Tag: Maria Mountain

Perform Better Summit Recap

A couple weeks ago David Lasnier and I drove out to Chicago for Perform Better’s 3-Day Summit. We were both excited for the summit, but we were both equally as excited for the drive. I know some people loathe car rides (Emily averages about 3-6 minutes before she falls asleep…even when she’s driving), but we both love them. Aside from enjoying the luxurious comfort of my ’99 Saturn 4-door family sedan, it gives us an opportunity to talk shop, catch up about life, and finally settle the ongoing battle of who has the highest caffeine tolerance.

I win

A few of the highlights from the trip:

Talks

Naturally, it would be impossible for me to recount everything I learned from an event of this magnitude. Below are a few of the more “big picture” take homes:

Success Secrets from Mike Boyle
This was arguably the best talk of the event. As far as I know, this was the first time Boyle told his story publicly. Not exactly the “overnight success” that so many young coaches seem to be chasing (myself included at times!)

It’s not a goal until you write it down. Write down your goals, specifically, and great things will happen.
Your income is directly proportional to the number of people you help. Help more people achieve their goals, make more money.
“Most people give up right before the big break” Keep building positive habits and opportunities will come.
Anyone who is excellent in anything gets paid. “This is not about putting in your twenty and getting a pension. It’s about changing people’s lives and leaving a legacy.”
During the apprentice years, be prepared to work two jobs and volunteer. Not an easy time, but a great opportunity to develop a lot of experience and hone your coaching skills.
Pay it forward. Help as many people as you can. This just comes down to being a good person, but you never know how/when things will come back around for you.

Building Better Athletes from Robert Dos Remedios
First time I heard Coach Dos speak. Awesome presentation and great guy. Inspiration below:

“The harder you work, the harder it is to give up.”
Don’t allow athletes to bend over. “Don’t show the world you’re tired.”
“The will to win is nothing compared to the will to PREPARE”

Anatomy Trains in Training from Thomas Myers
This was the second time I got to see Myers speak in a 3-week time span. Major take homes:

All symptoms are patterns
10x as many nerves in fascia as muscles; fascia is an incredible sensory source
Experimentation becomes gesture. Gesture becomes habit. Habit becomes posture. Posture becomes structure.
Fascia transmits forces; idea of tensegrity.
Fascia is elastic and plastic, and typically gets injured as a result of moving too fast.
The entire concept of individual muscles is a result of scalpel-driven dissections. Idea that we have 600 muscles is not as accurate as us having 1 muscle in 600 fascial pockets
Concentrically loaded structures need manual work along fibers; eccentrically loaded structures need work across fibers.

Evolve or Die from Thomas Plummer
First time I’ve heard any of Plummer’s information. Calling him animated would be a drastic understatement.

This is the “results age”. People don’t want features; they want progress
People buy expertise, not motivation (we have energy drinks for that).
3,000-8,000 sq ft is an ideal facility space
“Up your presentation” If you want to have a premier facility, make it look that way.
Facilities should offer 5-6 price points for services scaling from basic to very in-depth.

Barefoot Training from Mark Verstegen
I’ve followed a lot of Mark’s work, but I had never heard him speak. Great presenter (as was the case with most of the presenters I saw).

Shoe-wearers demonstrate a progressive narrowing of the anterior portion of the foot and degradation of joint ROM
Idea is that modern “stability” shoes lead to decreased proprioceptive input to foot and lower body, which may lead to decreased arch and foot strength
30-75% of runners get injured every year. Knee is most common injury site.
Before ANYONE starts barefoot training, they need to demonstrate some basic level of overall fitness and have proper running mechanics
Barefoot training will not automatically correct poor movement patterns, but may help expose them.
Big take home concept from this presentation was that people shouldn’t blindly dive into switching all of their training over to barefoot or minimalist shoes. Like every aspect of performance training, precautions and progressions are of paramount importance.

The Compliance Solution from John Berardi
Dr. Berardi is another guy whose work I’ve studied for the last 5 years or so. His perspective was refreshing and dedication to continual improvement was inspiring.

Take responsibility for client’s results AND compliance
Talk to clients in a way that is more likely to make them change (don’t be an asshole; be inspirational)
Coach both sides of the brain (Left: Logical, analytical, scientific, etc.; Right: Emotional, artistic, questions reason, etc.)
Give 1 habit at a time; make them small, clear daily habits. Compliance drops from 85+% to <35% when moving from 1 to 2 habit assignments.
Ask “how confident are you that you can do this habit?” before letting them loose. If they know in advance they can’t do it, adjust to make it easier.

