It may seem like a shocking title for those of you who know I’m actually from Canada. This country has produced the best hockey players of all time throughout the years, but it also might be on the downfall. Let me explain myself…
It’s no secret to anyone that a big share of the best players from the last few decades are coming from Canada; Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Patrick Roy, Ray Bourque, Steve Yzerman and most recently Chris Pronger and Sidney Crosby. Hockey is Canada’s national sport and we have played the sport for a longer time than pretty much the rest of the world. Without any number to support that, I also know for a fact that a big majority of guys have been playing hockey on a consistent basis at some point as a kid. So, in a way, it is not surprising to see so many players emerge from Canada.
Probably one of the greatest Canadian hockey player of all time
But in the last couple of years we have seen less and less Canadian players (especially French-Canadian) break through in the NHL. According to USA Hockey, the number of Canadian junior hockey players who make it to the NHL have decreased by 50% in the last 20 years! That’s a huge number. Also, in this year’s NHL draft only 13 Fench-Canadian players have been selected; and the first one was selected 67th overall. Even funnier, Danny Biega, who was that 67th overall pick was actually playing for Harvard last season. Those are pretty alarming numbers for Canada’s hockey development programs considering that so many good players used to come from Canada (and especially the province of Quebec).
Danny Biega…playing for Harvard University!
Maybe the fact that 16-20 years old kids playing in the QMJHL (Quebec’s highest level junior league) are playing 80+ games a year as something to do with it….maybe the fact that it is not unusual for them to travel 8 hours by bus just to play a single game has to do with it…maybe the fact that these kids are required to take classes in school at the same time has to do with it…or is it all these things combined and the huge amount of stress it puts on their body that might do more harm than good to their development? And some of them are playing hockey year round never giving their body some rest…Give me a break! There is no way this can all be that good for a player’s development.
But what do I know? I’m just a strength coach after all…
Another thing that struck me is how retarded training is among most of the junior hockey teams and hockey development programs. I had a discussion last week with one of our player who plays in the OHL (Ontario Hockey League) for a well established team about their training and two things struck me: the first one, when they do testing at the beginning of the season they test (among other things) push ups for max reps and bench press using 100lbs for max reps as well. Apparently, you go through both tests within a minute or two of the other one (not always in the same order). There are just so many things wrong with that protocol, but I won’t go into much details about that since it could be the purpose of an entire different post.
The second thing he said that totally suprised me is the fact that they have NO TRAINING PROGRAM AT ALL; they don’t in-season nor off-season! This is totally retarded in my opinion that a team in a league that is suppose to prepare and expose their players as much as possible so they have a chance of being drafted in the NHL are not physically preparing their players at all! And I know for a fact that it is not only one team. And a lot of teams in the major junior hockey leagues in Canada that do have some kind of strength and conditioning programs, most of the time, it’s gonna be programs that include bodybuilding style training (body part splits) and some sort of distance running or other aerobic type of conditioning; none of these are specific or optimal for hockey players. I am saying that because I actually came across a couple of these programs in the past.
Appropriate training for hockey players? …I don’t think so
I am pretty sure that this kind of stuff is not only present in Canada, beacuse I have seen it in programs coming from elsewhere. But I will say this: I have been in the United States for 6 months now and I have seen far more good training facilities and people who really “get it” than I have seen in my whole life living in Canada.
I am in no way trying to diss all the training that is done in Canada; I actually know people from there who actually do a good job at training athletes. All I’m trying to say is that in a general way, the United States are improving more and more the quality of development that is offered to players. The guys play less games in College settings and the seasons are generally shorter so that gives them the time to get good off-ice training that includes appropriate speed, power, strength and conditioning development as well as time to recover and work on injury prevention.
In the meantime, most development programs in Canada encourage players to spend more time on the ice as the general mentality is (more often than not) more is better; players play more games, have more practices and are encouraged to specialize at an early age and play year round in summer leagues, camps and showcases being conviced by their coach that this is the only way they’re gonna get better. All this is gonna lead you to in the long run is overtrained athletes (read: it’s gonna slow down their development) and lots of overuse injuries. Are we going backwards?
