Pretty cool blog title, huh? After hours of deliberation, DavidLasnier.com’s board of directors came up with this ingenious title that, I’ve been told, was guaranteed to catch your attention. I’ve even been told that no one would pass on this title without wanting to read the whole post!
My actual board of directors…
All kidding aside, this title is in relation to corrective exercises. If you’ve been reading my stuff for a little bit, you should know by now that I’m a big believer in incorporating injury prevention and corrective strategies in training programs to help my athletes and clients move better and lower their risk of injuries. And I’m not the only one; there is a pretty big trend in fitness world that seems to be going on right now. I think it’s a really good thing that more coaches and trainers are now aware of the importance of the glute function in hip extension, scapular stability in shoulder health, etc. With all the smart minds in this business, new corrective exercises come out every day giving us a really big toolbox to work with when it comes down to corrective exercises.
NOT what I’m talking about!
One thing I feel we don’t stress enough with corrective exercises though is that the way we perform them is crucial. It’s a good thing to include glute bridges in a client’s program that seems to be prone to low back pain. But it’s not going to do much good for him if he’s not performing it the right way, or if he just goes through the motion. Sticking with the glute bridge example, if your client doesn’t know that the whole purpose if the exercise is to squeeze his butt cheeks as he lifts his hips up, he might be compensating with his hamstrings, or even worse, his lower back. If the ribs flare out at the top, or if the client feels the movement in his hamstrings or low back, there is something that needs to be fixed. Anyway, you get the point.
For that reason, switching around your corrective exercises all the time might not be a good idea. You want to make sure that your client masters a certain movement perfectly before moving on to something else; the goal is not always to have him do something “challenging”. It’s still a corrective exercise and it should never be a max effort anyway because that is exactly when your body will look to compensate. Corrective exercises should be kept simple; you should try to reinforce the same ones with a client until there is some sort of improvement. You’re really not doing him a favor if you throw a bunch of new corrective exercises at him every couple of weeks, just for variety purposes. Keep in mind that the client doesn’t know any of that stuff, and for every new exercise, he has 4-5 different things to think about at the same time while he’s perform it correctly. If you need to stick with the good old 2-legged glute bridge for 3 months before your client really gets it and feels it in his butt, that’s what you need to do. Variety or results? Which one are you really after? Pretty simple answer.
Start with the basics, make sure the execution is flawless, that your client feels the exercise in the right spot (if needed), and never progress a corrective exercise until you see progress. In a way, it’s just like a lifting program; it doesn’t need to get fancy schmancy with tons of new exercises in every new monthly program, because you’ll never know if you’re making progress or not.
As you can see, getting fancy is not always your best bet…
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Believe it or not, Christmas is already less than 2 week away! Crazy isn’t it?! But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy about it; au contraire! Christmas is by far my favorite time of year because I usually get some time off from work and that allows me to spend some time with my family and friends. The only problem with Christmas is that I always end up being late on Christmas shopping and finding presents for my loved ones. That being said, if you have a fitness or strength and conditioning enthusiast in your life, here’s a couple of gift ideas that are well worth it if you ask me!
Hearte Rate Monitor
With what the research tells us about heart rate variability (HRV) and the feedback our heart rate can give us about our training, intensity, recovery, etc. it only makes sense to keep track of your heart rate. Most monitors are very convenient to use and not very expensive (you can get a really good one for less than 100$!). I recommend the Polar RS-100. If you’re looking for the best quality/price ratio, you can’t get much better than that one. Also, with Joel Jamieson’s new HRV product coming out soon, it will be 100% compatible with the RS-100, so you’re killing 2 birds with one stone! Ultimate Hockey Training
Kevin Neeld’s new book is a great gift idea for any hockey player, parent or coach. It highlights every component of a hockey player development from the youth level to the professional level as well as going into details on the training program itself and all that should be included (foam rolling, warm up, strength and power work, conditioning, etc). It really is the most complete hockey development resource out there, and very up-to-date as well (compared to other hockey training resources I’ve read before). I’ve been spreading the word about Kevin’s book for the last 2 months for a reason. And for less than 30$, it makes for a very cheap gift idea! You can get Ultimate Hockey Training HERE.
