Hopefully you’ve enjoyed “Theory Week” here at KevinNeeld.com. In case you missed them, I put up two posts discussing a new way to view an athlete’s muscle fiber make-up (Neeld Muscle Fiber Continuum Theory) and long-term soft-tissue stress accumulation as it pertains to common injuries and performance limitations (Soft-Tissue Stress Overflow Theory).

It’s also been a busy week over at HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com.

Sean Skahan added Phase 1 of his ACL Rehab training program. I’ve been reading up on ACL research this week because Endeavor has partnered with a local youth Soccer organization. As you know, ACLs plague soccer players and are often career-limiting injuries. Anything we can do from a strength and conditioning standpoint to improve the athlete’s likelihood of competing at their pre-injury level after surgery is a life changing opportunity. Timely program from Sean.

Check it out here >> ACL Rehab Phase 1 from Sean Skahan

We also added a couple videos. Darryl Nelson added videos of two Olympic Lift variations that he uses with the NTDP. He also points out that the players in one of the videos are goalies…Yes…goalies need to lift too.

Watch them here >> Olympic Lifts from the Hang Position from Darryl Nelson

Mike Potenza added a few exercises to help restore function and balance across the hip joint. In my opinion, having multiple exercises in your “toolbox” that serve a similar function is a great way to add variation in your programs (at least in the athlete’s mind) without neglecting the necessary creation of stress to certain structures/patterns. Mike shows a couple exercises using a somewhat specialized piece of equipment, but these could also be done with a slideboard and some resistance bands.

Watch them here >> Abduction and Adduction Exercises from Mike Potenza

There are also some great forum discussions that you should check out. If you’re in charge of making equipment purchases for a training facility, you’ll want to read up on the thread that’s shedding some light on the differences between the Woodway Curve and Woodyway Force.

Jim Reeves has posted some enlightening comments in response to a question from a member asking what he should do for his players to stay in good shape for a tournament they have 3 or 4 weeks after the season ends. I face a pretty similar situation in that a lot of our athletes finish the season and immediately want to prepare for tryouts. It’s a difficult thing to balance actively reversing some of the negative adaptations of the season while also continuing to prepare them for a hockey-related assessment.

Lastly, Mike Potenza started a thread on an interesting assessment designed to assess neural fatigue in athletes. This piqued my interest because of my background in exercise neuroscience and because I had no idea such a concept existed. I’ll be interested to read more about this in the future and look into it for our guys here.

Enjoy your weekend!

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To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

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