In my own opinion, I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that team USA has reached the gold medal game in the Olympic tournament this year, even though the team wasn’t expected to perform so well, especially when we consider the impressive rosters on not only the Canadian team, but also Sweden and Russia’s teams.
Is this the beginning of an era in hockey? Only the future will tell us.
At the risk of getting some hate mail for this blog post, I will call out one of the most popular exercise in athletes and fitness enthousiasts alike; the crunch. Whether they are done on the ground, on a stability ball, on a Bosu ball, with your legs straight, with your legs bent or juggling with dumbbells I don’t care; crunches are probably the most useless exercise to train your core (or abs, or midsection, whatever you want to call it).
Why? I am going to answer that question with another question: why are we doing crunches anyway? It’s probably for one of two reasons. The first one is because it is believed by many that the main function of your abs (read: rectus abdominis) is to flex your spine, so it would seem normal to train abs by doing flexions. The other reason is because crunches have been around forever, everyone has been doing them, so we just don’t think about why we do it.
The truth is a that flexion at the spine is not the main function of your rectus abdominis. Spinal flexion is actually one of the mechanisms that lead to low back injuries along with hyperextension and rotation. And Dr.Stuart McGill who is one of the lead researcher in the world in low back pain and injuries has actually described that in great details in his books. So why would you want to try to recreate an injury mechanism in your training?
The true role of the rectus abdominis is to prevent extension at the lumbar spine; in other words, its primary function is stability at the lower back. The rectus abdominis also works with the obliques (internal and external) as well as with the spinal erectors and inner core muscles to create a brace around the spine to prevent excessive movements.
That’s right, all these muscles work together to STABILIZE around the lower back. So why the hell would you want to find ways to create more motion at this joint that needs stability by using all sorts of flexion and rotation exercises? That just doesn’t make sense to me.
One more thing is that by training the rectus abdominis with repeated flexion doing crunches, you’re actually shortening that muscle. Keeping in mind that the rectus abdominis attaches at the ribs, what’s going to happen if this muscle keeps shortening and pulls the ribs down?
You’re gonna end up with a pretty bad kyphosis (rounded over upper back) and that’s gonna lead you to a whole lot of other problems.
The true role of the core muscles is to stabilize; prevent flexion, prevent extension, prevent side bend and prevent rotation to avoid excessive motion. So wouldn’t it make sense to train these muscles that exact same way? There are tons of excellent exercises that are gonna enhance stability of the trunk. If you don’t know where to start, there is a revolutionary exercise that we just discovered and nobody ever heard of, that is gonna do wonders to improve stability….it’s called a plank!
But what about rotation? You need rotational power when you sports, right? I totally agree with that, but rotation should be trained through the hips while the trunk muscles remain stable. Most of your rotational power is going to come from your hips anyway.
I think it’s about time we drop the crunches for good. Just because they have been around forever and it seems like everyone does them means they are good for you, nor you should keep doing them.
In my last post I touched a little bit on the importance of stretching. The post was about static stretching, but I also mentioned that dynamic stretching is another important part of the puzzle. In fact, dynamic stretching is often overlooked; a lot of people are familiar with it, but at the same time so many people use only static stretching to warm up when there’s a much better option.
Dynamic stretching is really important to improve range of motion as it will improve stability and control within that full range of motion. Therefore it’s also more specific to any sport than static stretching is (think about it, how many movements are done passively in sports?). It is not only important to have good range of motion around our joints, but also to have body control within that new range of motion if we want it to be helping us perform better in the gym and when play sports.
With our athletes, we always use a dynamic stretching warm up at the beginning of every session right after doing some soft-tissue work with the foam roller to get the muscles more pliable and react better to dynamic stretching. We try to include drills that will improve mobility mainly at the ankles, hips, thoracic spine and shoulders (which are the joints that are meant for more mobility). And we’re also going to try to include drills that will improve stability and control within that full range of motion.