Social
With the caliber of speakers at this event, I knew I’d come away with a few new ideas on how to improve our programs at Endeavor. That said, I learned just as much outside of the presentations as I did in. David and I stayed with Kyle Bangen, the Head Strength and Conditioning Coach at Michigan Tech, so the three of us spent a lot of time together. On Friday, we grabbed lunch with Coach Boyle and got to catch up a bit about how things are going at BU and MBSC. What really stood out to me is how “famous” Boyle was at this event. It literally took us 30 minutes to walk a couple hundred yards from one end of the conference center to the other because so many people grabbed him along the way. Probably more notable was how genuinely happy Boyle was to see/meet each one of them. Boyle continues to have a huge influence on my career; he’s been a great mentor for me, both in terms of providing current insight into training methodologies and shaping my overall character. I hope to reach a point in my career when I can reminisce about my experiences working at the NHL (still holding out for the Flyers to call) and Olympic levels, and helping other strength coaches do the same.

Me and Coach Boyle in the back of Gray Cook’s talk

About an hour later, David and I were completely tanked and in desperate need of a coffee. Right at that time, Charlie Weingroff walked by with a not-so-inconspicuous ziploc bag full of Red Line, or as he calls it, “liquid courage”. David must have stopped at 4 7-11’s looking for Red Line on that trip with no luck. Charlie must “know a guy”.

Chris Poirier and the PB team hosted a social that night. I spent the majority of the time catching up with Darryl Nelson and Maria Mountain, and I got to meet fellow-hockey strength and conditioning coach Anthony Donskov. I told Chris later that it was cool that the event was so-well attended that we could have a mini hockey-specific mastermind there. It was interesting to learn that we all had very few differences philosophically. The major differences in execution came down to what we were able to implement logistically in our setting, which is what we spent the majority of the time talking about. If I had an opportunity to redesign our facility from scratch I would knock down a few walls to ensure complete visibility. A huge design mistake that is a constant consideration in how we design programs and structure the flow throughout the facility.

After the social we went back to our hotel…slash water park. A view from our room balcony:

Our hotel pool had a moat around it

The next day was awesome. David, Kyle, and I had another “hockey training meeting” at lunch with Maria Mountain and Anthony Donskov. I wish I would have recorded this lunch. A lot of great ideas thrown around from really bright people. Before the day wrapped up I got a chance to catch up a bit with John Berardi. I’ve been following John’s work for several years now, and still believe that his book Precision Nutrition is a must own for athletes and non-athletes alike. The results John showed from his online training clients were pretty remarkable, and as I mentioned above, his realization that a lack of information isn’t as much of a problem as us relying on a poor delivery vehicle for this information is dead on. We talked about the idea of putting together a “dripped” information system so that our athletes could receive nutritional habits based on their body composition goals to focus on every couple weeks with a few tips in between on how to implement or stay on track with the habit. Ultimately I think this is the direction we’ll go with our athletes; it’s just a matter of whether I’ll wait for him to design the product or if I’ll team up with someone to do it myself.

I don’t remember when, but at some point I caught up with Gray Cook and Brett Jones in the lobby. Both of these guys were awesome to talk to. Most of our hockey players have really jacked up feet, so I was looking for some insight from Brett on when he does and doesn’t recommend orthotics. We have an inordinate number of hockey players that present with flat feet and I’m not at all convinced that it’s a purely structural problem. I am, however, convinced that foot alignment and control is of paramount importance in human performance, even in hockey players. Ultimately I think I’ll end up paying Charlie to do an in service for our staff on the issue because he seems to have a better hold on it than anyone else I’ve talked to, but until then I’m still searching for answers elsewhere and Gray and Brett are as bright as they come.

Because we had a 14 hour drive home and we lost an hour with the time zone change, David and I decided we were going to leave first thing Sunday morning. And while I came for training information, I wasn’t going to leave Chicago without a slice of authentic deep dish pizza.

Most filling pizza ever

If you’ve been on the fence about attending one of the Perform Better Summits in the past, I highly encourage you to take the plunge next year. The presenters are world class, there is a lot of really bright attendees and they’re just generally fun. Hopefully I’ll see you there next year!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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Goalie-Specific Hockey Training

Every now and then I’ll get a question from a colleague about what goalie-specific training I’m doing. A more fundamental question is, “what, if any, special considerations does the goalie position warrant?”

