Tag: off-season hockey

Off-Season Hockey Training

If you missed, Monday’s post, check it out before reading this one.

The idea that being on the ice year-round could actually impair your development shocks a lot of people. For whatever reason, it’s been DRILLED into our minds that we need to skate, hard, year-round. This mentality has really exploded over the last 10-15 years. It’s no coincidence that we hip flexor and adductor (“groin”) strains, and sports hernias are at an all-time high now at the more elite levels of hockey.

Let me clear things up about what hockey players should be doing in their off-season to maximize their development.

Should Hockey Players Skate in the Off-Season?

Many hockey players make the fatal mistake of spending the entire off-season on the ice. Most players are on the ice for 4+ hours per week during the increasingly long season. It is ABSOLUTELY crucial that they start their off-season by taking a break and doing some things to reverse the physical adaptations that result from so much skating (e.g. foam rolling and stretching the glutes and hip flexors). After a month or so of NO ice time, players can skate within this context:

1) Power Skating Instruction: Avoid the coaches that just run you through drills and watch. Find a coach that will actually teach you technique and actively help you improve your mechanics. There should also be a focus on edge control, not just overspeed work.

2) Skill Instruction: While I don’t think it’s completely necessary to be on the ice to do this, many players can make huge improvements in their hands in an off-season by spending some time practicing handling a puck on all sides of their body and with specific footwork/bursts of speed (which is why skating instruction is so crucial!).

3) Specific Summer Leagues: Many players feel stale if they don’t play some sort of game for 6 months. If you can find a decent league (competition equal to or better than what you’re used to) that plays a 6-10 game schedule toward the end of the Summer, then hop right in. Playing in a showcase tournament or two throughout the Summer isn’t going to kill you, but you should not be playing tournaments ALL off-season!

The mistake players (and parents) make is that they finish their season, then immediately register for spring and summer league and as many clinics as they can. It’s too much. Think QUALITY here, not quantity.

The adverse effects of this are becoming increasingly clear: As the year-round hockey craze infects younger players, we see high level hockey injuries spreading to all age levels. There is NO reason why peewees and bantams should have chronic groin and hip flexor pain! I’m not preaching here. I made all the mistakes myself, and I have the double hernia surgery and inevitable hip arthritis to prove it!

Off-Season Training

Following a structured, well-designed training program during the off-season can completely transform a player’s career, especially at the youth levels. There is a critical time period during development when the body is highly “malleable”. If you create the right training stimulus, your body is primed for a long career of explosive movement. Unfortunately, creating the wrong training stimulus will prime your body to stay slow and weak.

A good off-season hockey training program serves three major purposes:

1) Improve performance
2) Decrease injury risk
3) Improve stress handling capacity

Players should leave the Summer faster, stronger, and better conditioned than they’ve ever been in the past and eager to get on the ice. THAT is how every player should enter the season!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld

P.S. Last week I was fortunate to speak with Jim Snider, the Wisconsin Hockey Strength and Conditioning Coach, for a few minutes. To my surprise, he mentioned he’s been using a lot of the hip mobility drills in my Off-Ice Performance Training Course! He mentioned, and I agree, that hockey players should use those specific exercises to help maintain the range of motion around their hips they need to be successful on the ice and to decrease their injury risk. If you haven’t yet, check it out now!

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Improving Your Hamstring Flexibility

Yesterday Karl (our first intern at Endeavor Fitness) and I went through the Functional Movement Screen together.

I’m proud to say, as the mentor, that I came out victorious with a score of 18 (over his measly 17!).

He “lost” because his hamstring extensibility (or flexibility) was terrible. While most of our athletes have decent hamstring extensibility we do have a few that are pretty locked up.

With Karl, and some of our athletes, I’ll have them do this quick stretching activity to improve hamstring extensibility. When someone is available, we’ll usually do this with a partner, which allows “on the fly” adjustments to leg positioning, but often times I want our athletes to do this at home, using a wall as their partner.

Please ignore the music in the background!

The protocol is:

1) Set up with one leg raised in a “hamstring stretch” position with your knees of both legs fully extended and the toes of both legs pulled toward your shins. In this position, your lower back should be flat (or with a slight curve), and you should feel a good stretch in your hamstrings on the raised leg. Hold this position for 10 seconds.

2) If you feel like you can, shift your body a little closer to the wall to increase the stretch on your hamstrings.

