Use this off-season to build tissue resilience and counter wear and tear. My goal is to provide exercises that target numerous weaknesses of the athlete at once.
Tampa Bay beat Dallas 2-0 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup last night—a victorious end to a tumultuous storm of a season.
One of the original strength coaches in the industry, Coach Boyle talks training, leadership, and more of what coaches need to hear.
Anthony Donskov is not only developing stronger, faster, and better conditioned athletes; but better young men and women.
Strength and conditioning coaches have the ability to change lives, instill discipline, teamwork, and attention to detail.
Injuries such as groin strains and athletic pubalgia (sports hernia) are just two of the common causes of lost time due to injury in ice hockey.
Hockey is a sport of intensity, physical contact, stamina, strength, and speed.
For years, coaches have been failing to attain maximum results when putting their hockey players on an off-ice conditioning program. Much of this comes from misunderstandings. Typically, an unknowing coach will put far too much emphasis on aerobic training despite its near uselessness in hockey specific conditioning. For example, timed miles, which I have performed as a player and have seen many head coaches require that their players perform, have very little transition to a hockey player’s game related physical preparation. There is a better way—high intensity interval training.
It seems that the terms off-season and pre-season are synonymous in the world of high school athletics. Most of the athletes who I train play multiple sports or participate in the same sport in multiple seasons. Unlike the college athlete, the high school athlete doesn’t have 16–24 plus weeks in the off-season/pre-season to devote to a comprehensive strength and conditioning program.
In keeping with Canadian tradition, our athletes have started counting down the days to next year’s NHL camp. That’s right—the Stanley Cup has just found a home in Hockey Town. (That’s the Super Bowl of professional hockey for everyone in the Southern States. You know, the NHL. It gets its airtime following basketball, bowling, Will and Grace reruns, and the infomercials for erectile dysfunction.)
The new wave in ice hockey strength and conditioning seems to be dominated by “functional” training, which often becomes dysfunctional. Let’s look at our goals for in-season lifting and the factors to consider in professional hockey. I’ll also present my program template for in-season hockey training, which has been used successfully in the American Hockey League (AHL).
Good talking to you yesterday. I even tried to keep you on the phone longer since I knew you had to hit the “head” to relieve yourself. I have to tell you, I always walk away refreshed after talking to you. It makes me realize that there ARE other nuts out here with a different view and that’s good stuff.