Metabolic Cooking Cookbook
It’s no big news that nutrition is a HUGE part of the results you get from your training. Who says nutrition also says planning. If you don’t plan your meals ahead you’re setting yourself up for failure. Period. Metabolic Cooking is a great, healthy cookbook with over 250 delicious recipes that will help you achieve your health and performance goals. You’ll be taking a huge step toward planning your meals better with this resource, as there is also different sections for breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snacks! For less than 50$, it was way worth it to me, and I’m sure it’ll be for you as well!
Show and Go
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, you know that I’m a big fan of Show and Go, as I tried it myself and gained almost 15 pounds of muscle while boosting my Deadlift and my Bench Press by 20-30 pounds; all of this in less than 4 months! It’s the best system out there of any non-athlete gym enthusiast who wants to pack on muscle, gain strength and lose bodyfat. You get a 16-week program based on your goals and the number of times per week you hit the gym. And on top of that you have full video support for all the exercises that are included in the program and Eric throws a bunch of cool bonuses with it. It takes the guess work out of writing your own program and quite frankly, the results speak for themselves. It’s the perfect gift for the fitness enthusiast in your life!
TheraCane Massager
Doing soft-tissue work is now widely accepted as part of a complete training program. I’ve raved about the benefits of foam rolling and other similar tools to promote tissue quality. A foam roller doesn’t work quite as well on the upper body as it does on the lower body, though. The theracane massager is probably the best “upper body” tool I’ve come across for soft-tissue work. I own one and I have to say that it works wonders on areas like the pecs, upper traps, rhomboids as well as the posterior neck muscles. It’s the next best thing to getting a massage! Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training
This last gift idea might be more for people who are serious about strength and conditioning and are looking for a great continuing education resource. Charlie Weingroff has a way of explaining things and giving people a different perspective on things that will make every penny you spend on this DVD set worth it. I’m not going to lie though, it’s not for everyone. The material on the DVDs is pretty advanced stuff, and I’ll even admit that I was scratching my head a couple of times while watching Charlie speaks. But it makes for a great Christmas present for any up-and-comer strength and conditioning coach; and trust me, they will appreciate it (it was my Christmas present last year, and I certainly did!). You ca get Training = Rehab, Rehab = Training on Charlie’s website HERE.
Buuuuuut, the best Christmas present of them all remains a subscription to DavidLasnier.com’s newsletter! And the best part is that it’s totally FREE!!! All you have to do is enter the contact info below, and you’ll even get 3 FREE reports on sports performance training!
As I’ve said many times before, random thoughts posts are probably my favorite type of posts to write and also my favorite types of posts to read on other people’s websites. So here we go again! …I obviously just made up the number 137.
Whatever Pam.
1. As much as I’ve written about breathing patterns in the past and the importance it has on your whole body, I never really posted anything about breathing drills or exercises specifically. My colleague Patrick Ward, from Optimum Sports Performance did a great job of explaining a simple, yet extremely effective breathing drill you can use with your clients and athletes. Check it out:
2. I have bashed aerobic training in previous blog posts and articles, and guess what? I’m starting to think that I was wrong. As I’m learning more about how to manage training stress and training loads, I’m realizing that doing high intensity strength and power work on top of high intensity conditioning sessions that are strictly interval-based might be too taxing on the nervous system. Also, aerobic training improves your recovery rate between bouts of effort as well as between sessions, so I’m starting to think that aerobic work might actually have its place in a training program. I’m still not a fan of repetitive low amplitude movements for people who are already pretty restricted mobility-wise, and I still don’t think it’s sports-specific AT ALL (unless you’re a marathon runner), but I’m gonna have to play around with it a little bit in my own training and the ones of my athlete because I’m starting to believe there are some benefits to it. Keep an eye open for an entire blog post or article on the subject in the next couple of months.
3. My friend and colleague Kevin Neeld wrote a very interesting blog post on Femoroacetabular Impingement (FAI) yesterday. If you’re not already familiar with FAI and you’re training high level athletes (especially hockey players) you NEED to get that piece of the puzzle figured out, as FAI should be taken into consideration when writing programs for your athletes. And according to Kevin, there is about 1 in 3-4 male in the general population that has some sort of hip abnormality and probably even more among high level hockey players! Kevin is so freakin’ smart, you need to check out his stuff; this particular blog post on FAI highlights the most recent research on the subject and Kevin makes it sooo easy for anyone to understand. His blog is a valuable resource for me on a weekly basis.
