Posted by Jason on April 28, 2011. Filed under Uncategorized.

Hockey is the greatest sport on earth. Finally recognizing this, the number of youth hockey programs in the U.S. continues to grow rapidly. Characterized by rapid high-intensity movements, high velocities, and full-speed collisions, it’s not hard to see why off-ice training would be advantageous. With injuries such as “groin” pulls, hip flexor strains, sports hernias, and shoulder separations plaguing the sport, it’s not hard to see why off-ice training is a NECESSITY.

Whether or not to train for hockey is not a question. It’s a no brainer. Hockey players that train excel and dominate. Players that don’t fall behind and are at an increased risk of injury. Almost all coaches and players recognize that much. The question I receive the most is, “Where do I start?” That’s the right question to ask and the question I’d like to address. In this article series, I’m going to walk you step-by-step through the process of creating an effective off-ice training program.

Where to Start
Without a doubt, the best place to start is by adding a dynamic warm-up before every training session (off-ice AND on-ice sessions) and game. Trash the old jog around the rink and stretch as a team routine. Despite popular belief, stretching before high intensity activity doesn’t decrease injury risk. In fact, research suggests that it actually INCREASES the risk of injury! Believe it or not, stretching before high-intensity activity also leads to decreases in speed, agility, balance, and muscular strength and power. The jog and stretch may warm-up the body a bit, but it does nothing to increase functional range of motion around the joints you use during training or playing hockey. It simply isn’t effective in preparing the body for what is to come. The solution: dynamic warm-ups.

Things to Consider
A dynamic warm-up is a series of exercises designed to increase body temperature, blood flow, joint range of motion, and neural drive to the working muscles. Sound better than decreased performance and an increased risk of injury? When putting together a dynamic warm-up, you’ll want to consider these things:

1) Skating takes the knees and hips through a full range of motion in all directions (flexion and extension, abduction and adduction, internal and external rotation).
2) Stickhandling and shooting take the shoulders through a full range of motion
3) Hockey involves both linear, lateral, and diagonal movements
4) Hockey is a high-intensity, high-velocity sport
5) The hip musculature and scapular stabilizers (muscles around the shoulder) are important problem areas to address to decrease injury risk
6) Core training should be performed during the warm-up, ensuring that athletes put maximum effort into it and that the appropriate muscles are activated for the training to follow.
7) The dynamic warm-up should last around 10 minutes

Taking these 7 things into consideration, let’s take a look at a basic program I’ve used with high school and college players in the past.

Every one of these exercises should be performed for about 15 yards.

1) Walking Knee Hug with High-Knee Hold
2) Walking Lunge with Overhead Reach
3) Inchworm
4) Walking Inverted Reach
5) Diagonal Walking Lunge
6) Butt Kickers
7) High Knees
8 Side Shuffle Right
9) Side Shuffle Left
10) Carioca Right (Quick feet emphasis)
11) Carioca Left (Quick feet emphasis)
12) Carioca Right (Long stride emphasis)
13) Carioca Left (Long stride emphasis)
14) Straight-Legged March
15) 50% Sprint from Push-Up Start
16) Back Pedal
17) 75% Sprint from Push-Up Start
18) Back Pedal

Let’s take a look at how this warm-up addresses all the things I mentioned earlier.

1 & 2) The knees, hips, and shoulders are taken through a full range of motion throughout this warm-up (notably in the lunging, cariocas, and inchworm).

3) Forward, backward, side-to-side, and diagonal movements are all incorporated.

4) The warm-up involves higher intensity movements and increases in speed.

5) The psoas, a hip flexor commonly problematic in hockey players, is isolated and activated during the walking knee hug with high knee hold as you’ll hold the knee against your chest, then let it go, holding it using your hip flexors as high as possible for a second before moving into the next step. The other muscles around the hip are activated through the side shuffling and cariocas. Lastly, the scapular stabilizers and other muscles around the shoulder are activated during the inchworm.

6) When performed correctly, inchworms should effectively warm-up the abdominal musculature, and the walking inverted reach should activate the glutes. While this is far from sufficient core work, it’s a good starting point.

7) Lastly, this program can easily be performed within 10 minutes.

