You’ve made it this far, so please make sure you read the entire article and read it with an open mind, don’t just say to yourself, “I would never do that” and dismiss the message.
So here they are the two ways off-season hockey training leads to injury…
NUMBER ONE: You do too much too fast
I know the feeling. The season ends, either on a high note and you want more for next season or on a low note and you want better for next season. Whatever the reason, you are fired up and you just want to get into the gym and start smashing out reps.
Trying to get the players in the private Turning Pro coaching program to take their two weeks off after the season is almost impossible – like the guy who had a .933 SV% in the championship tournament including a shutout against the team with 7 D1 commits on it – – do you think some scouts were in the stands taking not of him this time?
Yeah, he has already messaged me lamenting how tough it is to stay away from his training. But I am working on his new workouts and he is going to love them when he gets back in the gym on Monday.
You can see how if this athlete were left on his own that he would have been in the gym two weeks ago going heavy – he needs to get stronger right? You probably feel the same.
You feel like going for it this year, like giving it everything you’ve got. This year you are going to lift heavier, you are going to lift more, you are going to sprint, you are going to run, you are going to hold a medicine ball while you do everything and plyos, LOTS of plyos.
I love the enthusiasm, but you are setting yourself up for a fall.
I sometimes think of the body as a machine, but it isn’t. It is more like a tree in many ways.
A small tree grows and gets stronger in response to the loads put on it by the environment – the wind blows and its trunk gets stronger. It rains and the branches get stronger – but it takes time. If there is too much load on that little tree, too quickly, the branches are going to break.
It’s not that the tree doesn’t want to be strong; it just hasn’t had the time to adapt. It takes time to grow thicker stronger branches and a strong durable trunk to hold it all.
So you need to progressively add the load, take that Inside Out approach I have talked about so much – if you don’t know what that is, click HERE – to build overtime, otherwise somewhere your body will fail.
You will think your training is going great. The pain (okay, let’s call it discomfort) in your Achilles tendon is tolerable and once you do your stretches your back loosens up – things are going great!
Don’t let this be you; the off-season is long, follow a strategic path.
NUMBER TWO: You don’t do enough early on
But, didn’t I just say that you shouldn’t do too much too early?
Yes, yes I did.
And now I am saying you need to do more? C’mon, pick one!
Let me explain. Some of you reading this right now have been finished your season for a month already. You had that spring tournament, but that didn’t count for anything – your official season ended a while ago.
More than once you have said to yourself – “I’m gonna put together a great plan this off season and start hitting the gym HARD on Monday…”
Then Monday comes and your buddy who you are going to train with all summer, like hard core #BeastMode train with ALL summer because you guys are going to make next year your best season over AND you are going to have ripped abs too…but he couldn’t make it to the gym today, so you will start NEXT Monday – no worries lots of time.
…And then it is July.
Yeah, you have been in the gym here and there – – things were a lot busier than you though they would be. What with that after school job you have one day per week… (yeah, that’s a jab).
So now you panic and either you continue to do nothing OR you decide that you have time to catch up and you go for it HARD #BeastMode… reference #1 above to see what happens when you do that 😉
So again – have a progressive, strategic plan.
Follow the plan consistently.
Adjust as needed.
Dominate.
Simple…
Cheers,
M
PS – if you stuck with me this far, you should definitely check out the free LIVE webinar I am running this Thursday, April 28th helping you find the off-season program that is exactly right for you – CLICK HERE for all the details