Different types of FAI
4. Speaking of Kevin; if you’re training hockey players or are a hockey player yourself you NEED to pick up a copy of his book Ultimate Hockey Training. It’s the best hockey training resource I’ve ever read and it’s under 35$! If you don’t read it you’re missing out big time. Enough said.
5. I talked about HRV in Tuesday’s blog post, and I mentioned that I think the future of periodization and managing training loads resides there. Monday morning, a fellow strength coach from the area came in to Endeavor to run our training staff through the Omega Wave, a HRV measuring tool. I was really impressed with that tool and all the information it gives you on CNS fatigue, sympathetic and parasympathetic state, and your overall readiness to train. We are really fortunate at Endeavor that the guy took time from his schedule to come over, explain to us the way the OmegaWave works and put all of us through it. A big thanks to him!
The OmegaWave. That’s pretty much how it goes.
6. Today is December 1st, which means one thing: Christmas is right around the corner! To say that I’m really excited would be an understatement. Christmas is probably my favorite time of year for a couple of reasons, especially to spend some time with my family. This year I’m especially excited for a couple of reasons:
I get a full week off!
I get to go back home to Montreal to spend the Holidays with my family and see my friends (I couldn’t make it last year)
I’m flying there, which means that I won’t have to spend a whole day in my car to get there, and another full day to come back
My girlfriend will meet my family for the first time!
Guys, this is just a quick blog post to let you know that my good friend Kevin Neeld is still offering his Ultimate Hockey Training book at the introductory price (which, unbelievably is less than 35$!). If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you pick up a copy before Kevin decides to bump up the price of the book.
If you ever buy strength and conditioning resources, you know that the books and DVDs that are sold usually don’t sell for less than 50-100$. Kevin set up that intro price to make sure that it could be available to anyone who wants to read it. Think about it. He refused to put more money in his pocket because he wanted as many people as possible to afford it.
Take advantage of his generosity before it’s too late!
Single-leg exercises like reverse lunges, rear foot elevated split squats and 1-leg squats can have great value in a training program as it improves your strength, your stability and your balance on 1 leg, which is the way most sports are played. Whether it is when you run, when you change direction, when you skate (if your sport is played on the ice) or when you decelerate, all of these actions take place on one leg at a time.
For these reasons, single leg exercises might be more “functional” than 2-legs exercises like squats. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love squats, but they might not transfer as much as single leg exercises when it comes to developing strength, speed and power in a sport context. You just need to know which one to use and when.
Athletes still need to be able to squat as it is one of the most primitive patterns that the nervous system should control and master at a very young age. You could be surprised to see how many athletes have a hard time squatting properly. It can be because of mobility restrictions, stability or motor control problems, or other reasons, but it’s still a movement that an athlete (and any person as a matter of fact) should own.
If this isn’t textbook form….unfortunately I might lose this skill as he ages
That being said there is a strong neural relationship between single-leg strength and its carryover to sport’s performance. And these can be used as a main lower body lifts just like a squat or a deadlift. On top of being very beneficial in the transfer to sport’s performance, single-leg lifts can be great to reduce spinal loading (because you’re usually using less weight than double leg exercises) and to establish symmetry between both sides. Also everything changes from double leg to single stance; more stabilizer muscles are engaged, core muscle activation is increased and the foot’s proprioception is challenged to a much greater extent.
Even if spinal loading is not as great as with regular squats, you can still get a tremendous effect out of single-leg training and gain a lot of strength. If you’re not convinced, just check out this video of one of our hockey player at Endeavor doing Reverse Lunges with 255 pounds for 6 reps!
Even Coach Jorts from CoachJortsTraining.com can’t squat as much double leg! (barely 225! Pfff, those jorts don’t even make you stronger)
In all seriousness, my friend Kevin Neeld just released his Ultimate Hockey Training book last week and he goes into great details on the benefits of single-leg lifts. Make sure you get a copy; he’s still selling it at the introductory price (less than 35$!!)
After a long awaited launch, here it is! Kevin Neeld just released his new book Ultimate Hockey Training! This book is one like you’ve never seen before. This will raise the bar for any hockey training product forever!
