lacrosse player with severe FAI, so I decided to throw it on youtube and wanted to share it with you today. Check it out below:

Training Around Femoroacetabular Impingement

This video is of a Division I lacrosse player I’ve worked with over the last several months at Endeavor. He has undergone 4 separate operations (2 on each side) to address his FAI and associated labral damage, and a bilateral athletic pubalgia (sports hernia) repair. He also has significant retroversion, bilaterally, meaning he has plenty of external rotation, but extremely limited internal rotation in both hips. When he first came in, he wasn’t able to jog (let alone sprint), shuffle, or do anything high impact or explosive. In fact, I would say he was generally cautious about movement in general. He’s now in his 6th month of training and can sprint, transition, and move explosively as well as ever. We were able to start moving him toward these types of exercises about 4-6 weeks into the training process. Each week, for the last month, he’s told me that he feels better than ever. I wanted to post this video to demonstrate how important it is to recognize each athlete’s individual limitations. Can you imagine if this athlete was told to squat to full depth, deadlift off the floor, do high box jumps, etc.?

I recognize this athlete’s case is a bit extreme, but the overwhelming majority of the hockey players we work with will be somewhere between this athlete and what is taught as normal. In other words, most players will have some sort of structural deviation that will need to be appreciated in your assessment of their movement quality and exercise technique. In this example, we spent a lot of time early on going through how he would need to move to to stay within his individual confines, but still accomplish what he needs to on the field. After grooving and improving these patterns for several weeks, he now does them without conscious thought, which is the ultimate goal if he’s to be successful.

A few things to look for in the video:

  1. When he sets up in a quadruped position, his lumbar spine is already in a state of slight flexion secondary to hitting hip flexion end range. Attempting to drive further into hip flexion results in a SIGNIFICANT spinal compensation.
  2. He can only squat to about 45-50 degrees of hip flexion beefore his lumbar spine begins to flex.
  3. His hip only flexes about 45-50 degrees during the wall drill, which will have implications for how he runs.
  4. He is still able to sprint, but he must maintain a more upright posture and de-emphasize his knee drive more than would typically be recommended.
  5. He has almost no hip internal rotation on either side. The left appears to be slightly better, but this is because his pelvis is not neutral. When I measured this with a goniometer when he first started, he was under 20 degrees on each side.
  6. Not having internal rotation will have significant implications for rotational movements, which are of paramount importance in most team-based sports (especially ones like lacrosse and hockey). Notice how, when he steps behind during the med ball exercise, he maintains a slight position of external rotation and how he opens up instead of rotating OVER the front leg like most athletes would. Both of these patterns were intentional, and ones that took time to groove.

Another important take home from this video is that this athlete is post surgical and STILL presents with significant range of motion limitations. This is certainly no challenge to the proficiency of the surgeon. In fact, this particular surgeon is regarded as one of the best in the world for this type of work. I’ve worked with several athletes that have had FAI-related surgeries from this surgeon, and some present with “normal” range of motion, and others still have restrictions. It’s likely a result of the complications of the individual case and the risk-reward associated with more invasive or destructive options.

Nonetheless, it’s important for the athlete to understand that getting surgery doesn’t mean you’re going to come out “normal”. It’s likely you will still have significant restrictions that you’ll need to accommodate in your movement lexicon. Also, it’s possible that the FAI is the RESULT of an underlying issue that will still need to be addressed. In other words, in these cases FAI can be thought of as a symptom that provokes other symptoms, none of which are likely to fully subside until the elephant in the room is poached. In some cases, this may mean attacking diaphragm position to restore a more optimal zone of apposition (something I’ll discuss more in the future); in other cases it may require using specific exercises to help restore a more neutral position and orientation of the pelvis; and in others it may simply require strategic soft-tissue work and help restore balance in stiffness across the hips and allow for balanced movement. In most cases, however, a combination of these techniques is warranted.

If you’re interested in more information about FAI, check out the webinar and recent interview I did at Sports Rehab Expert.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Don’t forget to sign up for Sports Rehab Expert’s 2012 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar! It’s 100% free and features some of the top minds in sports rehab and performance training.

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