Tag: Kevin Neeld

Peak Performance and Diet Design Seminar

Over the Summer I was very fortunate to attend Joe Dowdell and Dr. Mike Roussell’s Peak Performance and Diet Design Seminar and Joe’s facility Peak Performance NYC. The seminar was a blast. It was great to catch up with Dr. Perry Nickelston, Tony Gentilcore, and Joe and meet John Romaniello, Sean Hyson, Jim Smith, Mike Roussell, and a number of the other attendees.

You may recall that I discussed the “expert” panel Q&A that Joe asked me to be a part of here: Become a Great Coach!

Social gatherings aside, the seminar itself was packed with great information. It was the first time I saw either Joe or Dr. Mike speak, so to say it was an eye opener would be an understatement. I’ve referenced back through the binder that all of the attendees received several times since the course and thought it would be a good topic for today’s post. Without further ado, here are 5 things I picked up at the seminar.

5) Citrulline Malate
Dr. Roussell discussed his supplement recommendations, and divided them up into “core”, “performance enhancers”, and “case specific.” This in itself is an important concept as many people are quick to start taking supplements (or following training programs for that matter) based on what others are doing, which completely neglects the importance of individual training and body composition goals and stress tolerance. I was familiar with most of the supplements Dr. Mike spoke about, but one really caught my attention: citrulline malate.

According to Dr. Mike, citrulline malate can help fight fatigue and decrease muscle soreness by preventing lacate build-up and acidosis, as well as clearing ammonium. CM also increases BCAA utilization during exercise, so it’s a great compliment to BCAA or protein supplementation. Some of these attributes have been described with arginine supplementation (such as one of the main active ingredients in all the garbage NO supplements), but Dr. Mike pointed out that arginine is shuttled to the liver shortly after absorption, making it a less effective option that citrulline malate. For hockey players, this means maintaining high performance through long shifts and physical games. For lifters, this means achieving more work in a training session and an expedited recovery. For everyone, this seems like good news.

4) Comprehensive Periodization
Joe is one of the most thorough planners I’ve ever spoken with. When a pro athlete comes to him, he lays out their schedule for the next several weeks or months (depending on what they know) and varies the stresses of the training based on their sport-specific training/practices, travel, and their competitions. This allows for both optimal progress and facilitate recovery, which in turn feeds optimal progress/performance. To an extent, every strength coach does this, but Joe really takes it to the next level. In the manual, Joe included a 4-phase (~5 months) training program that he used with National Fencing Champion Tim Morehouse and 4-phase energy system development program that he used with MMA fighter Marcos “Loro” Galvao. Looking through these programs spawn a lot of ideas regarding the importance of long-term planning and stress management, options for program periodization, and general options for resistance and energy systems training. You can infer a lot about the quality of a coach from analyzing his/her programs, and the attention to detail Joe builds into his programs explains why his gym is a top 3 gym in the nation.

3) Variety
I’ll be honest, I’m not usually impressed with random exercise variations. I think a lot of people put an excessive emphasis on variety at the expense of actually becoming proficient in the movements and their progress suffers accordingly. I also think that people prioritize effective behind “sexy” in selecting exercises (hence all the crazy BOSU and stability ball exercises that people fell in love with). That said, Joe put together a 23-page list with ~650 different exercise variations, describing the “dominant movement pattern or emphasis” for each and including additional classifications when appropriate. Beginners need to master the basics; that should be clear. But more advanced athletes with longer training backgrounds (5-10+ years depending on the consistency) will benefit both physically and psychologically from a varied stimulus. This is by far the most comprehensive list of categorized exercises I’ve ever come across. I’m impressed.

2) Training Residuals
In the interest of prioritizing different training qualities to help make maximum progress, it’s important to understand how long you can leave a quality alone before it starts to degrade. Joe did an outstanding job of discussing Dr. Issurin’s research in this area. Understand “motor ability” residuals as Dr. Issurin calls them, is extremely important in designing programs for elite level athletes. Joe also discussed the physiological changes that drive these residuals, but the list below will give you an idea of how long qualities last before they start to degrade.

