Tag: mike potenza

This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

I hope you had a great week. We’ve had a good week at Endeavor. We’re wrapping up our in-season training for the youth program we work with. They’ve done a great job this year. One of our ’96s just committed to Penn State, and one of our U-18s has offers on the table from Yale and Princeton (not bad schools to choose from). I’m really proud of how hard these players (and their teammates) have worked this year and am happy to see that I’m not the only one noticing! I’m looking forward to watching some of the older teams compete in the playoffs over the next few weeks.

It’s been two weeks since my last hockey strength and conditioning update. In that time, I’ve added a ton of hockey training content that you’ll want to check out. Last week, I posted three videos on speed training for hockey, hockey conditioning, and designing comprehensive off-ice training programs. You can check those out here:

  1. Ultimate Hockey Training: Transitional Speed Training
  2. Ultimate Hockey Training: Hockey Conditioning
  3. Ultimate Hockey Training: Comprehensive Off-Ice Training

This week, I added two new articles, one on an incredibly important concept related to human (and therefore hockey) performance that is often only glossed over, if mentioned at all, in academic programs. I also added an article dissecting the “nature vs nurture” debate of athletic excellence. Check them out at the links below:

  1. Understanding Regional Interdependence
  2. Athletic Excellence: Nature vs Nurture

We’ve also added some great stuff at HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com over the last two weeks.

Darryl Nelson added a new youth hockey training program geared toward improving conditioning or what others may refer to as “work capacity”. These youth training features are meant to provide those in the trenches training youth hockey programs without much equipment some new ideas on things they can implement. Darryl’s players are holding light weight plates, but if you don’t have access to weights you can really use anything (water jug, puck bag, etc.). This circuit looks pretty brutal!

Watch the video here >> Metabolic Circuit #2

Mike Potenza added a pre-camp off-season work capacity program, which is similar on concept to what Darryl posted in his video. Mike’s program is really insightful because it shows how he structures the training week (not every day is a grind), and he provides some extra examples of work capacity circuits that players can use. Because Mike’s players, in general, have a relatively strong training background, he’s built quite a bit of diversity/variety into these circuits, attacking the same physical quality(or qualities) through different means.

Get the program here >> Off-Season Pre-Camp Work Capacity Circuits

Eric Renaghan, who I had the pleasure of meeting when I was out in San Jose last Fall, is Mike Potenza’s assistant with the Sharks this year. Eric is a really bright guy that has a unique combination of insight stemming from his experience as an elite soccer player, strength and conditioning coach, and manual therapist. He put together an interesting article on breaking the cycle of repeat groin strains. His thoughts are very much in-line with what I’ve been preaching for the last few years. An adductor (or “groin”) strain is a SYMPTOM of a larger problem. Avoiding these injuries certainly requires some soft-tissue work to the adductors themselves, but the most causative factors likely lie elsewhere, which is what Eric discusses in this article.

Read the article here >> Help…I’ve strained my groin, again

We also added a new “poll” feature. Log in to the site today to weigh in on what you think needs to be addressed most regarding the current concussion epidemic! This is a very controversial topic, so we’d love to have your opinion. This should spark some great conversations on the forum.

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

This has been a groundbreaking week here at KevinNeeld.com, and it’s all thanks to you! The site reached a personal traffic best with 15,767 visitors over the last 30 days. Not bad for a hockey training site, and it’s all because many of you have been forwarding along posts that you like through facebook, twitter, email, etc. I really appreciate your help in spreading the word!

Another reason for the recent boost in traffic is because of how well-received these two hockey development posts were. If you haven’t had an opportunity to read them yet, check them out at the links below:

  1. A Letter to Parents of Undersized Players
  2. Hockey Development: The Catapult or the Wall?

As a quick reminder, if you haven’t joined my Hockey Training group on Linked In, please do so now! It’s completely free, and we get to talk about anything hockey related you want. I recently posted a poll about how to deal with the NHL concussion issue that I’d love to have you weigh in on. Check it out here: Hockey Training LinkedIn Group

We also had a few great additions at HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com. If you haven’t already, be sure to check these out.

