The Importance of Working Out

Every child only gets one shot to build an elite physical foundation – this one shot is during puberty. The average child hits puberty by age 12, so I recommend that at this point hockey players should be engaging in proper training, but they can start earlier. During puberty the extra hormones (e.g., testosterone) in their system helps them make the most of their workouts. The gains they make during puberty gives them a foundation for the rest of their life. An athlete never gets a second opportunity to take advantage of puberty. If they want to decide at 19 that it is time to start training hard they have missed the window and won’t make the same kind of gains.

I am not suggesting early specialization. This is about physical literacy and building a foundation during their developmental years. Starting the right training and right routines with the right mindset will make a huge impact in their physical development. Working out might be hard work, but I guarantee if they put in the effort they will get stronger and faster. There are NO shortcuts.

Here are my workout recommendations:

1.     Get Supervised Training
Start right. Athletes who don’t get supervised training are likely to develop bad habits that could lead to injury or limit development. Having qualified trainers that ensure safety and proper technique is important. Relative to all the other expenses in hockey, dry land training is inexpensive and has huge benefits. At 12 they should have supervised training at least once per week because it ensures they are developing proper technique. Signing up for a supervised program is ideal, but you can use alternative options such as working out with an educated parent or older sibling. Note at 12 years of age players should only be working out a max of twice per week so that they can keep playing other sports!  

Furthermore, players can do extra workouts on their own. However, they should only use weights under the supervision of a qualified trainer. Lifting weights is not bad for children! For example, let’s assume that when a kid does a push-up he is pushing 70lbs, but by using weights he can now push LESS weight with proper technique – allowing him or herself to make the proper improvements.

In addition, it is really important that athletes maintain their flexibility and range of motion as they begin to workout. Doing proper warm-ups and post workout stretching is all part of doing it right! Another important point is to make sure the workout program is balanced: balancing reciprocal muscle groups (e.g., quads and hamstrings) as well as taking care of the smaller but important muscle groups (e.g., hip-flexors, groins, shoulders). Qualified trainers should meet these needs.
 

2.     Make Every Workout Count and Don’t Miss Workouts
Create the right mindset from the start. The frequency and intensity of your workouts is a habit. If an athlete doesn’t give 100% in their workout or skip the odd workout, it becomes a habit, and the sum of their workouts over time will make a substantial difference. This is not just about being faster and stronger for September; it is about next year’s playoffs, the season after that, and in four years from now. Think long term and create habits that will foster long term success. Having training buddies (parent or teammate) and pre-set training sessions at the gym help build consistent and intense workout habits. In addition, players could track their workouts on a calendar to ensure consistency.

Other important parts of development that can help hockey players gain an advantage include playing other sports, eating healthy, sleeping, and practicing specific skills (e.g., shooting pucks). Just like with working out, the mindset of ‘everything counts’ is important. For example, every unhealthy snack adds up over time. This is not to say eliminate all treats, but athletes need to have a strong connection and desire to fuel their bodies with healthy foods. If two players complete the same workout program, the one who eats healthier will see way better results!

If you are interested in starting a dry land program in North Bay, I recommend contacting Matt Blanchard at mattblanchard@hotmail.com.

How to Develop Hockey Sense

“Hockey sense” is recognized as one of those skills that separates top players from mediocre players. Players like Gretzky, Lemieux, and Crosby have a special level of “hockey sense.” However, great “hockey sense” is not just limited to a select few. Just like going to the gym develops your muscles, your mind and your “hockey sense” can be developed.

In short, “hockey sense” is a player’s ability to anticipate plays based on his/her teammates and opponents’ positioning and movement on the ice. It can be improved by teaching players to recognize specific patterns on the ice and having players practice making decisions based on specific situations.

I have a few tips that I believe will help players develop “hockey sense.”

Foremost, is practicing reading situations and making decisions on the ice. Particularly, on-ice drills that are designed where players have to make decisions between multiple options (two options is a good starting point).

Then, it is also important to stimulate players to understand when each various decision is most appropriate; stimulating questions will provide the best learning environment.

A simple example would be any two on one drill; here the forward with the puck needs to decide whether to shot or pass, he/she needs to read the play and make a decision that has the best chance of resulting in a goal.

The opposite is happening for the defenseman.

The teaching points for the forward would be:

1)Understand that you have two options – pass or shot

2)Assess the play – be looking to see if you can pass or shot

3)Make a decision and execute – if the pass is taken, look to shot and score; if the teammate is open with a better chance to score, then make the pass

This is a bit condensed and simplified, but hopefully it provides a clear example of the kinds of points that players need to understand when it comes to developing “hockey sense.”

Developing hockey sense is certainly no easy task; however, it remains a principal component of the CHT Hockey Schools as I believe it is critical skill that is under developed. Hopefully this tip encourages parents and other coaches to further stimulate players’ development of “hockey sense.”

The second recommendation happens away from the rink. It is a program I happened to stumble across that I think is a great option to further help players develop “hockey sense.”