Aerobic Endurance: 30 +/- 5 days
Maximum Strength: 30 +/- 5 days
Anaerobic Glycolytic Endurance: 18 +/-4 days
Strength Endurance: 15 +/- 5 days
Maximum Speed (Alactic): 5 +/-3 days

1) Competing Demands
Related to the point above, it’s important to understand which physical qualities will interfere with the development of other qualities. In other words, you want to design your training so that the primary, secondary, and tertiary (if applicable) emphases of a given training phase compliment each other. Mixing contrasting qualities will limit the development of both. Again, Joe highlighted Dr. Issurin’s work in this area, which is briefly illustrated below:

Aerobic Endurance: Alactic (Sprint) abilities, strength endurance-aerobic, maximum strength-hypertrophy (after)
Anaerobic (Glycolytic) Endurance: Strength endurance-anaerobic, aerobic restorative exercises, aerobic-anaerobic (mixed) endurance
Alactic (Sprint) Abilities: Aerobic endurance, explosive strength, maximum strength-hypertrophy (after), aerobic restoration exercises
Maximum Strength-Hypertrophy: Maximum strength-innervation, flexibility, aerobic restoration
Learning New Technical Elements: Any kind of training modality, but after the dominant tasks

A “Top 5” doesn’t really do the seminar justice. Joe described ALL of the adaptations to various resistance training and energy system development strategies and Dr. Mike gave the most comprehensive talk on nutrition and supplementation that I’ve ever seen. Simply, there wasn’t really any component of designing training programs or diets that they didn’t discuss, in detail (I think that was their intention!).

For those of you that missed the seminar, I know they recorded the entire thing and are in the final stages of putting together a huge package with all of the DVDs and the binder I alluded to earlier with all of the slides and extra bonuses from the presentation. Look out for more information on that in the near future, but in the meantime, Joe Dowdell put together a free webinar for you on the “Top 5 Keys for Success in the Fitness Industry.” If you’re coming from a hockey background, this may not interest you, but if you’re personal trainer, strength and conditioning coach, or fitness enthusiast, I highly recommend you check out the webinar!

Click here to watch >> Top 5 Keys for Success in the Fitness Industry

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Mike Robertson Interview

Just wanted to let you know that I recently did a hockey training interview with Mike Robertson that is now available through his site. The interview covers everything from what makes the best players the best to strategies to improve players’ durability to what young hockey strength coaches can do to excel in the field! Check it out at the link below:

Click here >> Hockey Training with Kevin Neeld

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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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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What would you do to succeed?

Last night I had an opportunity to give a nutrition talk to the Team Comcast U18 team. The talk went pretty well, as I know the kids pretty well since all but a couple spent their Summer with me over at Endeavor. During the talk, and interspersed Q&A, we touched on a lot of topics:

What Generation UCAN is and how their products are better alternatives to typical sports drinks
As part of #1-the relationship between foods, blood sugar, insulin, energy levels, and fat burning
When to eat a pre-game meal
What pre-game meals should be composed of (and what they SHOULDN’T be composed of)
What to eat for breakfast and how to prepare it without losing too much sleep
What to pack for lunch
The reality about the kids that say they eat a lot, but just can’t put on weight
How much water to drink everyday and how to get it in for non water drinkers
The easiest way to grocery shop and ensure you’re not buying garbage

Overall, I tried to keep the discussion as practical as possible. Kids aren’t nearly as interested in the science as I am. They want to know what to eat, when to eat it, and a brief explanation as to why it matters.

The best hockey nutrition resource I’ve ever come across

After discussing all of the above items, I felt the team had a pretty thorough understanding of how they should eat, and how they could make better choices a reality (implementation is a major road block). So I wrapped up by asking a relatively simple question:

“How many of you want to play college hockey?”

