My head was spinning all week getting ready for this weekend, but I’m glad to finally be up in Boston getting ready for the Boston Hockey Symposium. Hopefully I’ll see you all here!
Here’s what you’ve missed over the last week at Hockey Strength and Conditioning:
Using the Turkish Get-Up in Team Sports from Sean Skahan
In this article, Sean breaks down the Turkish Get-Up into a progression of four steps that he used to integrate it into the Ducks’ program. If you aren’t familiar with the Get-Up, this will be a great introduction to it. As Sean mentions, it’s certainly a humbling exercise and one that is exceptionally integrative regarding functional pathways throughout the body, but also provides some benefits as a screen to expose side-to-side imbalances and ROM restrictions. I think the biggest barriers to implementing this exercise into a program are understanding where it fits from a stress standpoint (e.g. where do you put a total body “core” exercise into your program so that it won’t interfere with other exercises) and teaching it to a larger group proficiently. Sean’s breakdown will certainly help with the latter. He wraps the article by mentioning that his players responded well to his teaching progression and that complaints of back and shoulder pain were non-existent (I assume this is in reference to this exercise specifically and not a claim that one exercise has completely negated all back and shoulder pain). Great stuff as always from Sean.
Lateral Core Variations from Darryl Nelson
Darryl posted a video montage of lateral and rotational core exercises. He had a few “easier” variations to the exercises I posted the other day (Core Training Variations for Hockey Players), which is great as it adds for more potential variety in progressing up to the advanced exercises. With the exercise at the :50 mark, I’ll have our players have their outside leg forward, as I think it prevents them from using their leg as a kickstand and also more closely mimics the rotation pattern seem most prevalently on the ice. The thing I really like about Darryl’s video is that he’s coaching his players as he films, which allows the viewer to see common execution faults and how he coaches to correct them.
Youth Off-Ice Training Program from me
This is the next installment of our monthly youth off-ice hockey training program. As I’ve said in the past, the goal of adding these to the site was to provide the youth players, parents, and coaches out there that don’t have equipment or resources to pursue professional instruction a cost-effective training option. We’re several months in now and the programs have included a good amount of variety, quality balance and program structure, and minimal equipment use. Hopefully the target audience is reaping the benefits of this and not falling victim to all the gimmicky hockey training bullshit that is out there right now.
If you aren’t a member yet, fork out the $1 to test drive Hockey Strength and Conditioning for a week. If it’s not the best buck you’ve ever spent, I’ll personally refund you!
Kevin Neeld