There are an infinite number of dynamic warm-up exercises you can perform. While I prefer moving warm-ups, it’s entirely possible (and sometimes better in the beginning) to sufficiently warm-up an entire team using stationary (not progressing over a distance) movements. Performing a dynamic warm-up before practices and games will save you valuable ice time as you won’t have to spend as much time on the ice warming up. Follow the guidelines in this article to design your own warm-ups and/or use the sample warm-up I’ve provided before every training session, practice, and game and you’ll be making the first step towards improved performance

Stay tuned for part two of this series, where I’ll go into why most of the core training incorporated into off-ice training programs does nothing to improve performance, and show you the most effective functional core training for hockey players.

Posted by Jason on . Filed under Uncategorized.

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,
Jason

Nutrition Tips Part 1

Posted by Jason on April 20, 2011. Filed under Uncategorized.

Nutrition Tip #1

Eat Real Food!
It may seem trivial or vague, but if you sat back and really took stock of the food in your home, you would probably be shocked to realize just how much of it qualifies as a food product, not actual food. Increasing the amount of real food, defined below, and decreasing the amount of food products you consume is the easiest thing you can do to improve your nutrition and health. It doesn’t require counting calories, worrying about nutrient timing, calculating macronutrient percentages, or any of that, and it will have a far greater impact on your health.

Real Food Conditions:
• If you couldn’t hunt, fish, pluck, grow, or ferment/culture the food, you probably shouldn’t eat it.
• If it wasn’t food 100 years ago, it probably isn’t food today.
• If it comes in a box or a plastic wrapper, it probably isn’t food, it is a food product.
• If it contains lots of industrial vegetable oil (canola, cottonseed, soybean, safflower, sunflower, etc) and/or added sugar/high fructose corn syrup, it probably isn’t food, it is a food product.
Nutrition Tip #2

Eat Food as Close to its Natural State as Possible.
Eating food that has been produced in a sustainable, animal, plant and environmentally friendly manner will not only have a profound impact on your health, but the health of your food and the health of the planet. Choosing food from local, seasonal and sustainably grown sources, like farmer’s markets, ensures that you know exactly where your food is coming from, who is producing that food, and exactly how it is produced.

Natural State Conditions:
• Eat meat, eggs and dairy from pastured/grass-fed animals.
• Eat full fat versions of these foods for the greatest profile and absorption of nutrients.
• Eat produce from local, seasonal, and sustainably grown sources.
Nutrition Tip #3

Eat Vegetable and/or Fruits at Every Meal or Snack
This is the easiest way to meet your minimum of 5 servings of fruits and veggies per day. I would go so far as to say the minimum should be 7-10 servings. Maximize your health to maximize your performance. You will drastically increase the amounts of powerful phytonutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber to optimize your nutrition.

Key Tips:
• You don’t need a side salad with every meal. 1 serving will do just fine.
• 9 baby carrots, 2 celery sticks, and small pieces of fruit are all equivalent to one serving.

Nutrition Tips Part 2

Posted by Jason on . Filed under Uncategorized.

Nutrition Tip #4

Eat Protein at Every Meal or Snack
Protein is the most satiating of all the macronutrients, meaning it will keep that hunger away longer than carbohydrates or fat. Protein also has the highest Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF), meaning it requires more energy to digest protein than any other macronutrient. It is also the least likely nutrient to be stored as fat. Consuming an adequate amount of protein every day (~1g/lb of bodyweight) will maintain lean mass and help create new muscle tissue.

Key Tips:
• Women should consume approximately 15-30 grams at every meal/snack.
• Men should consume approximately 30-50 grams at every meal/snack.
• Get most of your protein from real whole food. No more than 40 grams of powder.
Nutrition Tip #5

Drink 0-Calorie Beverages
The body doesn’t recognize liquid calories as energy intake, and therefore will not downregulate intake for the remainder of the day. Drinking calories is an easy way to overconsume and gain weight, so sticking to non-caloric beverages will help prevent unwanted weight gain.

Key Tips:
• Best non-calorie choices are water, tea (white, green, oolong, black, rooibos, yerba mate), and black coffee.
• Some fruit juice is ok in moderation, but only pure juice, no added sugar.
Nutrition Tip #6

Drink Your Calories
This goes completely counter to Tip #5, but if you are purposefully trying to gain weight, drinking calories is an easy way to sneak in extra calories without actually having to eat and chew much more food. Blending up real food is my favorite option. These smoothies can be all the difference in gaining that much wanted muscle.

Key Tips:
• Blend real food such as cottage cheese, fruit, nuts and some protein powder.
• Experiment, have fun with it, and enjoy the results.
Nutrition Tip #7

Choose Full-Fat Versions
When trying to gain weight I see far too many people eating fat-free cottage cheese, Greek yogurt and skim milk. These are inferior choices to the full-fat versions for caloric intake, and they are not inherently less healthy. In all actuality they actually contain more nutrients (like vitamin A) and the fat helps the absorption of these nutrients.

