Tag: endeavor

Strength and Conditioning Internships

Over the past several months, we’ve had more internship applications flood in for this Summer than we’ve had for any term in the 4 years that I’ve been at Endeavor. This, I believe, is a result of some of the networking we’ve done with local universities/colleges and the fact that Endeavor has become increasingly visible in the area and on a national scale, as we’ve received applications from students all over the country and a few from abroad. I’m always humbled when someone wants to intern and/or spend time observing at our facility, and am happy to see students being proactive about their future.

Throughout my interactions with these prospective interns, I’m realizing more how much of a wake-up call some students need. It seems that some students are more interested in making $8/hour standing on the floor of their local gym than they are about making sacrifices to pursue a quality learning experience. This is something that I’ve heard other coaches reference in the past, but I hadn’t seen much of it. I recognize that it isn’t always easy for students to volunteer their time in unpaid positions for several months. That said, not easy and not worth it are completely different things. It’s interesting that students will spend between $20,000-$150,000+ in a college education, much of which won’t directly translate into improved ability in a strength and conditioning setting, but can’t find a way to muster up a roughly $1,500 sacrifice in living expenses to intern. My friend, colleague, and former internship supervisor Eric Cressey wrote a great article on this topic that I highly recommend reading:

To backtrack slightly, I think some students view internships as a necessary evil to get college credits and finish their degree. “Why do I have to work for free?” In reality, internships are, by far, the best opportunity to learn training theory, program application, the art of coaching, and build a network of professionals in the field, all of which are critical to finding quality job opportunities in the future. If you want to get a decent job in collegiate or professional strength and conditioning, you’ll have to pay your dues.

For what it’s worth, I’m not preaching here. Over the course of my college experience, I interned at the University of Delaware working with football, men’s basketball, women’s volleyball and field hockey, at a private high school working with the athletes in every sport (where I was provided with an opportunity to write the programs and run the sessions), UMass Amherst with men’s ice hockey, women’s basketball, men’s soccer, and men’s and women’s skiing, and finally at Cressey Performance, where I gained exposure to training in a private setting with a wide range of clientele, from high school athletes to bad-ass senior citizens. Throughout those years, I’ve also taken advantage of opportunities to visit and observe at Michael Boyle Strength and Conditioning, Boston University, Holy Cross, Quinnipiac, and Nick Tumminello’s place in Baltimore.

The summer I interned at Cressey Performance I passed up an opportunity to run a series of hockey clinics in the Delaware area, and paid out of pocket to take a Functional Anatomy class that was part of BU’s DPT program. It’d be tough to directly quantify this, but I’d estimate that this decision, to live in Worcester, take a class at BU, and intern at CP was probably a $10,000-15,000 swing in the negative direction. And I can say, without hesitation, that it was the single best decision I’ve ever made. My only regret is that I didn’t wise up and start interning earlier.

To provide a quick illustration of the power of networking through these experiences, I volunteered under Chris Boyko at UMass Amherst. Chris introduced me to Eric at a seminar that Eric was speaking at, and Chris and I attended. This is where I talked to Eric about interning, which I received in part because of Chris’ recommendation. During my internship at CP, Eric introduced me to Mike Potenza, who was and still is the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the San Jose Sharks. Mike has become a friend, an incredible resource, a business partner, and has provided me with an opportunity to come out to help with their prospect camp and pre-season training camp. Eric also put a great word in about my coaching ability to Mike Boyle, who later provided me an opportunity to work with the USA Women’s National Hockey program. In other words, just about every experience I’ve had in professional and national team programs can be traced back to an introduction made through an internship experience I pursued. And this is strictly a discussion of the power of networking, let alone the indescribable amount I learned in all of these experiences about strength and conditioning, coaching, business, and family, among other things. I’ve also neglected to message the number of other coaches I’ve been fortunate to be introduced to, who collectively have been a huge educational resource for me, many of which have also become friends.

Everything I’ve been able to accomplish I owe to the terrific mentors I’ve had over the years, many of which I met directly or indirectly through internships. My situation isn’t at all unique. Almost every coach I know has a similar history of internships, volunteer experiences, and assistantships that have provided them with what they needed to be successful at jobs they enjoy, to live their dream. So when I hear students say things like “I can’t afford to spend a Summer interning”, I can’t help but think, “you can’t afford not to.”

