Do Hockey Players Need Strength Or Power?
Do You Know The Difference?
With fewer and fewer teams left in the play-off hunt, thoughts are turning to next season and off-ice training for goalies and skaters alike. It is also the time when I get phone calls from players or their parents to tell me what their child needs in his or her off-season hockey training.
One of the most popular comments is a variation of “Johnny does not need any more strength, I don’t want him to be bulky. He has really powerful legs, but he needs to be quicker and more agile.” There are a few contradictions in this statement, so my goal for today is to help you understand the difference between these two attributes and where they fit into the overall off-season training protocol.
Survey Winner + Real Life Nutrition Review…
I did a post last week on nutrition for hockey players and why you should not be eating like a supermodel. I got a request from a reader to review his weekly nutrition since it is something he has been working on as a goal for 2012. In fact he has totally eliminated soda pop from his diet in 2012. This young goalie is so polite and respectful that I wanted to help him out, so I figured I would turn it into a blog post.
I do this with all of the athletes I train at Revolution Conditioning and the players in my Elite Goalie Strength & Conditioning program so hopefully this gives you some ideas for your own nutrition planning. I will add my comments below in bold so they will stand out for you…
Your chance to be the Boss & WIN a copy of ALL my programs ($350 value)
You may not know this, but I am a huge Springsteen fan. Not the kind of ‘huge’ where people have seen 217 Springsteen concerts on 4 different continents, but I have seen him play four times in Toronto and had an outstanding experience every time. Even if you are not a Springsteen fan (or don’t realize you are one) I strongly recommend that you go to at least on show in your life. You will not be disappointed.
Anyway, I listen to the Springsteen channel on XM radio quite often when I am driving into the gym and sometimes they are running the feature called “you be the Boss”. This is where listeners get to phone in and decide what the next 3 or 4 songs will be.
So I am going to do the same with you guys. I want you to be the Boss and tell me what I should do for my next product (which I want to release in the next month by the way). I will give you until Friday, March 30th to have your say (you can still give me your input after that, but you will not qualify to win a FREE copy of ALL my programs – a $350 value).
Eat like a hockey player, not a super model.
With the off-season knocking on the door for most of you, or maybe even pounding on the door for some of you I am getting ready to hit the most busy time in the Revolution Studio running.
I am anticipating the needs of the hockey players who will be training five days per week with me from May to thru mid-August and I know the top three things they will be looking for.
1. Size
2. Strength
3. Speed
As I write this it occurs to me that each one should be a separate article – gotta put that on my ‘to do’ list. Today we are going to deal with the size question as it relates to nutrition.
You see, some players do not need more size, what they need is more useable strength. But many of the minor hockey and junior hockey players I train over the summer actually do need more size in order to compete more effective and with greater durability.
Dryland Goalie Training Q&A – part 3
I told you the Q&A got outta hand this week, so to wrap up this first week of spring I am sending out the third and final installment of your Q&A. If you missed Part One and Part Two, just click on the links to check them out. I will get back on track with my planned posts starting tomorrow. But for now – here are the answers to the rest of your dryland goalie training questions. In this episode I answer:
– What strength, speed, flexibility and coordination exercises you should do during the off-season?
– Is the UGT 2.0 too much of a dryland program for a 35 year old goalie?
– Can you regain the flexibility you had in your teens once you get into your 40’s
Off-Ice Goalie Training Q&A – part two
As promised, here is the second part (of three) of my off-ice goalie training Q&A session that got out of hand. Lots of questions came in while I was out of town for the last few weeks – you can read about that here if you wish.
Goalie Specific Training Q&A – part one
I received a lot of questions while I was away so I stockpiled them for a goalie specific training Q&A video – the video turned out to be 15-minutes long, so I have split it into three parts – here is part one…
Tuukka Rask – I’m saying Meniscus
Greetings from the Edinburgh airport – Paul and I are waiting for our flight to Belfast which will leave in a few hours. I actually have no problem waiting in…
Kevin Neeld Spills the Beans on Hip Impingement
Hope you are all having a great week, as you know Paul and I are in the UK doing some backpacking. We saved up for five years to go on…
Protect your shoulder during reaching saves.
For today’s exercise tip for goalies, I am answering a great question that I got on Twiter – you can follow me – @GoalieTraining. This is a great way to ask a quick question and this one is courtesy of @MsConduct10 (does that mean there are 9 other MsConducts?)
So, the question was about the awkward position when a goalie is making a reaching save with the arm outstretched in front of their body. This is a pretty biomechanically weak position and a vulnerable position for the triceps and the lats. With the triceps being the weaker of there is a risk