Tag: mike potenza

This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

I hope you had a great week. It was a busy one for us at Endeavor. David and I spent the week coaching from around 8am through 9pm. Long days, but it’s been great having so many of our off-season hockey players come back from their junior and college teams. It’s funny to hear comments like “this is the best part of playing hockey”. I’m proud that we’ve been able to create an environment where players can train hard, develop, and consider the process as much fun as playing itself.

With that in mind, over the last week I’ve written a couple important posts on long-term hockey development and on a few powerful tips to improve the most important skill in hockey. If you missed them, check them out at the links below:

  1. Understanding USA Hockey’s ADM
  2. 3 Keys to Developing Optimal Skating Technique

We’ve added some great stuff at Hockey Strength and Conditioning over the last week as well.

Darryl Nelson kicked things off with a video of one of his ’94s doing loaded jump squats. There’s a lot of weight on the bar for this exercise!

Check out the video here >> Jump Squats from Darryl Nelson

Mike Potenza followed up with an outstanding article on new technology to help facilitate regeneration. This is one I’m going to refer back to frequently, as there is a lot of great information on new products that you’ve probably never heard of before. This is a must-read if you compete at an elite level or work with high level players.

Check out the article here >> What’s New in Regeneration Training? from Mike Potenza

I added the first phase of our 2012 “Early Off-Season” training program, which is heavy on mobility and corrective work, and includes a 5th day of conditioning. This is one of the first times I’ve really incorporated a lot of work from the Postural Restoration Institute in a group setting, and our players have really taken to it (or at least…accepted it).

Check out the program here >> 2012 Early Off-Season 4-Day Training Program: Phase 1

Lastly, I added the second half of my article on the process of moving an “old school” hockey program into a more current approach of functional training. This article series highlights a progression for suggesting changes to specific physical qualities and specific language to help strength and conditioning coaches explain the benefits of various components of their program to hockey coaches that may not have the same background in exercise science. The first part of this series was really well-received so I think you’ll enjoy phase two here.

Check out the article here >> Training Overhaul: Making the Transition from Old School to Current Principles without Pissing off the Coach! (Part 2)

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

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This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

What a week! This week we kicked off our off-season training for some of the Team Comcast youth hockey organization at our mini-facility in their rink in Pennsauken and we had several more players trickle back in to Endeavor to start preparing for next year. On top of that, yesterday I threw the gear on for the first time in too long and skated with David Lasnier a few of the junior players that we train. It felt good to get back out there!

It’s been a while since my last Hockey Strength and Conditioning Update, so hopefully you’ve been keeping up with everything. Over the last couple weeks, I’ve added an article series and several other articles pertaining to off-ice hockey training and hockey nutrition. If you missed them, check out them out at the links below:

  1. Youth Hockey Training Blueprint: Part 1
  2. Youth Hockey Training Blueprint: Part 2
  3. Youth Hockey Training Blueprint: Part 3
  4. Unconventional Approaches to First Step Quickness
  5. A 4-Step Plan for Off-Season Weight Gain
  6. Hockey Nutrition: Grocery Shopping

In the future, I plan on writing more on hockey-specific skills and what structural or functional limitations may prevent a player (or goalie) from expressing/fulfilling their full potential. If you have any areas you’d like me to cover specifically, please let me know in the comments section below.

Hockey Strength and Conditioning has been busy over the last few weeks as well. Check out what you’ve been missing:

Programs

  1. 2011-2012 Core/Hip Program: Phase 1 from Sean Skahan
  2. 4-Day Off-Season Program from Darryl Nelson
  3. Slideboard Training Ideas from Mike Potenza

Great stuff all around from these guys. I was interested to see that Potenza programs his slideboard intervals by touches instead of time, and alters the board length to achieve a different training effect, two things that I haven’t done much of at Endeavor. It’s always good to get a fresh perspective on things.

Videos

  1. 8-Second Stiffness Jumps from Mike Potenza
  2. Seated T-Spine Extension from Sean Skahan

Mike’s video is a great follow-up to an article on the benefits of stiffness that his assistant Eric wrote for the site a couple weeks ago. Sean provides a great t-spine mobility exercises, which is a restriction we see in the majority of our players.

Articles

  1. Should We Strengthen Our Toe Flexors from Sean Skahan
  2. Sport-Specific Leg Press from Darryl Nelson and Carrie Keil

Sean does a great job of explaining his rationale for training a largely overlooked muscle group. Although it’s been for different reasons, I’ve been asking similar questions as I’ve noticed that some of our players tend to lose big toe contact/pressure with certain movements. Quick Side Note: We have our players do a number of lifts without shoes on, and this is one of the reasons why. It allows us to get a better idea of how they load through their ankles and feet and how their ground-based compensations may be feeding other things we see higher up in the chain. Darryl and Carrie explain how and why they use a piece of equipment for “on-ice resistance training”. I’ve been aware of this piece for a while, but haven’t used it because of the setting I’m in. After watching the videos I’m extremely interested.