Here is an example of one of the warm ups we use with our athletes that my colleague Kevin Neeld has put together a couple of months ago:
Please note that I performed only 3-4 reps for ONE SIDE ONLY of the drills in the video just to keep it shorter. Obviously, we always perform everything on both sides usually! This is the full warm up:
- 3 ways ankle drill vs wall 5,5,5/side
- Penguin’s walk on 25 yards
- Rectus femoris mobilization vs wall x8/side
- Reverse lunges with rotation x8/side
- 2 way hip rock x6/side
- Lateral lunges x8/side
- Side-lying rotation-extension x8/side
- Side lying bow & arrow (5sec holds) x 5/side
- Yoga push ups x8
- Inverted reach x8/side
The exercises are paired in such a way that we mobilize a joint in a more passive way and we immediatly stabilize that same joint in its new found range of motion with the very next exercise (example: rectus femoris mobilization to improve mobility of the hip flexors followed by reverse lunge to get stability in that full range of motion).
This is just to give an example of what a good warm up should include to improve range of motion with your athletes and prevent the risks of injuries, but keep in mind that are tons of other options to include in your dynamic stretching routine.
Unless you have been living in a cave with no internet access for the past 6 years, you have probably heard of Eric Cressey before. Eric is one of the industry’s leaders in strength and conditioning. He is a well established coach, writer and business guy as he’s been owning his own facility for the last three years and has been coaching thousands of athletes in different sports. Eric is also an accomplished lifter himself as he used to compete in powerlifting and he still deadlifts well over 600 pounds to this day.
Eric is also a VALUABLE source of information with all the material he’s written. I would recommend all of his articles and products to anyone trying to become a better strength and conditioning coach. To say that I have learned A LOT from Eric during the past few years would be an understatement. Here is just a couple of things I have picked up from him lately. Enjoy!
1. Taking care of shoulder health is more than just strengthening the rotator cuff.
If you want to have healthy shoulders, you obviously need to take care of them in your training. If you do some stretching and some strengthening exercises for the rotator cuff and think it’s taken care of, well, the sad truth is that you are leaving out a lot of very important factors that play a huge role in shoudler health. Here is a list of all the things you should consider when working with people with bum shoulders or when trying to keep shoulders healthy:
1. Soft-tissue quality (primarily pec major and minor, levator scapula, scalenes, lats and rotator cuff)
2. Scapular stability
3. Thoracic spine mobility (in extension and rotation)
4. Range of motion at the gleno-humeral joint
5. Tissue length of the following: pec major and minor, levator scapula, lats and biceps.
6. Rotator cuff strength
7. Hip and ankle mobility of the opposite side (as the shoulder have fascial connections with these 2 joints)
8. Breathing patterns (as breathing through your chest instead of your belly can lead to over stressing muscles like the pecs and scalenes)
As you can see, there is a lot to address to prevent/treat shoulder injuries, and these factors happen to be even more important when dealing with athletes from sports like baseball, swimming and basketball, as these athletes put tremendous amounts of stress on their shoulders.
2. Soft tissue work and flexibility work go hand-in-hand.
Almost everyone by now knows that tissue length and tissue quality are of paramount importance to stay away from imbalances and injuries. But did you also know that these 2 need to be combined for optimal results and lasting changes. Once you work on your soft-tissue quality, whether it is with foam rolling, ART, Graston or just good ol’ massage, you should work on tissue quality right after.
Once you have removed the adhesions (or knots) in your muscles, doesn’t it make sense to stretch them right after, before you have new adhesions/knots reappear? In fact, right after soft-tissue work, your muscles are more pliable and less resistant to any change in length, so you should take advantage of that time to “re-educate those tissues on how to deform properly” as Cressey put it himself.
