kevin neelda Archives

This has been a great week for us at Endeavor. We had a handful of new sign-ups and a number of returners join us. I also am in discussions with a few different people about exciting projects, but it’s too early to say anything definitive. I do have an exciting announcement for personal trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, and those of you that passionately train yourself, so stay tuned for that early next week.

Since our last Hockey Strength and Conditioning update, I’ve added quite a bit of content here. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out:

Hopefully you’ve been keeping up over the last couple of weeks so that list isn’t too overwhelming!

We’ve been busy over at HockeySC.com over the last few weeks as well. Check out what you’ve been missing:

Articles

Youth Hockey Training Blueprint: Part 3 from me
AC Joint Injuries in Hockey from Anthony Donskov
Using Kettlebells in Professional Hockey from Sean Skahan
The Mechanistic Connection Between the Trunk, Hip, Knee, and Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury from Timothy Hewett and Gregory Myer

The Youth Hockey Training Blueprint wraps up a 3-part series on how I’ve gone about designing and implementing training programs for an entire youth hockey organization with minimum equipment and space, and an unfavorable coach:athlete ratio. This series is probably the best real-world look at youth off-ice training for youth coaches and parents that are charged with the formidable task of development an off-ice training program for their kids.

Sean’s kettlebell article is fantastic. I’ve been following Sean’s work for years, and he continues to be a great teacher for me. This may be his best article ever. He goes into detail on how he implements specific kettlebell exercises and what the advantages/disadvantages of the exercises are in his setting. If you didn’t know, Sean also released two great DVDs called “Kettlebell Lifting for Hockey” and “Slideboard Training for Hockey“, which are worth checking out.

Exercise Videos

TRX Core Exercises from Mike Potenza
Vertimax Exercises for Hockey Players from me

These videos both display multiple exercises that can be strategically applied at various times of the year. As with any exercise, it’s important to put these in perspective and recognize when it’s appropriate to use them and when it’s not. Simply plugging “cool exercises” into your program will rarely work and will often hurt, if the broader perspective of the exact goals of a specific training phase are not considered. For the most part, all of the exercises in my video are ones we use in the off-season.

Training Programs

Off-Season 2011 Phase 4 Strength Training from Sean Skahan
Return From Holiday Break from Darryl Nelson
Muscle Endurance Workouts for Goaltenders from Mike Potenza

Great programs from some of the best in the business. It was interesting to see how Mike incorporated some of the Olympic lifting progressions into the warm-ups of his goalie training program. With that said, I also think it’s worth pointing out that there’s very little about this program that comes off as “goalie-specific”, and I mean that in a positive way. Hockey goalies are still a population that falls victim to the over-hyped circus-like training trends out there. Goalies need to be mobile, strong, explosive, and have great work capacity, just like all hockey players. This means they need to lift, they need to do plyometric work, and they need to train hard in general. Stretching and chasing reaction balls all over the place won’t quite cut it!

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

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

My friend Mike Potenza was kind enough to invite me out to San Jose last week to help out with the San Jose Sharks prospect camp. Throughout the week, I had the opportunity to interact with the entire coaching/scouting staff, the athletic training staff, a few of the Sharks players (that were around for the Summer), ~45 domestic and international elite level prospects, Mike and his supporting interns/volunteers, and John Pallof (one of the smartest people in human performance that I’ve ever met). Needless to say, it was an eye opening experience.

More than anything else, there was ONE common theme for this camp:

To build a successful organization (or team), EVERYONE has to be a leader.

The Sharks went as far as to bring their guys to a US Air Force base to do team building exercises with Sargeant Mike Malloy. This incredibly important aspect of athletic development is largely overlooked in most sport and training settings.

In youth athletics, being a leader is typically equated with being a star. It’s unfortunate that this is the message our athletes get, as it certainly discourages uniform team-wide leadership.

Many people recognize leadership as meaning:

-Holding yourself accountable for your actions
-Putting your best effort forward, even when no one is watching!
-Never giving up until the job is done (e.g. never acquiescing to the mental torture fatigue instills)

Being a leader also means being a good teammate, which EVERYONE can do.

If one of your teammates is struggling, it’s YOUR job to pick them up. In other words, it’s easy to criticize/complain about a teammate being too slow, not passing to you, taking a bad shot, etc. It’s only moderately more difficult to pull that teammate aside and talk to them in a civil manner. I say moderately more difficult because it actually takes less energy and you can squash problems immediately instead of letting them fester. On the contrary, criticizing tends to spawn infectious negativity that creates a culture of unresolved condemnation. Simply, we need to spend less time pushing each other away, and more time pulling each other along.

It’s unlikely that every player on a team will like every other player’s personality. We’re all different. However, often times building a successful organization comes down to the players’ ability to look past “dislike”, and to consistently empower struggling teammates in pursuit of a strengthened common purpose or goal.

The message sent to the Sharks’ prospects was to always hold a hand out for your teammates. Let them know you’re always there to help, to genuinely look out for each other. Think about how this changes the “pressure” put on individual players when they know they are truly part of a unit, a team.

This message starts from the top down. As presidents, coaches, and trainers, we need to let our players know that we’re in it for the same reason they are. No egos. No malice. No “politics”. Just development.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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

This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

Becoming a Successful Leader