Podcast

  1. Hockey Strength Podcast with Sean Skahan

The podcast is quickly becoming one of my favorite features of the Hockey Strength and Conditioning community. If you haven’t been listening to these, definitely check them out!

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

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This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

It’s been a wild ride over the last week. Last Thursday I flew into Boston and spent a few days at a seminar with my friend Devan McConnell, and the guys at Northeastern. Sunday, when the seminar wrapped up, I immediately got a rental car and drove to Lake Placid to join the US Women’s National Team for the tail end of the Pre-World’s Camp, and yesterday we all relocated to Burlington, VT. It’s been a great experience so far, although I had to step up to film a scrimmage against Finland, so I’m a little worried about the quality of that as a resource for breaking down footage (“Why hasn’t the camera moved in the last 5 minutes?”).

Needless to say, I’ve been pretty busy and apologize for not putting up much in the way of new content over the last couple of weeks. I’m hoping to get back on track in the coming weeks, but in the meantime, check out some of the great stuff that we’ve been adding at Hockey Strength and Conditioning recently. Before we get to that, have you listened to these three interviews?

  1. Hockey Training Radio Week: Part 1
  2. Hockey Training Radio Week: Part 1
  3. Hockey Training Radio Week: Part 1

Also, if you’re a member of my “Ultimate Hockey Training Insider Section”, I added three new programs a few days ago: Early Off-Season 2-3 Day/Week Phase 1, Early Off-Season 5-Day/Week Phase 1 & 2 so make sure you check those out! The Insider section is available exclusively for those that have purchased Ultimate Hockey Training so check it out if you haven’t already!

Over the last couple weeks, there have been several great additions to the site. Check out everything via the links below:

Programs

  1. 4-Day Off-Season Conditioning from Mike Potenza
  2. Level 1 Training Program: Phase 1 from me

This is a 12-week 4-day/week conditioning progression from Mike, and what we’ve used at Endeavor as a basic introductory training program for athletes that are joining us for the first time. Our “Level 1” programs are very heavy on the basics. The goal is always to teach and reinforce proper movement and exercise technique, to build a large foundation to build from in the future.

Videos

  1. Ball Squeezes from Sean Skahan
  2. Stagger Stance Lateral Squat from Darryl Nelson

Sean posted two exercises that he uses in players returning from groin injuries and as part of his programs in the interest of minimizing groin injury risk. We’ve used these and several other similar variations for the same purpose. Great stuff. Darryl’s video shows a variation to the lateral squat that I’ve never seen before. This looks like a great option for helping the athlete to find the locked out back leg that we want. I’m definitely going to play with this one over the next few weeks.

Articles

  1. Goaltender Specific Strength and Conditioning from Darryl Nelson
  2. Stiffness Isn’t Always Bad from Eric Renaghan
  3. Training Overhaul: Making the Transition from Old School to Current Principles without Pissing off the Coach! (Part 1) from me

Darryl and Eric’s articles both address common “dogma” areas of hockey training. Darryl outlines the physical qualities that goalies need to be successful and addresses how he incorporates goaltender training into the overall team program. While we do things moderately different at Endeavor, our philosophies are extremely similar. The circus acts that are performed in the interest of making training goaltender-specific is laughable. They still need to be strong, powerful, and well-conditioned. Eric highlights that stiffness isn’t always a bad thing (in fact, it’s often a desirable thing!) and suggests a few exercises to improve stiffness strategically.

Finally, I realize how difficult it can be to bring a lot of new ideas to a coach or training program that may have, well, aged roots. Transitioning an old school program to one with more current concepts isn’t easy, and a lot of your success will depend on both the openness of the program to change AND how you sell it. In my article, I’ve presented a progression for implementing new concepts for specific physical qualities and some of the language I’ve used to explain why a change may be necessary to the coach. Being able to speak the same language as the coaches is important in allowing them to understand the benefits of the program. For example, coaches may not care about thoracic mobility, but they will likely understand harder shots. Is the correlation 100% direct? Obviously not, but framing it in a way that helps them understand why something is important may gain you the green light you need.

Podcast

  1. Hockey Strength Podcast with Dan Boothby

Dan Boothby, who works with Northeastern’s hockey team, hops on the Hockey Strength Podcast to discuss the upcoming Boston Sports Medicine and Performance Group Summer Seminar in May. This seminar features a hockey-specific track with a number of incredible speakers, including Sean Skahan. I haven’t missed this one in the 3 years it’s been up and running and it’s the first one I put on my calendar every year. If you train hockey players, I STRONGLY encourage you to go this year. Check out this link for more info: BSMPG

If you haven’t heard already, the membership cost at HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com jumps up to $14.95 on April 9th, but if you sign up for a membership today you can lock in the rate of $9.95/month for life!

