Stay Classy – – another hotel gym workout

I don’t always go running in my Vibram 5-Fingers, but when I do, you can be I am somewhere for a few days of business meetings and I am just going carry-on. So if you are walking down the street of your home town and you see someone go running by in their Vibrams and you think…’that kinda looks like the hockey training girl’ – it probably is, so make sure you say ‘Hi’.

I had an awesome time in San Diego over the past four days. I was here meeting with my coaches, Bedros Keuilian and Craig Ballantyne and a group of uber motivated, forward thinking fitness pros. Basically for me it is like going to a hockey training camp.

I have to prove to my coaches that I have been doing my work since the last meeting four months ago. I get to measure myself against other top players in my industry and I get feedback from top coaches who tell me what I need to work on next with the HockeyTrainingPro.com empire.

At every meeting there is a contest to see who has made the most progress in the past four months and then the 3-4 finalists have to give a presentation to the entire group. Kind of like getting to start in the final scrimmage of camp.

View from the top

This time I got to be a finalist and I put my best into the presentation – I went for it, I wanted to win. I ended up as runner up – I guess it was really close, but it doesn’t make me feel any better about it at all. Just like you don’t feel good about losing a 0-1 game, it doesn’t make it okay, but I am motivated to keep pushing and win next time.

The Stairs Of Death…

When we meet in San Diego we stay in the Gaslamp district – I stayed at the Hotel Solamar, which was an awesome place to stay and thank you so much for moving me to a room that was not directly above the pool bar which had a pretty bumpin’ night scene.

The San Diego Convention Center is a 3-minute jog from the hotel and there is one mother of a set of stairs going up and over the convention center and out to the water way. So I typically will run the stairs every other day. So if you ever feel like you don’t have a time or a place to workout, you can do a lot with a set of stairs.

  • Sprint up every step
  • Sprint up every second step
  • Two foot jump up
  • Quick side step up (I like this one for goalies)
  • Cross over up (like this one for skaters)
  • Single leg hop up – just be careful you don’t wipe out

Add to that some planks, push ups, squat jumps or glute bridges at the top and you have one heck of a workout.

The Classy Hotel Workout

This morning I just went for a very short run out to say ‘good-bye’ to the water, sun and palm trees. Then I hit the hotel gym since it was a strength training day for me and I had to get to the airport. So I literally spent about 12-minutes in the gym doing the following workout…

I did 3 sets of 6 reps of each. For the chin ups, I get pooped doing them, it is something I am working on, so the first set is fine, but then the second set, I get four reps, rest and then do the final two. On the last set I only get 3 reps, then rest before getting two more, another rest and then the final one.

Time For Action

Okay, I have my action list with all the things I have to do before the next meeting. It feels like I have all the time in the world, but I know that September will be here before I know it and I will have to show my coaches that I deserve their effort, that I have earned their trust.

You should feel the exact same way about your off-ice training. You could wait until tomorrow to take action, but then you will just be one day older and have one less day to be prepared. Why would you every do that?

Cheers,

M

PS – if you ever in San Diego and have a hankering for some fish tacos, let me suggest the Tin Fish (right near the Hard Rock Hotel – you can see ‘the stairs of death’ from there) for the Sea Bass and the Shrimp tacos – – yum yum yum. My treat everytime I am in town. There is also a Chipotle on 1st – it is about a 10-15 minute walk, but well worth it of course.

PPS – if you have not yet started your off-ice training – – what the HECK are you waiting for???? Here are a bunch of programs – just click HERE