By Chris McDole and Dave Beakley
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 any readers or sports enthusiasts managed to find the NHL playoffs on your cable packages this year, you immediately notice that strength plays a major role in the game of hockey. In recent years, the NHL has tried to transition itself to a fast paced, free flowing, Euro (diving) style in hopes of drawing in a wider fan base. However, once the playoffs roll around, strength, grit, and old school, hard nosed hockey brings home the Stanley Cup.
The move to a game focused on speed and agility has led the hockey trainers of the strength and conditioning industry to forgo all major strength lifts and instead replace them with agility and quickness drills. We should note that this is not an article to compare the value of one over the other but rather to explain that no amount of agility ladder work is going to save you from getting cross checked from behind. As Jim Wendler said at the recent VIP non-seminar seminar, “You can’t be quad dominant if your VMO is smaller than your knee cap.”
The same approach should be taken in training athletes. If you want to survive getting smashed from behind into the boards, put some mass on your upper back. If your girlfriend can feel your scapula when she puts her arms around you, it’s time to add Kroc rows to your program.
One of the comments we get about our hockey players is that they stand out in strength and size. This is in large part due to our focus on mass building exercises, exercises that any EliteFTS reader is already familiar with. Hockey, however, is not simple when it comes to properly applying the big lifts and putting together a proper program. Face it. By now, if you can’t put together a decent football program with the plethora of information on EliteFTS alone, you’re in pretty big trouble.
Hockey is a different story, needing different programming and some serious attention within the strength and conditioning industry. As any experienced hockey player, fan, coach, therapist, or trainer knows, hockey players spend countless hours on the bike. This, apparently, is a means of active recovery. We’ll tell you otherwise. The presence of the bike in hockey rinks and the attention paid to the bike by players owes itself to tradition. It’s time we flip the script on some of the dogma surrounding hockey training.
Once the season has ended, our young athletes follow a conjugate system, which is similar to Joe DeFranco’s Westside for Skinny Bastards program. This is obviously a great program to pack on the needed pounds and increase strength gains given the limited time we have with these athletes over the summer. The variation in the program keeps the players motivated, and they know that they have to push harder each week to set new PRs. As with any properly put together training program, hockey players—especially those playing spring or summer leagues—require quick recovery. Xtreme Forumulations’ ICE is our branched chain product of choice. Motivation and hard work go a long way too. Nearly any strength coach can attest to the not so stellar eating habits of younger athletes. Branched chain amino acids are a great way to supplement their diets. The efficacy of the product is strongly correlated with the amount of branched chains consumed post-training. As a result, serious athletes should not be taking anything less than 20 grams of branched chain amino acids around their training session.
Along with the traditional weaknesses that many of today’s athletes possess, groin and core imbalances are particularly concerning in younger hockey players. The repetitive skating motion causes imbalances between the glutes and abductors/adductors increasing the likelihood of groin and hamstring injuries throughout the season. Additional core imbalances result from swinging a stick in one direction all season long.
During the off-season, hockey players should begin with GPP training to address imbalances upon returning to a consistent strength and conditioning program. Exercises we like to use are squat variations, unilateral leg work, and weighted abdominal work. The hip belt squat from EliteFTS has been a piece of equipment that has been a huge asset for our hockey players. It’s used for groin pre-habilitation and rehabilitation. Many of these young hockey players have such low strength levels in the low back and posterior chain that teaching proper squat form often takes at least three weeks before any amount of appreciable weight can be used. Because off-season only gives players 8–10 weeks of in-house training, spending three weeks on form produces insignificant results in strength at this level. Although there are no real replacements for lifts such as traditional squats, a larger pool of squat variations such as those used on the power squat and hip belt squat have paid dividends through correcting muscular imbalances and saving time, energy, and patience.
Remember the stationary bike? Remember how hockey players turn into flies on shit when they see one? Well, it’s time to forget about the bike! The following are two not so common exercises that can easily be applied (but certainly not limited to) hockey players.
The first exercise we call tire fighting. Typically used as a conditioning drill by our MMA athletes, tire fighting has proven itself effective as a strength building tool. Two athletes set up on either side of the tire and are forced to try and fold the other one over like gumby more or less. Although we do not encourage unnecessarily risky drilling, the competitive nature of the tire fights adds enough to athletes’ programs to include them. As athletes compete for dominant positioning, the tire wants to move side to side. Athletes not only have to control and manage the weight of the tire, but they also have to maneuver the resistance of an opponent who, for all intents and purposes, wants to put you on your ass. You can imagine the strength needed to manage the tire, an athlete, and bragging rights.
Speed is a key component in getting a jump on your opponent. Moreover, a solid base of strength is tested each time. Athletes often describe it as a battle against the boards or in front of the net/goal or at the scrimmage line—all places where games are won or lost.
The second exercise is a Strongman exercise that we borrowed from IronMind magazine. It is the slosh pipe walk or the “Saturday night walk” as it’s been dubbed due to the athletes’ inability to walk in a straight line. With this walk, you aren’t drunk dialing. You are holding a ten foot, four inch long PVC pipe filled halfway with either water or lead shots. All kinds of carries can be utilized depending on your athlete. We suggest a Zercher hold for distances of about 50 yards. The athlete tries to stay as upright as possible and fight the pipe from wanting to tip from side to side. Upon completing the movement, the athlete’s arms, low back, and torso will all be scorched.
I’m not the first to say this and I won’t be the last, but being outside in the sun and doing some hard work is a lot more interesting, challenging, and mentally stimulating than hopping on a bike and being no more than a hamster in a wheel. It’s time for people to realize that after football and rugby, hockey is the most physical sport you can play. Athletes need to be built to endure that contact. Speed kills but only if it’s strong enough to notice it upon impact.
Chris McDole has been in the strength and conditioning industry for the last seven years in Manitoba, Canada. After completing his degree in kinesiology at the University of Winnipeg, he went on to certify as an athletic therapist under the CATA team. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Manitoba in the field of medical rehabilitation. Chris also trains a client base of amateur and professional athletes at his facility, McDole Performance Systems, in Winnipeg, Canada.
Dave Beakley graduated with a bachelor’s degree in kinesiology from the University of Manitoba, where he also started for the Bison football team for four years. He has been in the strength and conditioning field for the last two years and has worked with athletes ranging from high school up to the NHL, CFL, and UFC.