Every hand in the room went up. Perfect. I then suggested that if I approached each individual and asked what they would do to get there, that they’d probably all say some variation of “I’d do whatever it takes.”

In fact, I think you’d hear a similar response from any athlete that wishes to advance to a next level. Unfortunately, wishing won’t quite cut it, and what most of these athletes really mean is “I’ll do what’s most convenient and least invasive” and in many cases “and then bitch about how much better I am than the worst three players that made it over me.”

There is an optimal way to do everything-eat, hydrate, train, practice, facilitate recovery, etc. Naturally, there is a poor way to do everything as well. It’s a continuum from most ideal to least ideal. No one will be perfect 100% of the time. But if players are truly motivated, they should make a consistent focused effort to live their lives more toward optimal than not, and should quickly get back on track when things slip momentarily.

Everyone wants to take the dynamite approach to development. They want it all, now, and expect it yesterday. The truth is that development is more like erosion. In this analogy, every component I mentioned above can be signified as more water to stimulate erosion (development). Get your nutrition on track-more water. Learn proper recovery techniques (e.g. foam roll, stretch, perform breathing exercises after training, read before bed, go to bed and wake up within an hour of the same times every day, etc.)-more water. Follow a quality, progressive hockey training program-more water. And so on. This is how development works. If the athlete pursues optimal in all aspects of preparation and performance, they will continue to develop over time and eventually have an opportunity to compete at elite levels. If the process is rushed, and/or the little sacrifices aren’t made, development suffers.

Once athletes have the information, it’s up to them to use it. If you say you’ll do anything to achieve your goal, understand what everything means. Amongst other things, it means waking up a few minutes early to make a quality breakfast; it means packing your lunch the night before; it means doing the foam rolling, stretching, and dynamic warm-up routines your strength coach taught you, even when you’re sick of them; it means going to bed a little earlier on the weekends than you’d want and waking up WAY earlier than you want; it means watching the next level above you and studying the game; it means practicing specific skills repeatedly until you perfect them, and then practicing even more to cement them into automacity. These are just a few examples, but it should shed some light on my point. Develop your drive to succeed and then don’t let anything stop you, especially not your own apathy!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. If you’re looking for a great hockey-specific nutrition manual, I highly encourage you to invest in Ultimate Hockey Nutrition by Brian St. Pierre, which is only available to all Ultimate Hockey Training customers! Click here for more information: Ultimate Hockey Training

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What if Talent Doesn’t Exist?

A few weeks ago, after returning from USA Hockey’s ADM Symposium I ordered a half dozen books, many of which were recommended by the presenters. After wrapping up On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deady Conflict in War and in Peace by Lt. Col Dave Grossman and Loren W. Christensen (a really interesting insight into “warrior preparation”), I opened The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born, It’s Grown by Daniel Coyle. I knew I would have a hard time putting The Talent Code down, as Bounce by Matt Syed, which is written on a similar topic, is one of my favorite books of all time.

As you may have noticed, I’m on a bit of a long-term athletic development kick recently. That USA Hockey Symposium really “lit my lamp”. The symposium was largely responsible for sparking these posts, which I encourage you to read if you haven’t already:

There are clearly areas for improvement in our long-term hockey development programs, and I think USA Hockey is on the right track with their guidelines and recommendations. As I anticipated, components of their ADM are being criticized largely by people that haven’t taken the time to fully understand the intentions, guidelines, and progressions of the system. It’s a shame that the people with the loudest voices have a tendency to be the least well-informed.

Getting back to my reading endeavors, I thought Bounce was interesting because it systematically challenged the idea of “natural talent”. While this doesn’t quite do the book service, I think Bounce was a creative way of explaining the 10,000 Hour Rule, and how seemingly “natural” talents can always, regardless of the chosen field, be explained via dedicated practice. As Michaelangelo said,

“If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all.”