Key Tips:
• Choose whole milk, 4% fat cottage cheese, and whole fat Greek yogurt when appropriate.
• Eat plenty of nuts, extra virgin olive oil, and fish oil to balance the increase in saturated fat intake (which isn’t a bad thing!)

Posted by Jason on April 13, 2011. Filed under Uncategorized.

The Best Exercise To Build Strong, Fast Legs

Without a doubt, speed is the single most influential physical ability in lacrosse. The fastest players are the ones that stand out and the most threatening to the other team. Despite its importance, developing strength to improve speed is a poorly understood concept amongst most players.

Lifting to Get Fast

Running, by definition, takes place with only one foot on the ground at a time. This means that developing single-leg strength is incredibly important if you want to run fast. Despite common belief, it’s actually HAMSTRING STRENGTH, not quad strength, that best correlates with maximum running speed. Putting these two things together, we can say that strength training to improve running speed should:

1. Involve single-leg lower body exercises
2. Strengthen all the lower body musculature, but have a slightly greater focus on the hamstrings

The Best Exercise Ever

The Dumbbell Reverse Lunge is the best exercise to build functional lower body strength. What’s so great about it?

1. It’s a single-leg exercise so it improves single leg strength and stability
2. By cueing athletes to “pull through the heel of their front leg”, a greater proportion of force can be created by the hamstrings (read: more hamstring strength)
3. It’s a functional movement pattern as it is similar to that of running
4. Holding weights in the hands improves grip and core strength, which are also very important for lacrosse players.

How to Perform the Dumbbell Reverse Lunge

Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand. While keeping your chest and eyes up, take a big step backward with one leg. Your front leg knee should remain directly in front of your ankle (don’t let it drift back). Lower your back knee until it lightly touches the ground then pull through the heel of your front leg to return to the starting position.

Posted by Jason on . Filed under Uncategorized.

The Truth About Weight Lifting and Kids

When I was growing up, I was always told that you shouldn’t lift until you’re 13, at the earliest. The idea was that your growth plates weren’t closed and that lifting could result in growth plate fractures and/or stunted growth. Of course, I wasn’t the only one being told this. This message is still being spread today and has been for decades.

It’s true that growth plates aren’t closed in adolescents. That’s about the only ounce of truth to any “weightlifting isn’t safe for kids” message I’ve ever heard, and frankly, it’s STILL not a concern.

Let’s look at some of the research behind this. A 2010 review of studies looking at the safety of lifting for kids found that:

1) Youth resistance training injury rates range from 0.0017-0.176 per 100 participant hours. This translates to one injury for every 568.18-58,823.53 hours. Do you think you could play 60,000 hours of any sport without getting hurt? Not likely.

2) 2/3 of lifting-related injuries to 8-13 year olds were to the hand or foot related to dropping or pinching. In other words, if a kid is smart enough to know that dropping a weight on their foot will hurt, they’re safe.

3) 24 of the 27 of the included studies reported ZERO lifting-related injuries. The 3 studies that did all reported one injury each.

4) ZERO growth plate injuries have been documented (ever) in studies supervised by a professional. The authors of the study also noted that there was ZERO evidence that weight training stunts growth in any way.

I could go on and on with stuff like this. The fact is that weightlifting is DRASTICALLY safer than sports like soccer, baseball, basketball, football, and hockey, which we have no problems with young kids participating in.

In fact, lifting can significantly DECREASE young athletes’ risk of injury during sports. Consider that forces going through the hip can easily exceed 9x someone’s body weight during running. Muscles are great force absorbers. However, if the reactive forces from the activity exceed the muscles’ capability to absorb/reduce them, the forces are transferred to the joint.

This does NOT mean that a 100 lb kid needs to be able to squat 900lbs to reduce the forces they see in sports; that whole concept is ridiculous. The point is that getting stronger can be done safely AND reduce sport-related injury risk (and, of course, increase performance). On top of that, quality instruction can help make sure the athlete’s movement patterns are efficient and effective, again, ensuring that their performance is high and that they’re distributing forces evenly across the joint and not excessively wearing down one area.

Fat Burning Zone?

Posted by Jason on July 24, 2009. Filed under Blog.

If you’ve been reading this blog on a consistent basis you
probably already know where I’m going with this one. 

