As a strength and conditioning coach who works with a lot of teenagers, I am often asked by parents how much faster is their kid going to get by training with us.  This seems to be one of the major concerns of a lot of parents who bring us their kid to train.  It is mind boggling to me, mostly because the kids of the parents that come up to me to ask that kind of question are usually 13 or younger.  Am I the only one who thinks there’s something wrong with that?!?

But regardless, I usually give a multifaceted answer to those parents.  The points I’m trying to get across are:

- Despite what other sports training facilities might try to sell you, becoming lightening fast doesn’t happen in 6 weeks.

- At such a young age, there are a lot of things happening in a kid’s body.  Getting faster will have a lot to do with the physiological development that happens when you’re a teenager.  There are a lot of things happening in their body (hormones, growth spurt, etc) and these things will influence athletic development a lot.  Before puberty though, you can’t expect drastic changes in a kid’s speed or strength.  The changes you’ll see, even with good training, are going to be on a smaller scale until your kid hits puberty.

- Related to the last point, it’s important to realize that not all kids will hit puberty and develop at the same time.  Because of that, you can’t expect your 4’8″ 12 year old son to be as fast on the field or on the ice as the one year older kids who are 5’6″ and hit their puberty earlier.  Those are transition years; it’s hard, if not impossible, to compare kids to one another.

- Getting faster is about moving better (movement quality) and improving your strength to bodyweight ratio.  Doing endless numbers of sprints and running the kids to the ground will not help them get faster.  Improving the way you move is a process, just like improving strength.  Overtime it will lay the foundations for your kid to truly become one the fastest and most dominant player on the field or on the ice.  Just don’t expect that to happen overnight.  It might take a couple of years…yes, I said a couple of YEARS.

- Consistency and hard work are going to be key to achieving athletic success.  Just because you subscribed your kid to a sports training facility, doesn’t mean that results will magically happen.  Your kid needs to be working hard and be dedicated to getting faster and achieving athletic success; and not just in the gym, in the practice of their sport(s) as well.

- Related to the last point, kids are kids.  Internal motivation at a young age is not always very strong; a lot of it is going to be coming from the parents.  Kids need to be supported and encouraged in what they do.  That’s how they will develop that internal motivation to achieve their athletic goals, or whatever else it may be.  Kids don’t need to be told “you’re not fast enough”, “you’re so slow compared to your teammates”, “are you even trying?”, etc.  Positive reinforcement and encouragements will make your kid want to keep getting better, even in a period of transition when they happen to be smaller and slower than some other kids they play with.  That’s when they need the support because they can become discouraged very quickly.

Speed, like athletic development in general, is a process.  It’s important to see it as a long term project that you need to be working hard for throughout the years.  Work hard, be consistent, don’t give up when you’re faced with obstacles, and most importantly BE PATIENT.  This is a message that kids, AND especially parents must understand.  Getting faster, or quicker, or stronger, or a better (insert sport) player takes time.  Going to a sports training facility to achieve your athletic goals is a smart move because we are there to help, but it is NOT like going to the doctor for a sinus infection; there is no quick fix or magic pill.  Parents need to understand that.

To get training tips to becoming a faster athlete, simply enter your info below and I’ll send you my FREE report on speed training!

I came across a study yesterday (thanks to my colleague Kevin Neeld) on ice hockey and the relationship of physiological components with actual on-ice performance.  Before discussing the results of the study, what I found especially interesting with this specific study is that they were interested in the actual on-ice performance during games.  Most studies measuring physiological attributes (such as strength, speed, VO2 max, body fat, etc) usually relate these aspects to on-ice performance, but not very often to actual in-game performance; results will most of the time be compared to on-ice skating speed, endurance and the like.

In this study by Peyer et Al., the physiological measures were compared to in-game performance in the form of plus/minus scores.  The characteristics measured were:

• Age
• Height
• Weight
• Body mass
• Body fat %
• VO2 Max
• Repeated off-ice speed test (in the form of 12 x 110 meters sprints)
• Strength tests (in the form of push ups, chin ups, leg press and bench press)
• On-ice speed tests (dot-to-dot, short lightning, and lap sprint)
• Plus/minus on the ice during games

A significant correlation was found between the repeated off-ice sprint test, 3 strength tests (chin ups, leg press and bench press) and the plus/minus scores.  The players who performed the best on the repeated sprint test and the 3 strength tests had a better plus/minus score.  What is equally interesting to me is that body fat percentage and Vo2 max, which are two highly rated and utilized tests in the hockey community, had no relevance whatsoever with actual in-game performance.

Good Predictor of Hockey Performance?

If you’ve been using a no-nonsense approach to training hockey players (prioritizing strength, using an interval-based system for conditioning, etc) you’re probably not very surprised by the results of this study.  It’s interesting to me that the research world is actually coming up with concrete results that support and back some of the stuff we’ve been trying to spread in the strength and conditioning world.

It is obvious that there is a need for more research to be done on physiological components and their relation to in-game performance, as this study (like any study out there) has its flaws.  The first one is the fact that the study has been done on only one college hockey team (NCAA D-1), so only 24 players were part of the study.  In an ideal world we would want a bigger sample of players to contribute to the results.  Also, the in-game measure that was used was the plus/minus score of each player.  Although the plus/minus score gives a good idea about a player’s offensive and defensive abilities and reflects on-ice performance decently, there are other factors that affect this score.  For example, the goalie’s performance can positively or negatively affect the outcome of one player’s plus/minus; if the goalie is really good and allows very few goals during games, even when he faces a lot of shots, it can positively affect a player’s plus/minus score.  And the opposite is also true if the goalie is terrible and allows many goals, the plus/minus score will be affected negatively.

