Hockey is a high impact, high intensity, physically demanding sport. At the highest level of play, the game moves at amazing speeds. Scott Niedermayer won the 1998 “fastest skater” in the NHL Skills competition by circling the rink in 13.56 seconds, which translates to about 28 mph. Can you imagine absorbing the impact of a car traveling at this speed, yet alone two cars colliding at similar speeds? Welcome to the great sport of hockey!

Experience is a valuable teacher, arguably the single most important step in the learning process. Learning from past success and failure allows us to build efficient, effective training methods, exercise components, philosophies, coaching cues, professional, hands-on knowledge, and most importantly saves time. “Time is of essence, and the essence of success is time.” (John Wooden) There are many avoidable mistakes young coaches make to form their experiences: from the muscle head coach who creates his workout regime from a Bodybuilding Magazine, to the Coach who tries to fit square pegs in round holes and hurts his clients or himself, to the Coach that thinks a former sporting career qualifies him as a competent, effective strength and conditioning professional. The question we all need to ask ourselves is: “Can we expedite the learning process?” “Can we learn from wise coaches with years of experience making mistakes so that we may avoid them?” The answer to this question is YES! I call this Fast Forward Learning.

During my days as a youth, I was never a big fan of visiting the doctors’ office. Just the sight of a white coat made my heart race faster than a pace car at the Indianapolis 500. Maybe it was the fear of getting a shot, or the doctor asking me to turn and cough, either way you cut it, I had white coat syndrome! Fast forward to the present and my profession as a Strength and Conditioning Coach. The best coaches in the business use evidence based practice, meshing research with practical application to form safe, and effective protocol for their respective populations. Research however is a touchy subject. What journals are considered “credible”? How old is the study? What population was used to prove/disprove a theory? Does the study classify a “group” and not individualize certain characteristics (i.e. weight, height, age, lifestyle, sport career, previous injury, level of exercise, ect)? The list goes on and on! Research/Evidence is very important, and with all if this information at hand, many Coaches can get white coat syndrome (overwhelmed and hesitant to proceed).

Who cut the cheese in the weight room? No, I ‘m not referring to the passing of gas; I’m referring to the QUALITY of movement and exercise selection. Too many times we as coaches sacrifice quality for quantity, quality for load, and quality for inflated ego. Any time your clients/athletes engage in training, the smell test must be passed! To pass the smell test: three questions MUST be answered with a YES. If not, your weight room will smell worse than yesterday’s left over’s.

Hockey is an extremely demanding sport! A quality strength and conditioning program needs to reflect these demands. Components such as: soft tissue work, static stretching, mobility, dynamic flexibility, upper/lower body plyometrics, speed development, strength training and energy system capacity are all vital for performance gains.   When designing programs we often overlook one of the most fundamental questions, what are the demands of the sport? Does my program reflect these qualities?