This question spawns a continuum with two different extremes:

Extreme 1: Goalies do not need any specific work and should just do everything with their teammates
Extreme 2: Goalies need COMPLETELY specific work and shouldn’t train like players at all

As with all extreme arguments, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. If a hockey training program is well-designed, it will be geared toward improving fundamental aspects of athleticism such as:

Mobility of relevant joints as dictated by the “Joint by Joint Approach to Training“
Linear and transitional acceleration and speed
Vertical, horizontal and rotational power
Full body strength
Multi-directional core strength and endurance
Work capacity/conditioning

A birds eye view of this list demonstrates that all of these qualities apply to all positions in hockey. In other words, I think if you’re going to err toward one extreme, the “goalies should just do everything with their teammates” isn’t a bad option.

That said, goalies do warrant some special considerations that, when feasible, should be built into their programs.

Goalie-Specific Training
Instead of completely reinventing the wheel for goalie training programs, I think it’s a smarter idea to make adjustments to the team program to make a few things more goalie specific.

Hip Mobility
For starters, goalies depend on more hip mobility than players do. Hip range of motion is important for all hockey players, but is especially crucial for goalies. With that in mind, it’s worth taking goalies through a quick hip assessment (see Hip Assessment for Hockey Players for one example) to see what kind of structural deviations may limit their ROM. Goalies that present with CAM impingement are almost guaranteed labral surgeries unless the bony overgrowth is minor and caught early. Structural limitations may dictate the style of play as well (or at least the build of the pads). Butterfly goalies with extremely retroverted hips may have a hard time shutting down their five hole.

He needs a lot of hip internal rotation to close that gap

Speed Training
In general, the speed training we do for our goalies and that we do for our players is pretty similar. The primary difference is that our players will use crossover strides with an emphasis on a strong push-under, whereas our goalies will always open when changing direction. You could really make an argument for both sides (goalies don’t crossover in games, but the crossover pattern trains rapid internal rotation of the back side leg, which goalies do need).

Power Training
We make slight modifications to our power training to make the exercises a bit more goalie specific. With goalies, we progress them from lateral bounds to diagonal bounds in a postero-lateral direction. In other words, instead of jumping straight to the side, they’ll jump back and to the side. This forces them to open up their hips more and more closely resembles the motion they go through when moving from the top of the crease to either pole.

With med ball throws, we use most of the same patterns, will progress to a lighter implement with a greater focus on ball velocity. As with speed training, when we get into more dynamic movements leading into the throw, we’ll still favor lateral pushes instead of crossover patterns.

Strength Training
Our strength training is EXACTLY the same for players and goalies. The idea that goalies getting strong will limit their ability to move quickly is just as moronic as the idea that lifting extremely light weights for high reps will get you ripped/toned.

If more people lifted like football players and conditioned like hockey players, I don’t think we’d be hearing so much about the ~~I’m too apathetic to get my ass off the couch~~ obesity epidemic

The bottom line is that strength is the foundation for speed and power. If a goalie lacks the ABILITY to produce force, they CANNOT move more quickly. This isn’t an opinion. It’s physics.

As with players, strength training programs should emphasize, or at least incorporate, single-leg and dissociated upper body exercises. Exercises like reverse lunges, back leg raised split squats, alternate arm dumbbell chest press, standing 1-arm cable rows frequent our programs.

Conditioning
Conditioning for goalies needs to incorporate positional holds and predominately alactic/aerobic work, as the demand on the lactic system typically isn’t as high on goalies as it is in players, especially goalies of really good teams. That said, other than minimizing crossover transitions during shuttle runs, our goalies condition with our players. Conditioning builds camaraderie more than any other aspect of the training program, and the metabolic and body position demands of a goalie are more similar to a player than different. Because of the progression methods we use, our goalies are still able to develop all of the qualities they need to feel great going into the pre-season.