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

What a week! We recently wrapped up a promotion with LivingSocial at Endeavor so we had a bunch of new start-ups this week. I’ve really been impressed with the work ethic of the new kids we’ve had. I strongly believe that’s a quality that you can develop with the right environment, but it’s refreshing to see kids enter with a high compete level.

Endeavor is also launching a new U-12 Athletic Development Program in April that I’m really excited about. I spent several hours with Matt Siniscalchi designing a template program early in the week and then several more refining it with the help of David Lasnier and Karl Kurtz (Karl doesn’t have a website, but he’s the mastermind behind all of my graphics work, so if you’re in need of a photoshop wizard, feel free to shoot me a message and I can put you in touch). It’s times likes these that it’s helpful to be surrounded by such a knowledgeable staff. If you live in the Eastern PA/New Jersey area, come check us out. We have a couple great specials running through the end of the month!

Before we get into the hockey training content from this past week, I wanted to let you know that I’ve posted 4 mini-webinars, which you may or may not have seen already), on Facebook. These were videos I made as part of the launch of my book Ultimate Hockey Training, and most recently, the complete video on concussion-like symptoms. I’m testing out a really cool new Facebook Webinar service (which I HIGHLY recommend if you have your own website or otherwise run your own business) that makes it easy for people to share the information with their friends. As I’ve said in the past, I’m indescribably grateful to all of you for forwarding some of my articles and videos along to your teammates, coaches, friends, and family. With the new Facebook Webinar service, it’s more convenient to watch the webinars AND to share them. It’s a win-win. In case you haven’t seen them already, check out these 4 webinars and please pass them along to anyone you think will benefit from the information!

This week, in quite possibly the most disclaimer-filled articles series in the history of the written word, I added a 4-part webinar series on concussions titled “The Truth About Concussion-Like Symptoms”. If you missed them, you can check them out here:

Over the last week at Hockey Strength and Conditioning, we’ve added two new programs from Mike Potenza and Darryl Nelson and another great article from Anthony Donskov.

Darryl kicked things off with a timely training program for his players at the US NTDP (elite high school aged players). I like to see what other coaches are doing at specific times of the year because it sparks some good ideas on things I can incorporate into our programs and provides some insight into their philosophy. Darryl does a great job with the USA program so his programs are worth studying/modeling.

Check out the training program here >> Early Spring Off-Season Workout

Mike Potenza added a 2-day youth training program with videos of all the exercises. The program has a bit of a strength emphasis, but Mike does a terrific job of keeping everything simple, which is really important for youth players that don’t have a strong training background. Master the basics before you move on to advanced tactics. The videos are a great addition so youth players or parents that are reading the article can get an idea of how to perform the exercises with perfect technique.

Check out the youth training program here >> Youth Training Program: Strength Phase 1

Anthony Donskov, who I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside at a few of the US Women’s National Team camps over the past year, added another outstanding piece on designing training programs for contact athletes to preserve shoulders. As you likely know, shoulder injuries are extremely common in hockey, and because they typically result from high velocity contact, it’s generally thought that they are largely unpreventable. While there is some truth to that idea, following Anthony’s concepts will go a long way in minimizing the risk of a separation or dislocation.

Read Anthony’s article here >> Push/Pull Ratio for Contact Athletes

That’s a wrap for today. As always, if you aren’t a member yet, I encourage you to try out Hockey Strength and Conditioning for a week. It’ll only cost $1, and if it’s not the best buck you’ve ever spent, I’ll personally refund you!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Don’t forget to check this out! Facebook Webinars

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This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

It’s been a couple weeks (again) since I had an opportunity to write one of these posts. The last few weeks have been pretty crazy in preparing for the release of Ultimate Hockey Training. On top of that, we’re in the process of moving Endeavor to a new location a few miles away from our current one, which I’m really excited about. We’re fortunate to have an opportunity to rebuild our space from scratch a few years in, so we can make adjustments based on some of the frustrations we’ve had in the current space.