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!

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!

  1. Transitional Speed Training for Hockey
  2. Hockey Conditioning
  3. Off-Ice Hockey Training Program Design
  4. The Truth About Concussion-Like Symptoms

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:

  1. The Truth About Concussion-Like Symptoms
  2. The Truth About Concussion-Like Symptoms: Part 2

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

I hope you had a great week. This has been a really exciting week for me personally. If you follow me on Twitter and/or read this site regularly, you may have noticed that I frequently allude to the fact that there is a lot more to the concussion story than is being recognized. At the beginning of last week, I got the idea of putting together a presentation on the topic, which I had an opportunity to record a few days back. Other than my garbage mic making me sound like a pre-pubescent boy, it came out pretty well. Look for that early next week.

Yesterday I got an email from an old teammate of mine saying he was flipping through a Men’s Fitness while waiting for a haircut and saw a hockey training piece that I wrote. I didn’t even know it was printed! Pick up a copy of the April issue of Men’s Health (see pg 104).

Finally, early in the week I was asked to contribute to a chapter in the new Men’s Health Book of Abs. I’m sincerely humbled to have an opportunity to work on this project and am really looking forward to seeing the finished product. I’ll keep you in the loop as it nears completion.

Just as a final reminder, today is the LAST DAY to test run the Elite Training Mentorship for $1. As I’ve said over the last couple of weeks, to have an opportunity to learn from Eric Cressey, Mike Robertson, BJ Gaddour, and Dave Schmitz for a buck is a no-brainer. Eric and Mike are two guys I’ve regularly looked to for great training information over the last 5 years. I still bounce ideas off Eric on a regular basis. I’m really happy these guys are doing this. Any way their information can reach more people is a positive in my book. Check out this link for more information: Elite Training Mentorship

On to this week’s hockey training updates…

If you haven’t already, check out these posts from the last two weeks:

  1. Athletic Development Things You Should Read
  2. Elite Training Mentorship
  3. Metabolic Training (Free Video!)
  4. Dissecting Muscle Function: Force Production
  5. Dissecting Muscle Function: Influence

We’ve been busy at Hockey Strength and Conditioning over the last two weeks.

To kick things off, I added our final youth program of the year. The focus of this program changes somewhat drastically toward more mobility and regeneration work in the interest of recovery. The goal is to taper and generally unload the body so that the kids can hit the playoffs full steam ahead. Now is not the time to push off the ice; it’s more a time to showcase the hard work the players have been putting in over the season.

Get the program here >> 2-Day In-Season Training Program: Phase 5

Darryl Nelson added a video of what I would classify as a low load high velocity power exercise. These types of exercises have a lot of carryover to different components of hockey, but I generally frame it within the context of shooting. High speed hip rotation and core transfer are two keys to shooting power.

Watch the video here >> Medicine Ball Baseball Pitcher

Anthony Donskov wrote a terrific piece on the state of youth hockey. This is a message that I don’t think can be shouted too frequently. Things are NOT okay in youth sports, and youth hockey has been one of the front-runners in leading the craziness. I’m proud of USA Hockey for stepping up and taking serious action to help right the ship with their new ADM model. Ultimately, though, it’s up to us-coaches, parents, educators, etc. to adopt what they’ve put forth. Anthony’s article is filled with a lot of simple facts about the odds of a youth player reaching the pro ranks, and has guidelines for 60-minute practice that maximize development and fun. This is a MUST READ!

Read the article here >> Adult Values + Child Activities = Burnout

Mike Potenza added a video with two interesting exercises. Both strike me as great ways to train and/or test (or “audit”) multi-segmental stability. I’m looking forward to playing around with these over the next couple weeks and potentially mixing them in to future programs.

Watch the video here >> Leaning Tower

Sean Skahan wrapped things up with an All-Star Break Program. This is a great program for those in youth hockey to look at, not to simply steal it and use it as is, but because the program is built around body weight exercises. The only pieces of equipment this player had was a foam roller and stability ball. In all of the years I’ve worked training youth teams, I’ve only had any appreciable equipment for this past season. It’s important that these players to learn how to move properly and to get a training effect, both of which can be accomplished with relatively basic body weight exercises if they’re programmed and coached well. Sean’s program is a good template for that.

Get the program here >> All-Star Break Program

Don’t forget to log-in and check out the forum as well. Check out these discussions:

  1. Flexibility Help
  2. Post Game Snack Variety
  3. NHL Concussions
  4. United States Anti-Doping Agency
  5. Hockey Skill Warm-Up Drills
  6. Planning and Periodization for Playoffs

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. I have lots of great stuff coming your way next week, so make sure you check back. In the mean time, test drive the Elite Training Mentorship and let me know what you think!

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