In conclusion, this study gives us a good lead on what might be more appropriate tests that actually co-relate to in-game performance and what physiological attributes might be more relevant for hockey players to focus on.

References

Peyer KL, Pivarnik JM, Eisenmann JC, Vorkapich M. (2011). Physiological characteristics of national collegiate athletic association division I ice hockey players and their relation to game performance.  Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(5):1183-92.

I want to start things off by wishing all of you a great year 2011, and may this upcoming year bring you health, joy and success!

And now off to my special announcement I’ve been talking about for the last 2 weeks.

If you haven’t already noticed, there is a place on the right side bar of my website that says “Sports Training Secrets Revealed” and a place to sign up.  I am officially launching my DavidLasnier.com newsletter!  What it means for you, is that you will get updates directly by e-mail on sports training and athletic development tips and secrets!  That makes it a lot easier for my readers to follow my work.  I’m also going to have some exclusive tips in my newsletter that you won’t see anywhere else.

But the best part of all this is that by signing up for my TOTALLY FREE newsletter, you get 3 FREE gifts!  That is a way for me to say thank you to my readers for following my work since I put up my website last year.  I really appreciate all the support you have given me and all the great feedback I got from you.

So, what you get by signing up for DavidLasnier.com’s newsletter is 3 FREE reports on athletic development:

- 5 Secrets to Improve Maximum Acceleration: A report on how to drastically improve speed and agility through no-nonsense training.  Too many athletes make BIG mistakes when training for speed; don’t be one of them!

- Shoulder Injury Prevention Strategies: The shoulder is one of the most complex joints in the body.  There are many factors to consider when trying minimize the instance of injuries around that joint.  Make sure you are aware of all the strategies I mention in this report to keep your athletes’ shoulders and yours healthy!

- Self-Myofascial Release Routine: The use of the foam roller has become more and more popular with the athletic population, and for good reasons; it’s so important to take care of your muscle tissue quality.  This report is the exact same pre-workout soft-tissue routine we use with our athletes at Endeavor.  Check it out to see what other tools than the foam roller we’re also using with our athletes!

Make sure you sign up for my FREE newsletter to get instant access to all 3 of these FREE reports!

I will be back on Thursday with some fresh content on sports training.  Have a great year 2011!

When you’re a strength coach, one question that comes up all the time is: Should athletes do strength training during the season?  The long answer is it really depends on the athlete’s situation, but more often than not the answer is yes.

The first thing to consider is the purpose of training in-season; most athletes who play at a competitive level have a high volume of practices and games.  Therefore, it is very difficult to make gains without getting too tired which in turns mean performing less than optimally in games.  But if you’re not going to make any gains, why even bother training? For one, injury prevention is very good reason to train in-season.  That way training can be geared toward fixing imbalances created by the same repetitive movements that the athlete will perform over and over in the practice of their sport. 

Second, if the athlete has been training during the off-season and made tremendous gains in strength and power, you would definitely want to train to at least maintain those gains.  Strength and power are the two most important qualities that you want to maintain.  I am saying that because gains made in speed, agility and level of conditioning in the off-season will, most of the time, be easily maintained through the practice of their sport alone.  Let me give you a couple of examples: will a soccer player really improve his speed by doing, let’s say, an additional 10-15 sprints in their training while they’re actually sprinting for the ball hundreds of times a week while practicing and playing?  Similarly, will a basketball player really improve his conditioning with 15-30 more minutes of interval training while he’s practicing and playing in a sport-specific environment for over 5 hours a week?  I think you get the idea…

Please note here that I also said “most of the time” speed and agility training as well as additional conditioning are not necessary in-season.  An exception to that might be if a player is not on the starting line-up or just not playing a lot; in that case, the athlete might need the additional volume of speed, agility and conditioning to stay on top of his game.

Strength and power are totally different though.  The reason is because these two qualities require the use of some sort of additional resistance.  That is why if not trained, strength and power will progressively decrease and the athlete might lose all of what he gained during the off-season.  That is going to become more obvious as the season progresses, as athletes gets more and more tired from the high volumes of practices, games and stress in general related to everyday life (school, family, boy/girlfriend, job, etc).  It is imortant to be careful with the volume of training that is given to the athlete, because it can contribute to overtraining.  Also, you do not need high volumes of training to maintain athletic qualities; most of the time, only a couple of sets per week will be more than enough.

Again, there are a lot of factors to consider for training in-season, but it is definitely essential to maintain gains made in the off-season and help prevent injuries.

Sprints are a very good way to develop speed for athletes from almost every sports.  With sprints, you can use a whole variety of starting positions as progressions to improve agility and reaction time in different sport specific positions. 

This one is coming from my good friend and colleague Kevin Neeld, and it is called a Side Falling Lunge Start.  We use this starting position for sprints with a lot of our athletes. 

You want to take a big step forward, drop as low as possible into a lunge position and immediatly explode out of the lunge position into a sprint in an opposite direction.  We usually cue the athletes to make the transition as quick as possible.

It is a great way to improve their reaction time, their agility and their transitional speed as it teaches them to quickly change direction as they need to move to one plane of motion to another.  And when you think about it, it is as sport specific as it gets, as almost any team sports requires athletes to quickly change direction.