On Wednesday I had an opportunity to head up to Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT to help Coach Boyle and Dawn Strout with another round of testing for the U.S. Women’s National Program. I’ve really enjoyed my work with the program. The girls all work their assess of, and are constantly pushing each other. Great team atmosphere. It was also nice to catch up with Brijesh, who I haven’t seen in too long. That night I drove home from Connecticut packed a bag, woke up the next morning, and got on a plane to Phoenix. I’m in Phoenix for PRI’s Impingement and Instabilities course, which rain prevented me from attending with Cressey in Maine a couple months back. No complaints about being “forced” to coming to Phoenix though! I spent most of the day yesterday with Patrick Ward talking about the nervous system (this is what most cool people do when they get together). Patrick is ridiculously bright and has a different background than I do, so it’s awesome to hear his perspective on things. If you’re not familiar with his work, check out his site (and an article he wrote on my new book) here: Show & Go and Ultimate Hockey Training

This week I wrote two posts that touch on elite hockey development. If you haven’t read them already, you can check them out here:

Over the last several weeks, we’ve added A LOT of terrific content to Hockey Strength and Conditioning. Check out what you’ve missed:

New Articles

Why Shoes Make Normal Gait Impossible from Dr. William Rossi

Five Exercises That Hockey Players Should Be Doing in the Weight Room from Sean Skahan

Toronto Maple Leafs 1962 Training Camp

Youth Hockey Training Blueprint: Part 1 from me

The Case for Direct Cuff Training in Contact Sports from Anthony Donskov

Managing Injuries through Manual Therapies from Eric Reneghan

This is an almost overwhelming collection of articles. The Maple Leafs Training Camp article is more for fun than anything else. We’ve certainly come a long way since those days. My article on youth hockey training is the first in a 3-part series that will walk you through exactly how I put together the off-ice training program for a youth hockey organization that we work with. This series will answer most of the questions I get regarding what I recommend for training youth players at different age levels at the rink and identify how I’ve addressed some of the challenges inherent in the space we’re allotted there. Keep your eye out for the other two parts. Dr. Rossi’s shoe article was outstanding. I think the impact of footwear is overlooked by the majority of youth athletes (and their parents) because the assumption is that they wouldn’t sell shoes if they were detrimental to your health. Dr. Rossi’s article systematically explains the impact different shoes have on your structure and performance. Great read.

Training Programs

Off-Season 2011 Phase 2 Strength Training from Sean Skahan

Quarter Sprints from Darryl Nelson

Strength Training for a Hockey Player with a Unilateral Lower Body Injury from Mike Potenza

Three great programs from three great coaches. I think it’s especially important to read through Potenza’s program because of the message it sends. Unilateral injuries are NOT an excuse to stop training! Most players get hurt, go to the doctor, are told the injury will take 6-8 weeks to heal and assume that means they’ll be ready to play in 6-8 weeks. In reality, in 6-8 weeks they have a almost completely healed segment within a drastically deconditioned body. There are RARELY injuries that warrant a complete shutdown (concussions, and recent disc herniations and hernia surgeries are amongst the few). Players can continue to make progress by intelligently training the healthy segments, which will facilitate a faster recovery, return to play, and ensure continued progress despite an injury. Sean’s program series on training an athlete with an ACL tear are great examples of this too so check them out if you haven’t already.

Exercise Videos

Farmer Carry Lateral Squats from Darryl Nelson

Frontal Plane Core Exercises from Mike Potenza

Reach, Roll, and Lift from me

Half Get-Up with Cup of Water from Sean Skahan

Darryl’s video will really appeal to hockey players because it is a relatively hockey-specific movement. We don’t typically load these movements very heavy, but we do use them to groove the pattern and improve hip mobility. Potenza had some creative core exercises in his video montage. The Reach, Roll, and Lift is a lower trapezius activation exercise that has really humbled a lot of our youth players. It’s easy to cheat your way through this one, but when done correctly, it will surprise you how difficult this is. In my opinion, an inability to perform this exercise disqualifies you from overhead lifts. Sean’s video provides another great example of how to continue to groove important patterns, even when an athlete has suffered an injury.

Hockey Assessment Webinar

Hockey Hip Assessments from me

This was a webinar I did a couple months back detailing all of the hip assessments I used with our off-season hockey group at Endeavor, how to interpret the results, and how to use this information to improve the durability of your players. I’m pretty proud of this one as I think it provides strength and conditioning professionals as well as rehab folks with some important tools to recognize structural “abnormalities” that may predispose players to predictable injuries.

Lastly, the forum has been hopping recently. While there are several interesting discussions, I’d recommend checking out the “Post-Game Flush”, “Neck Strengthening”, “Motion Analysis for $5”, “Barefoot Training”, “Diet Programs that Reduce Inflammation”, and “Reactions to LTAD” threads first.