The program is called the Hockey IntelliGym and it is a cognitive training system based on technology originally designed for Air Force pilots; however, it is now being used by a number of Canadian Major Junior hockey clubs, USA Hockey and several colleges as well as thousands of individual hockey players (ages 10-25) to train “hockey sense.”

Essentially the program develops players’ “hockey sense” by focusing on improving awareness, anticipation, pattern recognition, decision-making, and execution.

It employs a stripped down videogame-like interface and allows for totally customized training, taking into account a player's age, position, dominant hand and past performance.

Case studies have consistently reported a 30% increase in player stats and team wins.

To me, this idea seems well worth the investment.

I encourage interested parties to sign up for the summer; it is a simple way to get the edge on your opponents before the season starts. The training involves two to three sessions (30 minutes each) a week, all done on the computer.

Once the hockey season starts it is recommend to only train 1-2 sessions a week to maintain the benefits.

Being a strong supporter of developing “hockey sense,” CHT has teamed up to support the Hockey IntelliGym.

Subsequently, the Hockey IntelliGym has provided associates of Complete Hockey Training with a great discount. For information on the discount contact Cassidy at cassidypreston@hotmail.com

If you can get the majority of your team to register you save even more. I encourage you to find out more about the Hockey IntelliGym at www.hockeyintelligym.ca

Developing Mental Toughness

In my previous tip I discussed what doesn’t development mental toughness – emotional abuse. This tip will discuss what does development mental toughness.

Mental toughness is a defining characteristic of all successful athletes. In general it refers to an athlete’s ability to persevere through difficult circumstances. The key attributes of mental toughness include confidence, determination, focus, and self-control. What this means is that mentally tough athletes keep their confidence, determination, focus, and self-control when things are not going their way.

Mental toughness can also be described as an athlete’s ability to succeed after failure. Preferably the failure will be short lived. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes mentally tough athletes will persevere through a bad shift or a bad game, and sometimes they will persevere through longer instances such as a month long slump. In the end, mentally tough athletes prevail and succeed again.

It is important to note that mentally tough athletes do not always succeed; one of the easiest ways to lose mental toughness is to believe that you will succeed every time. No one always succeeds. It is important to believe that you can succeed, but to believe that you should succeed every time creates unrealistic expectations that will cause frustrations and self-doubt, and decrease confidence and focus. The ability to embrace failure is essential to developing mental toughness. This was exemplified best by Michael Jordon when he said “I’ve missed over 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And this is why I succeed.” This quote by Jordon also speaks to the importance that you cannot succeed without trying.  

Furthermore, a key component to developing mental toughness is using appropriate challenge and support. Providing athletes with challenge and support directly impacts their confidence. Appropriate challenge pushes an athlete to work harder and improve; the challenge isn’t too hard so that the athlete is doomed to fail, nor too easy so that the athlete isn’t challenged. As a result of the appropriate challenge athletes will improve and they will gain confidence from their accomplishments. Appropriate support gives an athlete encouragement and reinforces confidence within the athlete. It is important to have a proper balance between the two. Too much challenge and not enough support the athlete will become discouraged. Too much support and not enough challenge the athlete will become complacent and less motivated to improve. 

Moreover, developing self-awareness and clarity is crucial for mental toughness. Self-awareness and clarity is correlated with an athlete’s levels of determination, focus, and self-control. Self-awareness is developed through relaxation techniques, self-evaluation of one’s performance and goals, and self-scans of one’s feelings and thoughts (positive or negative). As a result of improving an athlete’s self-awareness the athlete’s self-control and ability to maintain his/her focus will increase. Similarly, clarity is developed through appropriate self-questioning. The ability to ask oneself important questions and give honest answers can bring clarity and purpose to one’s motivation and focus, and increase levels of determination and the power of one’s focus.

In summary, the techniques briefly described will help athlete’s develop mental toughness. For coaches and parents, help your athletes embrace failure (to avoid their confidence from being deflated and their focus from being distracted when they fail), give them appropriate challenge and support (to build their confidence), and help them develop self-awareness and clarity (to build their levels of determination, focus, and self-control). Similarly, athletes can embrace failure, give themselves appropriate challenge and support, and develop their self-awareness and clarity on their own.

Concerns about Competitive Sport and Mental Toughness

In this tip I will raise some concerns about competitive sport that are often over looked due to the popular belief that sport is associated with positive developmental outcomes. The purpose is not to scare people away from competitive sport, but make people aware of the problems that exist and help prevent these problems from occurring. Furthermore, the relationship between mental toughness and emotional abuse will be discussed.

Some of the negative outcomes of competitive sport participation identified by researchers include occurrences of athlete maltreatment, overuse injuries, eating disorders, burnout, social isolation, lost childhood, premature identity forclosure, aggression and violence, doping, decreased self-perceptions, and dropout.