He’s offering a ridiculous discount and throwing in some great free gifts from some of the world’s top experts in hockey development and performance training. When he told me he was gonna sell the book for under 30$, I thought he had brain damage! But he wants to make it affordable so anyone can buy it. You’ll have to hurry, though. This offer won’t be around for long…
Kevin isn’t just an “internet expert” that bases his recommendations on random theory or what he used to do as a player. He ACTUALLY trains hockey players for a living, and has been incredibly successful at it. Ultimate Hockey Training reveals Kevin’s entire hockey training system. I highly recommend you go pick up a copy now! At the price he’s offering the book, you would be crazy not to!
As I mentioned last week, my friend and colleague Kevin Neeld is releasing is Ultimate Hockey Training book this upcoming Wednesday! This will be a book on hockey training like you’ve never seen before. Most of the hockey products out there are pretty outdated as the majority of them were written or produced in the late 80′s-early 90′s and the information contained in them is flat-out outdated.
Kevin worked really hard (trust me, I know; we share the same office) to put together the most recent information available, combined with his many years of experience training hockey players to bring you the most comprehensive hockey product to date. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the information contained in this book will completely blow your mind away! One of the things Kevin covers in great details in his book is hockey-specific conditioning. To give you a sneak-peak, Kevin put together a free hockey conditioning webinar that describes:
Common problems in current hockey speed training
3 types of hockey speed and off-ice training strategies for each
Why “agility” training will NOT make you a faster skater
How speed training fits into a comprehensive off-ice training program
How to alter your speed training depending on the time of year
Again this is a completely free webinar that will open your eyes on hockey conditioning. And the whole chapter on conditioning in Ultimate Hockey Training, by itself, is worth the price of the book! Stay tuned on this website for details on the launch of Ultimate Hockey Training on Wednesday! Here’s the link for the free webinar again:
Don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter for all the scoops on strength and conditioning and sports training! I will also send you 3 FREE reports on performance training for FREE!
I just wanted to write a quick post today to let you know that my friend and colleague from Endeavor, Kevin Neeld just posted a free webinar on transitional speed for hockey players. Kevin will be releasing his long awaited book, Ultimate Hockey Training next week, and he put up a webinar about speed training for hockey for you to watch completely free. This video will be leading up to his book launch next week. In the webinar Kevin discusses:
· Why most hockey players are doing the right speed training for the wrong sport
· Why hockey players shouldn’t do “agility” training ever again
· How to progress speed training exercises to make them more hockey-specific
· How speed training fits into a complete training program
You can check out this FREE webinar by clicking on the link below:
I’m working with Kevin on a day-to-day basis, and I can tell you he put an incomparable amount of work in the writting and publishing of his book. The results will speak for themselves when you see the book when it comes out next week. It is something like I’ve never seen before when it comes to hockey training. It will definitely raise the bar in terms of hockey products out there. I’ll just put it this way: the information you’ll find in that book will blow your mind away!
In the meantime, Kevin is offering you a free webinar that will get you thinking about the speed and agility work you do with your hockey players. Definitely a must watch! Here’s the link again:
This week I’m on vacation and will give you links to stuff you should definitely read! There has been some great material on the internet the last couple of weeks, and I think you shouldn’t miss out on it. So without further ado, there it is:
Lose Tension to Get Quick – Kelly Baggett. To be quick, the focus is often on stiffness and rate of force development, but in this blog post featured on Eric Cressey’s website, Kelly touches an important, yet almost always forgotten point, on the importance of being able to relax to be able to get quicker. Confused? Read Kelly’s post!
In-Season Hockey Training – Kevin Neeld. My friend and colleague Kevin Neeld wrote a great piece about in-season training for hockey players. Now is a great time for everyone involved in hockey to read this post because hockey players across the country are starting training camps and getting ready for the next season. Kevin addresses what should be the focus of an in-season program.
Getting Into Your Toes – Charlie Weingroff. Yet another brilliant post from Charlie on the importance of the foot/toes complex. It is a very overlooked area of the body among the strength and conditioning crew. In this one, he talks about foot and toes position during various exercises, namely exercises that are performed in the 1/2 kneeling position.