As always, if you aren’t a member yet, I encourage you to try out Hockey Strength and Conditioning for a week. It’ll only cost $1, and if it’s not the best buck you’ve ever spent, I’ll personally refund you!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Speed Training for Hockey

In my experience, most hockey players are terrible runners. The trend over the last decade or so for hockey players to specialize early, play year-round, and not participate in other sports (or train) has created a number of extremely talented hockey players that lack basic levels of athleticism (Quick side note: Many think this is fine since these players are proficient at their main sport, but these are usually the players that end up chronically hurt). I’m not of the thought that hockey players need to have perfect running form, as this generally takes a substantial amount of time and energy to ingrain. That said, I think teaching the players to move in the sagittal plane and apply force into the ground have positive implications for both injury reduction and performance enhancement.

In this regard, we’ve been very fortunate at Endeavor to have Matt Siniscalchi on our staff. Matt has a track background and has been outstanding in getting our hockey players to run…less like hockey players…with a few simple coaching cues. He’s been so effective in this regard that I thought it would be good to get him on here to share his secrets with you. Enter Matt…

To begin with, I want to thank Kevin, David Lasnier, and Jared Beach for the opportunity to work at Endeavor. Before coming here I never could have imagined coaching at a place where each training session is both educationally engaging and highly motivating. The coaches and trainees both benefit. As Kevin mentioned, part of my coaching background involved working with sprinters and hurdlers. During my time in college I had the opportunity to coach track for two seasons (a significant learning experience). Now that I am coaching at Endeavor, I realize how simple cues make a significant impact on an athlete’s technique.

Being around track and football for most of my life, I have heard many different coaching cues to help athletes to reach their full potential. For example, “drive your knees up,” “pump your arms,” “KICK,” and “quick feet” are some of the cues that help athletes think about their running technique. A common misconception is that the faster or quicker athletes drive their knee and (opposite) arm forward the faster they will sprint. This deceiving cue can cause athletes to move their extremities quickly, but not translate into a greater displacement of their center of mass.

Speed is not about quick limb movements; it’s the ability to apply force into the ground or ice. Speed is about maximizing the horizontal component while minimizing the vertical component. When observing world class sprinters, they have a level-head placement minimizing a “head-bobbing” action. This minimizes that vertical component. This is not to say that there is no merit to exercises like vertical jumps, box jumps, and strength exercises for the posterior chain that may warrant a vertical action, as these are all paramount in becoming stronger and faster, but simply to suggest that you shouldn’t observe a significant degree of vertical motion while watching an athlete sprint.

In my experience, if the athlete can focus on the few details below, they will become smoother, faster runners. While viewing a staff meeting about Olympic lifts by Mike Boyle, there was a common theme. If the movement does not look athletic, it probably isn’t. Sprinting is no different. I take a very simple approach to technique for sprinting. I could say I am Dan John-esque in my approach to sprint technique. Focus on one cue at a time and do not progress until the athlete has mastered the first.

Common Flaw

Head motion: Avoid tilting the head in any direction

Corrective Cue:

Eye Focus: I have watched countless athletes over the past few months instantly run smoother just by picking up this simple cue. Tell your athletes to focus on a point straight ahead of where they’re running that meets with their eye-level. When they sprint, that spot should stay fixed and not deviate from its position. This prevents a bobbing of the head (up and down) or any side to side discrepancies.

Common Flaw

Minimal arm action or too much across the midline

Corrective Cue

Hammer down with the arm: Often times the hockey players I have coached (as well as many other athletes) seem to cross their midline or have limited arm action. Picture yourself as if holding a hammer that needed to smash a giant nail that was sticking out from the wall behind them slightly below the hip. Keeping the elbows squeezed toward their body, hammer down and back as if envisioning that nail going back into the wall. Anytime the arms come away from the body there is a rotational component that we want to limit while sprinting.

Common Flaw

Short “choppy” strides

Corrective Cue

Move the ground beneath you: A lot of hockey players take an excessive amount of steps to only get 10-15 yards when accelerating from a sprint. This is likely the result of taking a “quick feet” approach to speed training. These athletes are usually losing potential angular velocity because of the lack of hip extension. As mentioned above, it is not about how many steps the athlete takes but how much force they can apply down and back into the ground. Have the athletes envision trying to move the ground underneath them similar to a treadmill that is not on. They would have to push down and back pretty hard. Along these same lines, I have been using a cue of “knees forward” instead of “knees up.