What we consider, or should I say what we don’t consider practice may be the reason that people miss this. This topic could be a post in itself (it is. see The Truth About Practice above), I’ll point out that WATCHING higher level performance is one of the most overlooked and incredibly powerful forms of practice. Many of the “young geniuses” accumulated SUBSTANTIAL practice hours watching/listening to their parents or some other mentor at a young age.

Lesson 1: Quality mentors accelerate excellence.

The Talent Code uses similar examples of unexpected excellence, such as the international dominance of Russian female tennis players (from ONE club!), Curacao little league teams, and even the true story of the Renaissance artists to illustrate the same point. These stories are truly miraculous when you consider how few resources many of these outstanding achievers had. Natural talents? Hardly.

Simply, in every case, peak performers have put forth a RIDICULOUS amount of focused, progressive effort to achieve their excellence. They don’t just go through the motions; they attempt, refine, and attempt again until they get it right. Daniel Coyle does a great job of explaining the physiology behind how this eventually leads to automacity (consistent performance without conscious thought).

The secret lies in myelin. Myelin forms a sheath around the axon of neurons. Think of the neuron’s axon as a wire, and myelin as the casing around it. Myelin serves to “insulate” the axon, creating a smoother, faster signal. Because all active human movement (and thought for that matter) results from the coordinated firing of vast neuronal networks, myelin has a profound effect on our everyday lives.

Cartoon Neuron. Myelin in yellow.

Think about it. EVERYTHING you think or do involves the firing of a vast network of neurons. When you drink Generation UCAN after your practice, a specific network of neurons fires. When you celebrate after a great game, a specific network of neurons fires. When you get mad because you don’t like a coaching decision, a specific network of neurons fires. As a network fires more and more, more myelin is laid down to insulate the connecting axons (the cord connecting one neuron to another). In other words, that pathway is reinforced and becomes more efficient. As I’ve mentioned, this has tremendous physical AND psychological implications. Essentially, this explains “muscle memory”, why highly practiced skills can be replicated with decent proficiency even after a long hiatus. This also explains why it becomes increasingly easy to skip going to the gym to train.

Lesson 2: Every decision or indecision, action or inaction results in a physiological response that makes you more likely to do it the same way again in the future.

You may have heard the expression “It’s like riding a bike”, which eloquently illustrates the idea of muscle memory. Although, when I got on a bike while at grad school at UMass for the first time in over 10 years, I didn’t feel so balanced. I must have not laid down enough myelin.

The key to becoming a world-class athlete isn’t just to pick your parents right as is often said; it’s to develop highly myelinated high performance neuronal networks. This doesn’t mean that performing a movement incorrectly is undesirable. Quite the contrary. In fact, stumbling through practice is NECESSARY to find the right movement, which can be cemented with further practice. The idea isn’t to not make mistakes; it’s to not overlook mistakes. Mistakes are an important step in the skill development process. But what happens if an athlete, in practically any team sport, makes a mistake that results in a turnover? Instant negative feedback from the coach. A single failed attempt paired with negative feedback causes most athletes to abandon that strategy. Is it any wonder that athletic development experts are calling for more UNSTRUCTURED play amongst athletes at younger ages? These “pick-up” settings typically involve more movement, more “touches” with the ball/puck, and ultimately more opportunities to self-correct. In other words, they have more opportunities to identify effective neuronal networks and start laying down myelin.

Lesson 3: Unstructured play and uncoached small area games create outstanding environments for rapid skill development.

Take Home
At every level of sport, you hear athletes, parents, and coaches talking about how “talented” an athlete is, as if their abilities were developed passively. I’m becoming increasingly convinced that talent, or natural ability as we currently think of it, doesn’t exist. Or should I say, the neuronal network that creates the thought that talent may not exist is becoming increasingly myelinated. The trouble in accepting that talent doesn’t exist, is that we need to look at two athletes, the best and worst on any given team, and treat their potential for future excellence equally.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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