You guessed it. The Fat Burning Zone is another of the urban
legends of fitness. 

Does anyone think that when they are in the so-called fat
burning zone that stored bodyfat melts off them like butter?

A little reality therapy is in order. The Fat Burning Zone is
a big fat lie. Here’s the truth.

1- The “fat burning zone” supposedly describes a level of
exercise that results in a larger number of the calories
burned during exercise being derived from fat. This does
not mean that stored bodyfat is the selective source. It only
describes the relative percentage of utilization of three
substrates, fat, carbohydrate and protein.

2- The fat burning zone actually describes what percentage of
calories burned are derived from fat as an energy source. 

Do you know when you are burning the most calories from fat? Sorry.
The highest percentage of fat utilization is at rest. The more
intense the exercise becomes, the more carbohydrate is used as
a source.

Guess what. It doesn’t matter. The reality is that it’s about
the number of calories burned, not the number of those calories
that come from fat as a source. If the fat burning zone idea
actually worked we could get extremely lean by simply sitting still. 

Guess again. That doesn’t work, does it.

Confused, let’s use a mathematical example.

Lets assume that we have two identical exercisers who are going to
exercise for twenty minutes. Exerciser one is doing a slow walk to
stay “in the fat burning zone”. Exerciser two is going to run hard
for twenty minutes. To keep the example simple we will assume that
exerciser one will derive forty percent of his or her calories from
fat. Exerciser two will move out of the fat burning zone and only
derive 20 percent of his or her calories from fat.

Exerciser one will walk at 3 miles per hour and will cover one
mile in twenty minutes. This will result in a caloric expenditure
of 100 calories with 40 calories coming from fat.

Exerciser two will run at 7.5 miles per hour and will cover 2.5
 miles in twenty minutes. This will result in a caloric expenditure
of  250 calories with 50 calories coming from fat.

Hmm, seems interesting. The exerciser in the “fat burning zone”
burned less calories and less calories from fat in the same amount
of time? The exerciser working harder and leaving the fat burning
zone burned 2.5 times as many calories and, 10 more calories from fat.

I rest my case. Figures lie and liars figure. Stop worrying about
burning fat and start worrying about working harder

Posted by Jason on May 13, 2009. Filed under Uncategorized.

“Sport Specific” is the new marketing buzzword when it comes to strength and conditioning programs for youth. Uneducated masses of parents and coaches herd their sports teams at a young age into “athletic performance” programs that supposedly address the strength, movement, and speed demands of one specific sport. The idea looks great on a marketing flyer, particularly in the American youth sports culture of “win right now”. Unfortunately the notion of early specificity ignores well established pedagogies of child development and motor learning, the foundation of youth sport skill acquisition and application. The fact is, most trainers implementing these programs aren’t qualified to implement programs for anyone, more less youth. Most of the time they are ex players in the specific sport who find exercises they think are “cool”, slap the term “functional” on them, tie some colorful equipment in, and bingo! A sport specific program! Their “program design” if any, is based on the cool toys and “secret exercises” they employ, with kids who can’t do a push-up!!! That’s like teaching a child to read by giving them “US” magazine! No valuable content, no skill acquisition, just stuff to get their attention.

Training that is specific to the demands of a particular sport does have merit at the higher levels, assuming the athlete is developmentally sound. The purpose of Part I of this article is to discuss the role of a general strength, conditioning, and movement program in a young athlete’s development, and how attempting to get too specific at a young age can be detrimental to future performance. Part II will discuss how implementing certain “sport specific” protocols at the appropriate phases of competition and development can be beneficial to performance.

A good athlete is a combination of raw athleticism (big, strong, fast, adaptable) and sport specific skill (skill involved with a specific sport like hitting, kicking, dribbling, etc.) When parents and athletes are looking for a coach to help them be better at their sport, they must realize the difference between the two factors involved with being a good athlete. Sport skill coaches (baseball coaches, basketball coaches, etc) are specialists in developing the specific skill sets needed for that game. Athletic performance coaches or “strength and conditioning” coaches are specialists in making an athlete generally faster, stronger, more mobile, more reactive, etc. Unless either of these coaches have extensive, qualified experience in developing both factors of athleticism (raw and specific skill), they cannot create a program that optimizes both. A sport skill coach should teach youth developmentally appropriate levels of sport skills and tactics. An athletic performance coach should help develop youth’s general physical proficiency. The idea of “Sport Specific” training for youth suggests that an athletic performance coach can help develop and improve specific sport skills by simulating them in the weight room. As mountains of research as well as empirical evidence will state, this is a flawed notion when considering the developmental needs of young athletes.