Mike Potenza kicked things off with an interesting video featuring a piece of equipment I have never seen before. I really liked the control it helped provide during the 1-leg squat Mike demoed in the video. Hopefully I’ll get an opportunity to play around with one soon as I’m sure there is a lot more that you can do with it.

Watch the video here >> Pilates Bench-Assisted 1-Leg Squat from Mike Potenza

Sean Skahan added the final phase of his off-season training program. This was the program he used when all of the Ducks were back in town for pre-season, and the volume of on-ice work and bike conditioning was a little higher.

Check out the program here >> Summer 2011 Phase 5 Training Program from Sean Skahan

Finally, Anthony Donskov added a great video on stress management as it pertains to training program design. Anthony is a bright guy and an energetic coach. I’ve been fortunate to have spent some time with him at the Perform Better Summit in Chicago last Summer and at a few of the USA Women’s National Team camps that we’ve worked at. This is a great video because it underlines all the variables that can be manipulated in a training program, some of which are more readily apparent than others.

Watch the video here >> Managing Stress from Anthony Donskov

Lastly, make sure you check out the forum, as there are a couple great discussions. After you log-in, look for these threads:

  1. Controlling our Food
  2. Youth Hockey Practice Times
  3. Competition Hydration
  4. Flyers PreSeason Testing

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

This was an exciting week. On Wednesday, I had my first “hands-on” day in massage school. It was pretty basic work, but it was good that they put us right into it. I’m really looking forward to the experience, as I think becoming proficient in different manual therapies will help us trouble shoot a lot of the movement impairments we see in our more elite players. Typically we have to refer out for these, and simply hope that the players will take the initiative to go get the work done. In the near future, we’ll be able to handle it all in-house.

We also got our first shipment in of our men’s high performance shirts for our new apparel line. I haven’t spoken much about this because the overwhelming majority of the work has been planning and we haven’t had anything tangible to show for it until recently. The shirts came out perfectly, and they have performance qualities that can’t be matched by any other apparel line out there. More on this in the near future.

Lots of exciting things coming in the near future from Endeavor

This week I added two new articles that I think are geared a little more toward the hockey player, parent, and coach populations more so than the hockey training crowd. I recognize that some of my articles can get pretty scientific and might be over the head of the average hockey enthusiast. These posts are simple, yet very powerful. If you haven’t already, please give them a read and forward them along to anyone you think would benefit from reading them as well.

  1. 3 Tips for High Performance Hockey Players
  2. Will Playing More Hockey Make You Better?

We had a few great additions to HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com this week too.

Mike Potenza kicked things off with a new article on building leg strength in youth goaltenders. Don’t let the title fool you, this is outstanding information for hockey players at any position. Mike presents a strong rationale for why this type of training is important, and then presents a detailed exercise progression, with a ton of pictures and exercise descriptions. The article concludes with a 4-phase training program utilizing the exercises presented in the article. This is a great article for youth players, parents, and coaches to read and begin implementing immediately.

Read the article here >> Establishing a Foundation: Leg Strength for Young Goaltenders from Mike Potenza

Darryl Nelson added a video of a couple single-leg Olympic lift variations that he includes in his programs at the US NTDP. I’ve never used these in our programs, but I liked the way they looked in the video. I’ll likely start playing around with these myself and they may make their way into our off-season hockey programs this year.

Check out the videos here >> Single Leg Olympic Lifting from Darryl Nelson

David Lasnier wrote an outstanding article on integrating frontal plane movements into hockey training programs. David has been on a tear recently. He’s had a few incredible posts on his site DavidLasnier.com, has a couple articles in the pipeline that I’ve had an opportunity to read in advance, and this article is really well done. He presents the rationale for why frontal plane exercises are important for hockey players, and discusses specific exercises (using videos to demonstrate proper technique) to improve strength and power in this plane. Many of these exercises can also be used for work capacity or conditioning purposes as well. Great read for everyone in hockey (players, parents, coaches, sports med professionals, etc.).