Goalie-Specific Exercises
I understand that a lot of hockey training situations are very different from the environment we have at Endeavor, and it’s helpful to have a list of exercises that they can perform with minimal equipment use. If you’re in this camp, check out the list of exercises below for some ideas on where to get started:

Hip Mobility Exercises
Lying knee to knee
Unilateral lying knee to knee (one at a time)
Lateral kneeling quadruped rock
Lateral Glute Rock
Diagonal Hip Rock -> Step
Rectus Femoris Mobilization

Hip Stability Exercises
Lateral MiniBand Walks
Backward MiniBand Monster Walks
Bowler Squats
Bowler Stiff-Legged Deadlifts
Single-Leg Half Squat w/ Opposite Leg Lateral Reach
Single-Leg Half Squat w/ Opposite Leg Rotational Reach (reach posterolateral with “up” leg, allowing external rotation on stance leg, think of pulling back to the starting position using stance leg, not momentum of up leg)

LB Power Exercises
Lateral Bound
Rotational Bound (same idea as lateral bound but the movement is posterolateral instead of lateral. Think top of crease driving to pole of net).
Shuffle-Bound (Shuffle once to the right or left and then bound in the same direction)
Walking Lunge Into Vertical Jump w/ 2 leg landing (Not goalie specific, but great for training decelerative ability and explosive LB power, especially for less advanced kids that may not be proficient in split squat jumps and other related movements)

Rotational Power Exercises
Side Standing Med Ball Scoops
Side Standing Med Ball Shotput
Forward Shuffle into Side Standing Med Ball Scoop or Shotput
Backward Shuffle into Side Standing Med Ball Scoop or Shotput

This is far from a comprehensive look at training ice hockey goalies, but it should shed some light on what qualities warrant special considerations in comparison to the programs of other players. If you’re looking for a more in-depth goalie training solution, I highly encourage you to check out Maria Mountain’s Ultimate Goalie Training 2.0. I’ve been following Maria’s work for several years and when it comes to training goalies, she’s the best there is. She’s having an “early bird” special on it until July 5th so if you’re on the fence, click the image below to check out more information on it before the price jumps.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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This Week at Hockey Strength and Conditioning

David and I made the trek out to Chicago (just a quick 14-hour road trip) for Perform Better today. This is the first full Perform Better Summit I’ve ever been to, so I’m really looking forward to hearing all the speakers. It’ll also be great to catch up with people like Mike Boyle, Darryl Nelson, Maria Mountain, Kyle Bangen, Josh Bonhotal, and Charlie Weingroff (among others). If you’re in the area, shoot me a quick note and we can meet up for a ~~beer~~ protein shake.

I hope you’ve appreciated the value in this week’s posts. Hip assessments are really of paramount importance for hockey players. This week we had a new player start with us from Northwood Prep that I had never met before. Within 15 minutes of meeting him I was able to establish that he had CAM impingement in his right hip (and likely a more mild case in his left hip), instruct him on what “full” range of motion was for him, what feelings to avoid, how to move, and a focused soft-tissue/long duration stretching/breathing program for him to ensure that his CAM impingement doesn’t progress to a same-side sports hernia like they frequently do. Catching this early is huge. This player is now in a better position to avoid surgery secondary to a sports hernia and/or labral tear, and has an understanding of his mechanics that will help delay the development of osteorarthritis in that hip (which almost always follows CAM impingement). If handled correctly, this means improved performance levels and a longer, healthier career.

Unfortunately, the majority of the older players we see have some sort of anatomical “abnormality” that warrants consideration in their training programs. This week’s posts shed light on some of the anatomical asymmetries that predispose athletes to certain, somewhat predictable injuries. If you missed them, I encourage you to check them out here:

We added a bunch of new content over at Hockey Strength and Conditioning this week.

Darryl Nelson added a video from USA Hockey’s American Development Model (ADM) conference a while back of him running a younger group of athletes through some off-ice training exercises that are more fun than regimented training in nature. The cool thing about the way Darryl runs this is that the kids probably don’t interpret it as a chore. It feels like playing to them, which is something a lot of kids miss out on the way that sports society has drifted over the last decade. For the youth programs that are looking to add an off-ice training component to their U-12 teams, this is a great place to start.

Check out the video here >> Off-Ice Games from Darryl Nelson

I posted the 2nd Phase of our 4-Day Off-Season Training Program at Endeavor Sports Performance. Many of our players will be entering this phase next week. This phase ramps up the amount of speed training work considerably, especially that geared toward improving transitional speed. We also increase the emphasis on conditioning. The resistance training aspect of the program is designed to improve maximal strength levels before we transition into more of a power-driven phase leading into pre-season camps.

Check out the program here >> 4-Day Off-Season Training Program: Phase 2 from me

Mike Potenza added a 4-day off-season training program with an emphasis on speed strength. This was cool to look through because there were a few things I was completely unfamiliar with, which will inevitably stimulate some good forum discussions in the near future. Mike writes his programs a little differently than I do in that he uses 3-week cycles instead of 4 and the speed, core, and conditioning work are pulled out. He has separate progressions for those things, so they aren’t included on his training sheets. Great learning opportunity for other hockey strength and conditioning coaches out there.