One of the well established laws of motor learning is that the only way to improve a skill is to practice that skill as accurately as possible. For example, if you want to hit a baseball, learn the mechanics of hitting, practice them over and over in as realistic environment as possible. Swing with a bat that you will use in a game, hit off pitching similar to that you will see in a game, etc. This teaches your neuromuscular system “patterns” that get stored in your brain like computer programs. The more you practice a certain way, the more grooved and automatic these patterns become. This is where the idea of sport specific conditioning in the weight room becomes a problem. Coaches will take an athlete and try to replicate the baseball swing with cables, medicine balls, etc. If this move is replicated enough, the neuromuscular system thinks “Is this a baseball swing? It’s slower and more loaded, so maybe we should adjust the “baseball swing” program in the brain to allow for a different pattern”. This confusion causes the actual baseball swing pattern to be comprised. That isn’t my “opinion” or “approach” it’s actually a well established “fact”. That doesn’t say that doing rotational work isn’t good for baseball players. After all, lumbar stability and thoracic mobility is essential for swinging athletes. Weight room drills such as Kaiser chops and medicine ball throws can help create this. Realize that these drills are done to improve mobility and core strength, both attributes that can prevent injury and promote performance. They are not implemented to copy a baseball swing.

Beginner athletes need a program that begins with general physical skill development. Basic aerobic fitness, coordination, and motor skills such as throwing, kicking, catching, climbing, etc. are the foundation of physical development, regardless of what sport an athlete plays. Establishing a level of proficiency in these foundation activities at a young age lays the framework for an improved ability to learn sport skills quicker and more effectively. For example, a 10 year old should learn how to kick a target, even if they are a baseball player. The hip flexion, knee extension, hamstring flexibility, and contra lateral leg balance involved with kicking lays the foundation for coordinated lower body movement and power development. This can help them learn to run faster, jump higher, or be more agile in the years to come. This can help them in any sport they decide to play.

As an athlete gets older, their physiology allows for the development of skills requiring a greater magnitude of mental focus and physical output. This is a period of development in which techniques for effective movement can be introduced and adapted. Proper movement technique for running, jumping, acceleration/deceleration, throwing, and strength activities should be introduced. Again, this is regardless of the sport the young athlete plays. Once techniques of different skills are mastered, maximizing their output is the goal. For example, once sprinting technique is learned, timing a 40 yard dash and aiming to improve that time would be an example of maximizing output. Another example would be in the weight room, getting stronger at certain lifts. Giving the athlete these greater output capabilities with efficient biomechanical movement allows them to adapt these new skills to the needs of their sport.

Athletic development should focus on creating a sound physical specimen with the appropriate mobility, stability, coordination, strength, and movement efficiency in order to promote performance and hinder injury. It is up to that specimen’s ability to apply these attributes towards sports skill. The more thorough and appropriate the developmental program, the better their ability to adapt. It’s a fact, Jack.

Breakfast Ideas

Posted by Jason on March 27, 2009. Filed under Blog.

Breakfast #1 (Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich)
Quick, simple, full of flavor and extremely healthy.
Cut a banana in half (long ways) and spread each side
with a good amount of natural peanut butter.
Place the two halves back together (peanut butter is
GREAT glue) and wrap loosely in a paper towel.
Your kids can eat this little sandwich delight on the walk
or bus to school – it’s completely transportable!!

Breakfast # 2 (Eggo Roll-Up)
Toast a whole wheat Eggo pancake.
Spread generously with natural peanut butter (yep… I
love the stuff) and sugar-free jelly.
Roll up the pancake and wrap loosely in a paper towel.
Instant, transportable breakfast!!

Breakfast # 3 (Cereal Mix)
In the ‘Natural Foods’ section of any grocery store, you
are guaranteed to find a series of healthy, wholesome and
low sugar cereals.
Pick one or two that you know your kids would enjoy.
In a small baggie, add a bit of each cereal and round out
with some dried fruit (I like strawberries and apricots).
Once again, this little baggie makes for a perfect ‘on the go’
breakfast that is both easy to make and very healthy!

Getting your kids off to the right start every morning is both
easy and rewarding.

Practice or Play

Posted by Jason on March 26, 2009. Filed under Uncategorized.

Posted in Random Thoughts, Training, Youth Training on March 12, 2009 by mboyle1959