For years, coaches have been failing to attain maximum results when putting their hockey players on an off-ice conditioning program. Much of this comes from misunderstandings. Typically, an unknowing coach will put far too much emphasis on aerobic training despite its near uselessness in hockey specific conditioning. For example, timed miles, which I have performed as a player and have seen many head coaches require that their players perform, have very little transition to a hockey player’s game related physical preparation. There is a better way—high intensity interval training.

You might disagree, but hear me out on this. As an ex-college football player and currently a strength coach, I’ve found the utilization and teaching of Olympic lifts to be tedious, inefficient, and downright boring. As a college athlete, I hardly found the patience to learn the correct lifting technique for the power clean. Although I held the St. John’s University power clean record in my freshman season, muscling 335 lbs (152 kg) off the platform, my technique was completely flawed. My attempt looked more like an axle clean and press in Strongman than the smooth pull of an Olympic weightlifter.

It seems that the terms off-season and pre-season are synonymous in the world of high school athletics. Most of the athletes who I train play multiple sports or participate in the same sport in multiple seasons. Unlike the college athlete, the high school athlete doesn’t have 16–24 plus weeks in the off-season/pre-season to devote to a comprehensive strength and conditioning program.

A competitive powerlifter has one goal—to get as strong as hell. We try to perform GPP, eat healthy, and do all of the other little things to stay in shape. However, the bottom line is if it isn’t increasing the total, it’s not really high on the priority list. This is my mindset as a powerlifter, and most of the successful lifters whom I’ve known have been the same way. Anyone who has stepped on the platform has this competitive spirit. It’s the same spirit that drove me to my other favorite sport…fighting.

The biggest problem I come across with athletes is their current training regime. Everyone wants to train like a bodybuilder. I don't know if it’s the current trend in muscle magazines or misinformation, or maybe the athletes simply don't have the proper goals in mind. Nevertheless, changes need to be made.

Bands are nothing new to most coaches and trainers. They have quickly become one of the most versatile and effective training tools in a coach’s toolbox. Initially, many thought of them only as rehabilitation tools. However, Westside Barbell changed the perception of bands with its innovative techniques for using them for accommodating resistance.

Bodybuilding is here to stay. As long as there is a desire to get stronger, grow bigger, or look better, bodybuilding will remain an invariable foundation in the world of physique improvement.

The latest installment in our “How We Use The Prowler” series comes from Elliott Hulse of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Imagine—you’re a broke kid living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. The closest fitness center is miles away and you don’t have a car to get there anyway. None of your friends know what a weight is. You’ve asked them to give it a try, but they just gave you the middle finger as they sped off to the mall or plopped down in front of the television to play video games.

A few weeks ago, we decided to put together a roundtable-style article about the use of the Prowler...

The title of this article is a little misleading. It’s not about the balance that most trainers think about such as standing on one foot on a Bosu ball. It’s about building a physically and structurally balanced athlete. These ideas and qualities are what form the exercise selection of our strength program. Our staff has five major goals in mind for our strength program—increasing power/explosiveness, increasing speed, increasing strength, increasing lean muscle tissue (size), and preventing injury.

For as long as I have been involved in sports and training, I have seen more cookie cutter training programs than you can shake a stick at (and that’s a lot).

In keeping with Canadian tradition, our athletes have started counting down the days to next year’s NHL camp. That’s right—the Stanley Cup has just found a home in Hockey Town. (That’s the Super Bowl of professional hockey for everyone in the Southern States. You know, the NHL. It gets its airtime following basketball, bowling, Will and Grace reruns, and the infomercials for erectile dysfunction.)

If you watch runners before a race or if you watch baseball, football, or other athletes warming up before a game, you will see that most of them do the butt kick (quadriceps) stretch.

When it comes to strength and sports—and how to increase strength for those sports—most of the information out there is about sports such as football, powerlifting, basketball, and hockey. But what about the lesser known sports such as cheerleading, figure skating, and dance?

The elite NBA players of today includes Steve Nash, Allen Iverson, Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, LeBron James, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, and Dirk Nowitzki and their athletic ability.

I understand that not every 8-year-old knows exactly what a glute ham is or how to perform the movement. Few adults know.

There’s nothing fancy here and no expensive machines are needed. More than likely, if you’re reading this article, you probably already have the tools to do it. Okay, let’s rock.

The concept of metabolic conditioning has to be without a doubt one of the most misunderstood topics in strength and conditioning today. It seems that every fitness guru has some different method for improving your “conditioning” with the aim of burning fat or improving performance for a specific sport. However, none of them really get to the heart of how energy production really works.

This strength program is a combination of several styles and programs that I have discovered in my ten years of experience. You will read about systems that I’ve learned from Joe DeFranco, Dave Tate, and Louie Simmons. You will learn philosophies that I’ve adopted from BFS’s Greg Shepard, Mike Boyle, and Paul Chek. I’ve learned a ton by training with Strongman champion, Tom Mitchell, and watching videos from the Parisi School.

Coaches believe that technique should not be touched. They firmly believe that technique is an individual thing that is innate to each individual. However, these ideas could not be further from the truth. One of the most effective ways to improve sports performance is to improve technique.

Sports training or sports-specific training is a different beast than competitive powerlifting. However, the “Big Three” have a great impact on the overall strength and explosiveness of the athlete. The $1500 question is how to develop a strength and speed program to help athletes excel in their sport of choice.

Football coaches know that selecting a player based on combine results is a crap shoot at best. In this article, Dr. Yessis evaluates the tests used to offer a possible explanation of why the combine results are such poor predictors of game play success.

On this program, you’ve got to eat. If you are skinny and weak, you need to eat a ton of food. And don’t just tell me that you “eat a lot.” I get this answer from many kids, and when I take one look at what they really consume, it turns out to be nothing more than a few slices of Elio’s Pizza and some cereal all day long.