Finally, there have been some great discussions on the forum that are worth joining. When you sign in, check out these forum threads:

  1. Conditioning Tools
  2. Controlling our Food
  3. Low Back Pain/Tightness with Female Athletes
  4. On-Ice Testing

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

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:

  1. Hockey Training Interview
  2. Predicting Long-Term Athletic Success
  3. Hockey Conditioning: Understanding Fatigue
  4. Hockey Conditioning: Combating Fatigue
  5. 2011 in Review
  6. 2012 Sports Rehab to Sports Performance Teleseminar
  7. Top Athletic Development Posts of 2011
  8. Top Hockey Training Posts of 2011
  9. UCAN Perform, Look, and Feel Better!
  10. Performance Training: Adaptations for Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI)

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

  1. Youth Hockey Training Blueprint: Part 3 from me
  2. AC Joint Injuries in Hockey from Anthony Donskov
  3. Using Kettlebells in Professional Hockey from Sean Skahan

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

  1. TRX Core Exercises from Mike Potenza
  2. 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

  1. Off-Season 2011 Phase 4 Strength Training from Sean Skahan
  2. Return From Holiday Break from Darryl Nelson
  3. 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!

This Week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning

Closing out another busy week. With Christmas a week away, I’ll likely spend the majority of the weekend scrambling around the stores with the rest of the procrastinators. I’m hoping to squeeze in a hockey game Saturday night as one of the teams I train is playing at home.

It’s been a good, but quite different week in Hockey Strength and Conditioning. Check out what you’ve been missing!

I posted two new articles on my site this week. In you haven’t already, you can read them at the links below:

  1. Is Repeat Sprinting an Aerobic Activity?
  2. Concussions in the NHL

Because of the big name players that are currently sidelined with concussions or “concussion-like symptoms”, there have been a lot of opinions tossed around recently on what the problem is and what needs to be done. In all honesty, I don’t think there is a correct and immediate fix to the problem, but I do hope that the attention helps shed like on the multi-factorial nature of these injuries. Concussion-like symptoms as a diagnosis doesn’t sit well with me. By definition, concussions are a traumatic brain injury. The associated symptoms can stem from several very different causes, and simply labeling something as “concussion-like symptoms” seems overly convenient and borderline irresponsible. Concussion-like symptoms is the new “patellofemoral pain” or “shoulder impingement” diagnosis.

As with ANY injury, it’s important to understand the CAUSE of the injury to drive a proper rehabilitation process. More proper diagnosis should reflect the underlying cause. I suspect there are more ocular dyskinesis cases than are being recognized. This, and a couple other underlying mechanisms that may drive what is being referred to as concussion-like symptoms were discussed in my article Concussions in the NHL. It’s an important issue, so I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on it too!

This was a special week at HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com. For starters, we added a bunch of great content, including:

  1. 2-Day In-Season Training Program: Phase 3 from me
  2. 1-Arm Kettlebell Press Progression Videos from Sean Skahan
  3. In-Season Training Program: Rate of Force Development Focus from Mike Potenza
  4. The Joseph Pilates Method: “Contrology” from Eric Renaghan
  5. How Diet Soda Causes Weight Gain Video

The weight gain video was really interesting. It presents food choices in a relatively new light, and explains how this affects health and performance in laymen terms. Maybe most importantly, it also identifies how zero calorie beverages can induce weight gain and compromise other components of health. Good stuff.

The real highlight of this week is the release of the FIRST EVER Hockey Strength Podcast! We’ve talked about this for a while and I’m excited it’s finally underway. The podcast is completely free to listen to and will feature an interview with a different hockey strength and conditioning coach. This podcast features a great interview with Mike Potenza. Head over to the site and give it a listen, and please help spread the word about the podcast!

Listen here >> The Hockey Strength Podcast

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!