Check out the program here >> Speed Strength Phase of Training from Mike Potenza

Lastly, Cristi Landrigan, who is one of the most dedicated parents I’ve ever met, recently forwarded me a link to a great audio interview with Detroit Red Wings Head Coach Mike Babcock, which I added to our site. I think it’s a great opportunity for everyone in the hockey community to hear from the head coach of one of the top hockey organizations in the world and get an idea of his mentality. Despite all of his success, he’s still constantly looking for ways to improve as an individual and as a team. I think everyone would benefit from adopting that “never satisfied” mentality.

Listen to the interview here >> Mike Babcock Interview

As a parting message, I’ve talked with a handful of players that compete at the semi-pro level recently that strongly recommended that we make a stronger effort to let players at that level know about our site. Their feeling was that many players at those levels have trained in an organized hockey training setting before, but don’t have anyone to provide quality programs for them to use. Because we constantly post 4-day off-season programs and 2-day in-season programs throughout the year, a membership to our site would be a great option for players that would benefit from professional strength and conditioning instruction, but don’t have the resources (money, time, qualified professional) to hire someone locally. If you know of anyone currently playing at the OHL, ECHL, IHL, CHL, AHL, or any of the professional leagues overseas that you think would benefit from following a professionally designed hockey training program and from having forum access to high caliber coaches, please forward this along to them.

And if YOU aren’t a member yet, fork out the $1 to test drive Hockey Strength and Conditioning for a week. If it’s not the best buck you’ve ever spent , I’ll ~~have David Lasnier~~ personally refund you!

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

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Internet Hockey Training Experts

Last Friday David and I made a trip up to Ramsey, NJ and White Plains, NY to hang out with Perry Nickelston and Anthony Renna. Hanging out with those guys was awesome. I really click well with entrepreneurs and people that are passionate about what they do. This is true of people in any field/industry, but especially when it comes to sports medicine and athletic development.

And nothing lights my lamp more than getting free t-shirts

One of the things that came out of talking with both Perry and Anthony was the value of actual training experience. The internet has completely revolutionized the education process. Because of the ease of starting a blog, everyone can share current information about how they’re training their athletes/clients. I remember Mike Boyle saying several years ago that most books were outdated by the time you get them. This may be less true with anatomy texts, but with books on training philosophies and methods, the time necessary to finish writing, editing, and publishing a book will make at least a portion of the material obsolete by the time it hits the presses. In other words, many book authors won’t agree with what they wrote in the book by the time we read it. It’s interesting because books are, or were, thought of as the “holy grail” of educational resources. The internet has gone a long way in cutting down on the deleterious effects of long publishing processes and in providing the most current information possible. This is good.

Unfortunately, the internet also spawned a population of unscrupulous “marketers.” The good thing about the long book publishing process is that it filtered the content. It’s a lot harder to get a book on any topic published than it is to start a website about it. Over the last couple years, the amount of hockey training information online has exploded. Some of it is outstanding; some of it is downright dangerous. What most casual readers don’t realize is that some of the information they’re reading comes from:

People that don’t train anyone
People who built a website for the sole purpose of making money (note that these people also don’t train anyone)

A lot of people in the strength and conditioning industry get really bent out of shape at the idea of people writing about training if they don’t train. To be honest, if people are reading and summarizing current research, it doesn’t bother me that they don’t work with a large athlete base because they’re writing can often introduce studies that I’m not familiar with, which leads me to seeking them out to read them myself.

There are “theorists” in every field. I remember reading Stephen Hawking’s book “Black Holes and Baby Universes and Other Essays” several years ago and being amazed that he essentially outlined a mechanism for time travel. Of course, Hawking is known for being a profoundly intelligent mind in the field of THEORETICAL physics. Nobody actually thinks he’s traveling through time, nor would he ever represent himself as doing so.

One of the greatest minds in the history of the world

In contrast, many online crowds misrepresent themselves as working with vague, but insinuatingly large numbers of athletes. This misrepresentation is what I have a problem with. If you don’t train anyone, call yourself a theorist. If you only train one team, that you also coach, say that. If you’re training a few people, but helping out as an intern with other more advanced programs, say that. There’s no shame in developing as a professional and ramping up your business. I think most people avoid this because they’re either:

Young and want to people to acknowledge their information as legitimate
Selling something and want to be perceived as an expert

Obviously there are some similarities between these two, but in my view the latter is more repugnant than the former. Maybe I’m sympathetic because I started my website while I was still in grad school, but I look at writing online similar to anything else-it’s going to take time and practice to get good at it. Students that know they’re going to make a living training people wanting to start a site early in their careers just doesn’t bother me as much because their intentions are pure.