3) Actively raise your heel off the wall and hold for a few seconds. Return to the wall and rest a few seconds. Repeat 2-3 times.

4) If you feel like you can, shift your body a little closer to the wall to increase the stretch on your hamstrings.

5) Actively press your heel into the wall as hard as you can without it lifting your hips or moving your body at all (or breaking your heel through the wall!). Keep pressing for 3-5 seconds, then rest a few seconds and repeat 2-3 times.

6) If you feel like you can, shift your body a little closer to the wall to increase the stretch on your hamstrings and hold this final position for 10 seconds.

Most people notice a substantial improvement in their hamstring extensibility after performing this circuit. If you’re really locked up, try doing this twice a day for a couple weeks and see how much you improve.

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Core Stability for Instant Strength Increases!

A few weeks ago I started working with a Division 1 bound high school baseball player.

During his first session, he was able to do a set of Dumbbell Reverse Lunges with 40s for 6 reps/side.

2 weeks later he did a set of 4 reps/side with 75s, and he did 70s for 6/side the following week.

There are multiple possibilities to explain this drastic strength increase:

1) Becoming more comfortable with the movement pattern

2) Increased neural drive to the involve musculature

3) Better night of sleep before the training sessions later in the program

While I won’t rule any of these things out, I’ll say that these strength increases aren’t abnormal here.

With all of our athletes, there seems to be one common theme:

When our athletes learn to brace/stabilize their core during the lifts, their weights go through the roof!

Simply coaching athletes to “get up tall” and/or (depending on the lift) “keep their core tight” while they lift has an incredible impact on their ability to transfer force through their core, and therefore the weight they can lift.

Many athletes pick this up from simple coaching cues. For the athletes that need a little more help, I teach them how to brace their core with these instructions:

1) Put their hands on their stomach

2) Tighten up their core, which contracts the stomach musculature

3) Take a deep breath “in through their belly”, without releasing the core tightness

4) Practice taking mini-breaths in and out without losing their core tightness

After teaching them this skill in a static environment, most are able to transfer that to their lifts.

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Present Ideas for Athletes, Coaches, and Strength Coaches

Last Christmas my face lit up like a 6-year old ripping through wrapping paper to discover a toy fire truck (or iPhone in today’s kids) when I opened my presents. I got 5 AWESOME Physical Therapy textbooks.

It was probably the most excited I’ve been about Christmas presents in over a decade. My family thinks I’m strange, and they’re right, but that was all I wanted!

So for the fellow Athletic Development Enthusiasts out there that can never have enough great training information (or the significant others/family members of such enthusiasts), here is a list of some of the incredible books, DVDs, and websites I recommend to everyone:

1) Assess and Correct by Bill Hartman, Mike Robertson, and Eric Cressey: I just wrote a review on this. If you don’t have it already, get it now!

2) Precision Nutrition by Dr. John Berardi. This is still BY FAR the best nutrition resource for EVERYONE, competitive athletes to stay at home parents.

3) StrengthCoach.com with Michael Boyle. Coach Boyle’s membership site has the most current information from the Strength and Conditioning Industry’s most successful coaches.

4) SportsRehabExpert.com with Joe Heiler. This is a great resource for physical therapists and athletic trainers to stay current on the practices of some of the greatest minds in the world.

5) StrengthandConditioningWebinars.com with Anthony Renna. This is one of the most brilliant advancements in the history of strength and conditioning continuing education. Without taking credit away from any of the other great sites out there, this is my favorite site on the internet. Learning great education from incredible presenters without leaving my home..what’s not to love?

There are a ton of great products out there. Among others, I can attest that anything from Nick Tumminello, Kim McCullough, Brijesh Patel, Eric Cressey, Michael Boyle, Mike Robertson, and Bill Hartman will be packed with incredible information.

If you have specific questions about other products, please don’t hesitate to email me.

Happy Holidays!

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Should Kids Lift Weights?

A couple months ago I wrote a quick article for the Endeavor Fitness website on the issue of whether kids should lift weights or not.

It’s a question I get a lot, or more accurately, it’s a misconception I have to explain a lot.

Today I read Eric Cressey’s newsletter on the same issue.

Whether you’re an athlete, parent, coach, or “trainer”, you should check out both articles. If you’re like most people, you’ve likely been given poor information on the subject.

Check out the articles:

Kevin’s Article on Endeavor Fitness’ Website

Eric’s Newsletter Article

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