Blogs

We’ve had a lot of great additions this week at Hockey Strength and Conditioning. In no particular order (don’t miss the last one!): My friend Kevin Schaeffer (former National Championship winner with BU and current AHL/ECHL player) wrote an article on how he’s been able to apply some of the things he’s learned from his […]

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the happy couples out there! And for the singles, don’t be so bitter; your day will come. I love my job. I couldn’t picture myself working anywhere else. People ask me all the time if I have an interest in pursuing collegiate or professional strength and conditioning, and my answer […]

It’s been one of those weeks over at Hockey Strength and Conditioning where the forums have really been hopping. There are a couple great discussions worth checking out on a few of the articles and programs posted recently, as well as a thread I started on Vitamin D (I’m curious to see how many programs […]

Any bilateral lower body exercise can be manipulated to create a single-leg variation. In other words, back squats, front squats, deadlifts, and stiff-legged deadlifts all have a single-leg counterpart. I like some of these single-leg exercises more than others. In the case of a single-leg deadlift, I’ve experimented with a few different variations (e.g. barbell […]

In writing last week’s post on what it takes to be a Modern Strength Coach, I failed to mention that strength and conditioning for sports largely began with football. Because of this, there is (or at least has been) a high proportion of strength and conditioning coaches with a football background. In general, the hockey […]

A few great additions to the site this week: Anaheim Ducks Strength and Conditioning Coach Sean Skahan wrote an article called Reap the Benefits of Proper Stretching. If you’ve stayed current with the scientific research behind stretching, you know that it’s been a controversial topic for the last decade or so. As with any debate, […]

Happy Groundhog Day! Hopefully Bill Murray won’t see his shadow so we stop getting dumped on with all this snow! For whatever reason, my ’99 Saturn is pretty good in the snow. Although, if you looked at it, you’d probably be wondering what is holding it all together. Last week on my drive back home […]

As I promised last week, we’ve gotten the new “youth hockey training program” addition of Hockey Strength and Conditioning underway by adding a team dynamic warm-up that players can use before every practice, off-ice training session, and game. Each exercise specifies the exact distance or repetitions to use and has a video. I thought adding […]

With the increased attention paid to “soft-tissue work” and “myofascial release” techniques, I think it’s important that everyone understands the basics that provide the underlying foundation for why these methods are effective and necessary. I went into this at a very superficial level here: Foam Rolling Science Made Simple but I want to dive a […]