3. Get out of those high heels!
Wearing conventional “high heeled” sneakers with a lot of cushioning and support around the ankles are probably the worst thing you can do to your feet and ankles. It limits your range of motion at the ankle (especially in dorsiflexion) and it modifies the way you walk and run as you don’t have to absorb ground forces as much as all the padding in the soles is doing the job; your feet are basically becoming lazier. You are also losing a good amount of proprioception in your feet as they are separated from the ground by a 1-2″ cushion. And as Cressey said it himself: “…wearing sneakers has really screwed up the way people run, and in my opinion, has caused the exponential rise in injuries among distance runners.” That doesn’t mean we should all ditch our sneakers, but I think we should definitely make better footwear choices. Nike Frees, Puma flats and Vibram Five Fingers are all better options as they keep you closer to the ground.
Although not yet socially acceptable, this is probably the best footwear choice you could make!
Doing more barefoot stuff (like warm ups and deadlift) in our training is another way to go as it will reestablish proprioception in our feet.
If you’re interested to learn more from Eric Cressey, I would suggest you check out his website and sign up for his FREE newsletter!
I mentioned in a previous post that single exercises like reverse lunges, back leg raised 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 be as useful as single leg exercises when it comes to transferring strength gains to your sport. You just need to know which one to use and when.
For many years I have been a big fan of single leg exercises as they help develop strength and balance in the knee extensors (quadriceps), hip extensors (glute maximus and hamstrings) as well as hip abductors (glute medius) and hip adductors (adductor magnus, longus and brevis) all at the same time. But I have to say that I have always been hesitant to use single leg exercises as a main lower body lift in the past because I always thought that you could load 2-leg exercises like the squat a lot more than you could with single leg exercises. And more loads also equals better strength gains….Well that’s what I thought a couple months ago….Not anymore.
With all the athletes we’ve seen at Endeavor this summer, I am now convinced that you don’t NEED 2-leg exercises to significantly load a lower body exercise and see great strength gains.
We’ve had numerous hockey players use over 225 pounds for a barbell reverse lunge with a front squat grip, a couple of them going up to around 265! These guys were D-1 College players or Junior League players around 18-19 years old.
Here is Endeavor athlete Charlie Vasaturo, 19 years old, doing reverse lunges with a front squat grip with 255 for 6 reps:
This is also not uncommon to have younger kids(around 14) do dumbbell reverse lunges with over 50 pounds in each hand.
Here is a video of an other Endeavor athlete, Conor Landrigan, 14 years old, who started training with us about 6 months ago and had pretty much no lifting experience before that. Here he is doing a dumbbell reverse lunge for 6 reps with 65 pounds in each hand:
The fact is that once you get used to the movement pattern of a single leg exercise, you can load them up almost as much as you can with 2-leg exercises like squats(in fact, we have our athletes front squat as well and their number are not that much higher than they are for reverse lunges and split squats).
So don’t be affraid to use a single leg exercise as your main lower body lift, as you will be able to load them significantly, your strength gains will transfer better to your sport and you will improve your balance in a sport-specific way.
I usually want to put original content on my website, but for today’s post I am just gonna simply put up 2 very interesting links you should definitely check out.
1. This is an interview my colleague Kevin Neeld did with me last week that he posted on his website. He asks me questions mainly on hockey development, but also on supplements and the personal training business versus the strength and conditioning business. When Kevin sent me his questions, I just answered them right away without asking myself any questions. But when I re-read it when it went on his website last Friday I was proud of the way it turned out; I realized that there is a lot of valuable information, especially on the development of hockey players at different levels, that is definitely worth the read. If you haven’t already checked it out, you can right now by clicking HERE.
2. The second one is a blog post written by Brian St. Pierre on conventional dairy products. I read that post just last week and to say it was an eye-opener for me would be an understatement. Brian presents some shocking facts about how dairy products are handled and produced. This is a MUST READ for anyone concerned about their nutrition. Since reading it last week, I am truly reconsidering my dairy intake on a daily basis and might just cut the majority of it from my diet sooner than later. make sure you check it out HERE.
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.