That said, I’d be interested to buy every hockey product online and then travel around the world to all of the author’s locations and see what they do on a day-to-day basis. I’d guess that many train people for less than 5 hours per week and that many have a background in playing hockey, but not in training players. This is BY FAR the biggest myth in all of hockey development:

**Playing high level hockey does not qualify someone as a training expert!**

Hell, playing high level hockey doesn’t even mean a player can TEACH the basics of hockey. All it means is that they were a good player. Not every good player is a good hockey coach; coaching takes special skill sets. Training is in a different universe altogether. There are BRILLIANT hockey strength and conditioning coaches that have never played a competitive game of hockey in their lives. This isn’t a knock on them at all. Having a profound knowledge of how the body functions doesn’t require playing the game, just understanding it.

Think of it like this-would you not trust a physical therapist because they’ve never played hockey? Would you not trust a hip surgeon JUST because they didn’t play?

WAIT! Before you saw off part of my femoral head…did you even play hockey??

Obviously not! These professionals make a living on their understanding of the body and perfecting their trade. Playing hockey will help strength and conditioning coaches understand the language and a bit more about the mentality of the players, but that’s it. It doesn’t in any way qualify someone without an educational background or coaching experience as an expert.

Hockey Playing Expert

Hockey Training Expert

When I see a new training product and the author’s biggest claim is that they played good hockey themselves, a red flag goes up.

Where you can find REAL hockey training experts

This is one of the reasons I have so much respect for my partners at HockeySC.com (Sean Skahan, Mike Potenza, and Darryl Nelson) and for my friend Maria Mountain; they ACTUALLY train real, live hockey players as their full time job, and the things they write about online, they actually do in real life! THESE are the people you should be getting your information from!

On a related note, I’ll conclude this long-winded rant by saying if you’re ever in the Philadelphia area and want to swing by Endeavor Sports Performance to see our facility and how we train our athletes, you’re more than welcome. I’ve always had an open door policy, and I think it’s good for people that have encountered some of my stuff on the internet to see that we’re actually implementing the same strategies I write about into our training systems, on a daily basis.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

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This Week at Hockey Strength and Conditioning

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, there are people on both extremes. Some say you must stretch; others say it’s a complete waste of time (this comes as a surprise to most people in the hockey world). Much of the discrepancy lies in what people are thinking of when they hear “stretching” and when various stretching strategies are used. Sean does a great job of describing different kinds of stretching and if/when they’re appropriate to use.

Check it out >> Reap the Benefits of Proper Stretching

Darryl Nelson, the Strength and Conditioning Coach for the U.S. National Team Development Program, posted an off-season hockey training program. With the off-season rapidly approaching for most youth programs, I thought this was a timely addition. As I’ve mentioned in the past, there is a ton of value to be gained from seeing how other coaches design programs. In most cases, it’s not appropriate to take the program and use it “as is”, but you can pull ideas about exercise selection, order, and pairing, and other program design strategies from seeing how successful experienced coaches design theirs.

Hockey Training Program Here >> Off-Season Strength Training Program

My friend Maria Mountain has been a welcomed member to the Hockey Strength and Conditioning community. This week she posted an article entitled Top 5 Take Homes from my Weekend with Dr. Stuart McGill that I think anyone working with hockey players should take a few minutes to read. In the article, Maria describes several big-picture messages she gathered from Stuart McGill, one of the world’s leading researchers on low back injuries. As these are injuries that effect an overwhelming majority of both the hockey and general populations, it’s imperative that we do everything we can do understand how to avoid them. Maria’s article will get you started on that path.

Check it out >> Top 5 Take Homes from my Weekend with Dr. Stuart McGill

If you aren’t a member, go check out what you’ve been missing by clicking the link below. If you are a member, go check out all the content I mentioned above and hop on the forums to comment on the threads!

Click Here for the best in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

To your continued success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Remember, it’s only $1 to try HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com for the first week. You will never find more hockey training content anywhere for $1, and it’s only getting better. I’ll throw in a bonus offer-Register for $1 so you can check out all the content, and I’ll buy you a coffee (or protein shake?) the next time I see you. Can’t beat that!

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