I tend to favor the eye focus and hammering down cues the most. For some reason, when they apply these their runs are smoother and effortless. Endeavor is a private facility so we only have so much time on speed work which limits the amount of time for coaching sprint technique. As a result, I have the athletes use the eye focus during the final of our dynamic warm-up where we perform side-shuffles, carioacas, back pedals, butt kicks, and ¾ speed jogs. Another way to get the most out of coaching these cues is using them during conditioning at the end of the session that is performed on the track or turf. The duration of time they have while running shuttles allows for the athletes to focus on the cues provided. Remember, it is hard to focus on these cues if they are running at full pace all the time. I’ve actually promoted athletes running slower the first few times in order to get the movement technique down before they start going all out in their conditioning. Coaching sprint technique should follow progressions just like any other exercise. Sometimes you need to regress speed to focus on technique as you would with a complex exercise like hang cleans. Treat speed training that way and I think you will be surprised at how well your athletes will sprint in the long run.

Cheers,

Matt

Matt started a website several months ago and has since developed a pretty solid following. I like Matt’s site because he’s constantly reading and studying information to become a better coach so I can generally pick up some new tips from resources that I haven’t had an opportunity to look into. If you’re interested, check it out here: Matt Siniscalchi Strength and Conditioning

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. If you haven’t already, you can get a free copy of my speed training manual “Breakaway Hockey Speed” by entering your name and email below!

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Functional Training Fallacy

Over the last several weeks, I’ve been very fortunate to have an opportunity to work in close conjunction with Ned Lenny, a really bright physical therapist with an office in Cherry Hill, NJ. Ned has been doing some in-house work for us at Endeavor, which has been a great educational experience for me and our athletes.

Ned and I were talking about one of our hockey players, and we started talking about training strategies for muscles primarily considered stabilizers. The rotator cuff and the lateral hip musculature are two popular muscle groups that populate the stabilizer category.

Collectively, the rotator cuff muscles function to stabilize the humeral head within the glenohumeral joint and ensure proper tracking of these two bones on one another

The deep hip rotators (pictured) and the gluteus medius (not pictured) compromise the lateral hip musculature typically considered as serving a stabilization function

These muscle groups do in fact function primarily as stabilizers. In other words, they provide dynamic control of the surrounding joint and stability of the joint so that high levels of force can be generated by the extremities. At the risk of beating this analogy to death, attempting to express strength or power with poor stabilizer function is similar to attempting to shoot a cannon from a canoe. Stability creates the foundation for strength and power. In fact, it’s a prerequisite for the expression of these qualities.

This understanding is a huge step in the right direction from the textbook approach to training where external rotators are only trained in external rotation movements and internal rotators are only training in internal rotation movements without any focus on their co-contraction functions in the interest of more global movement. Instead of these isolated rotations, better exercise choices are:

Rotator Cuff: Partner-assisted dynamic stabilizations, farmer’s walks, waiter’s walks, 1-arm stability wall hold, etc.

Lateral Hip Musculature: Backward monster walks, lateral mini-band walks, all single-leg exercises

In these exercises, the aforementioned muscles function in concert with one another to promote stability. This would be the most functional/integrative way to approach training these muscle groups. In both the hockey and sports training industries, there are tendencies to utilize new information in an extreme fashion. In other words, pendulums tend to swing too far in one direction; too much black or white and not enough shades of gray.

Sometimes the training industry goes too far…

In this case, Ned pointed out that training and movement aren’t just about function, they’re also influential in tissue nutrition. In this vein, nutrition refers to fluid and nutrient circulation to tissue structures within the body. When muscle groups become too rigid, they lose nutrition, become fibrotic, and can even begin to calcify. Naturally, this results in a loss of mobility and proper function. Taking muscles through a full range of motion helps improve nutrient delivery to the structures and therefore can help improve their function. This line of logic indicates that, despite the lack of “functional” carryover, there is still a place for more isolationist exercises like pure internal and external rotations.

A more functional approach to training the rotator cuff

Of course, before the people that have only been recommending tubing exercises for rotator cuffs for the last decade celebrate, the isolationist approach, by itself, is still not the best way to go. The major take home here is that, as with all things training, there are shades of gray. There is a place for both modalities. This is also another example that sometimes the most sport-specific training solution is anti-sport-specific training!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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