Inverted Face Pulls – Ben Bruno. Just another creative exercise from Ben Bruno. Ben has been posting many new innovative exercises through his blog and his YouTube channel. He deserves some recognition for that! Aaand he’s been linking to my blog for a long time now, so I kinda owe him too!
Kevin Neeld is definitely one of the smartest strength coaches I know; he has a lot of knowledge, he knows how to apply that knowledge and he really understands how to train athletes as he’s well aware of the demands and reality they’re facing from competing at a high level. Kevin is also an incredible person to talk to, and he is very generous of his time; he kindly accepted to contribute to my website and share his knowledge with you, my readers.
Knowing that groin injuries are growing at an alarming rate in the athletic population, especially in hockey players, I asked Kevin what 3 tips he would give to athletes trying to avoid groin injuries.
Enter Kevin:
“It’s a great topic and one that I think more athletes need to familiarize themselves with. I’ve written a lot about specific strategies on how both prevent and deal with these injuries, but over the last year I’ve discovered that there are a couple more basic messages that athletes need to understand first.
1) Take time off Most groin strains come about because of overuse, or probably more accurately, under recovery. The prevalence of groin strains amongst all athletes, but hockey players especially has drastically increased over the last 10 years. Not coincidentally, so has the emphasis on year-round sports participation and early specialization. It’s imperative that athletes play at least two sports WITH DISCTINCT OFF-SEASONS up through high school. Pairing up sports like hockey and baseball, football and lacrosse, or basketball and soccer allow athletes to benefit from the different movement strategies used in the two sports, force them to take a break from one sport while they pursue the other, and provide time for actual training (e.g. strength and conditioning) during the “third” part of the year.
Far better option for young hockey players during the summer instead of hockey summer leagues
Vladimir Issurin, world expert on block periodization and consultant to the Soviet and Israeli Olympic programs points out that we’ve replaced preparation time with competition time. No training and no rest is a recipe for groin strains.
2) Train Year-Round
This may seem counterintuitive based on the previous paragraph, but hear me out. Most groin strains come about as a result of a stiffness or an activation/strength imbalance across the hips. In the off-season, it’s important that athletes train to improve their overall athletic capacity (strength, speed, power, conditioning) to prepare for the demands of their sport. In-season athletes need to train to maintain (or continue to improve depending on the athlete) their athleticism. If athletes get weaker as the season goes on, then they will need to play at a higher percentage of their total capacity to maintain the same performance level as early in the season. Ultimately this means that athletes will have a diminished ability to perform at a high level at the end of the season, when perfect performance is most important. They also need to train in-season to REVERSE some of the undesired adaptations that result from playing their sport so much. As an example, as the season goes on some hockey players have a tendency to lose hip internal rotation ROM. An internal rotation deficit is associated with hip labral tears, and can put constant (and unnecessary) strain on the groin musculature.
The labrum is the ring of cartilage that surrounds the hip joint socket. It prevents the femural head from moving out place.
By focusing on maintaining strength and balance across the hips, we can help maximize performance and minimize injury risk.
3) Don’t be a hero in the 1st half of the season When athletes don’t prepare or prepare insufficiently for the start of a new season, it’s pretty common for a few to suffer slight groin “tweaks” during pre-season camps and early on in the season. This is simply the result of a huge increase in the volume of high velocity movement without adequate preparation. These injuries tend to go away in a couple weeks if they’re handled the right way. By “the right way” I mean by taking time off from anything that causes it pain, stretching the glutes, doing psoas activation work, and strengthening the adductors in a shortened position using exercises like the 2-Way Med Ball Crush.
Preferably done with a shirt on…
I’ve seen too many athletes, high on their own enthusiasm, fight through the pain/discomfort and keep playing. I know how difficult it is to take time away from your sport when 95% of your body feels great, but it’s a necessity. Groin “tweaks” become mild tears, which become sports hernias if unaddressed. The time to fight through pain is the playoffs, not the first half of the season. An extra week off could be the difference between your tweak healing stronger or laying the foundation for surgery in the future.”
Thanks Kevin for your words of wisdom! Make sure to check out Kevin’s website HERE.
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My actual board of directors…
NOT what I’m talking about!
Kevin Neeld from KevinNeeld.com knows how to bridge
As you can see, getting fancy is not always your best bet…