The outcome I believe to be the most overlooked is athlete maltreatment; particularly, emotional abuse. Recent research on athlete maltreatment in sport indicates that athletes are not immune to experiences of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. In addition, research on abuse suggests that emotional abuse may be the most frequently occurring form of abuse in sport. Emotional abuse is defined as:

A pattern of deliberate non-contact behaviours by a person within a critical relationship role that has the potential to be harmful. Acts of emotional abuse include physical behaviours, verbal behaviours, and acts of denying attention and support. These acts have the potential to be spurning, terrorizing, isolating, exploiting/corrupting, or doing emotional responsiveness, and may be harmful to individuals’ affective, behavioural, cognitive or physical well-being. (Stirling & Kerr, 2008, p.178)

Emotional abuse can easily go undetected as its effects can be hard to notice. However, the most disturbing component of emotional abuse is how it is commonly normalized and referred to as a means of building mental toughness. It is very important for an athlete to have mental toughness, but let me make it clear that emotional abuse does not lead to mental toughness.

Some examples of emotional abuse include shouting, belittling, ignoring, threats, and humiliation. Note that emotional abuse differs from bullying because it is carried out by a person in position of power versus a peer.

Recent research by Stirling and Kerr on emotionally abused elite athletes found that the athletes perceived emotional abuse to have many negative psychological effects (e.g. decreased mood, self-efficacy, and self-esteem, as well as anger, poor body image, and increased anxiety) and many negative training effects (e.g. decreased enjoyment, impaired focus, difficulty with skill acquisition, and decreased motivation). As a result some of emotionally abused elite athletes perceived that emotional abuse had decreased their performance. Similarly, research by Miller-Perrin and Perrin found that long term effects of emotional abuse include low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and dissociation.

Likewise, I can attest to the severity of emotional abuse. Throughout my career there has been many times where I felt playing hockey was no longer fun and even a few extreme cases where I hated hockey and just wanted to quit. These negative experiences from emotional abuse certainly did not make me mentally tough. Instead, it was mental toughness that got me through those negative experiences.

Mental toughness is a widely used term that generally refers to an athlete’s ability to persevere through difficult circumstances. There are various positive attributes used to describe mental toughness. The one that I think is the most important is confidence. For athletes to have the confidence to continue to believe in themselves when things are not going their way is a crucial factor in determining if they will persevere. Confidence is not built by emotional abuse, but destroyed by it. Confidence and mental toughness are built by appropriate challenges and support. Other key attributes of mental toughness include determination, focus, and self-control, which are also not built by emotional abuse.

In conclusion, remember that positive developmental outcomes are not automatically achieved through sport participation alone. Therefore, I suggest parents, guardians, and coaches make it their intention to create positive developmental outcomes, particularly in competitive sport, and to prevent negative developmental outcomes. On the other hand, it is important for athletes to realize that negative experiences are not required for performance success and that they have the right to positive experiences.

5 Habits that Make a Big Difference

Many of my previous tips have examined ways in which young hockey players and athletes can become more successful. This tip is intended to give 5 simple habits young players can follow that will make a big difference; some of these habits are summarized from previous tips and some are new. The 5 simple habits are:

1.       Being Very Very Prepared – It is obvious that being more prepared than your opponent gives you an advantage. Having that little bit extra can be the difference from scoring or not scoring, from winning or losing. It is by far the biggest and most obvious distinction, thus it cannot be stressed enough. Make doing the work and going down the extra mile to be very prepared a habit!

Preparation can be broken down into physical and mental preparation. Physical preparation includes working out and practicing yours skills to taking time off, resting and recovering. It is not only important to put in the time to be well prepared but it is also important to be deliberate in preparing. As discussed previously (click HERE), it is deliberate practice that predicts success, not just practice. The top players practice hard; they have high intensity, pass hard, shoot hard and shoot to score, skate hard, stickhandle fast, battle hard, check hard, and play good defense. These good habits start in practice. Practice like you play or you will end up playing like you practice.

On the other hand, mental preparation can be acquired through various sport psychology techniques. However, one of the best forms of mental preparation is doing a lot of physical preparation (as just mention). This often gives one of the greatest mental edges one can acquire – confidence! In fact, when players lack confidence, one of the best ways to get it back is to simply practice more. The various forms of sport psychology techniques such as imagery, self-talk and goal setting will be discussed another day, but they certainly also help in getting that mental edge on your opponents.

2.       Stay Focused – Second to being very prepared is staying focused. It doesn’t matter how prepared you are if you can’t keep your focus and perform when it counts. I won’t dare to suggest one specific best way to stay focused as this can vary from person to person. I will comment that having clarity in one’s focus is beneficial, as discussed in a previous tip (click HERE). If you are focused on doing too many things there is a good chance you are not going to remember most of them. I will also suggest that during games or game like situations in practice, it is usually good to focus on broader things; such as “just play my game,” “I have more time then I think” – Jason Spezza, “have fun,” “be present,” or “just breathe.” The rational being that if you break things down into too small of parts when you are performing it will hinder your performance; the performance becomes choppy and the optimal state where things just flow will be unattainable. This is probably not the same for skill acquisition where you might learn a skill one piece at a time. Since what works for one person might not work for you, I recommend to just do what works best for you; you may even find that what works best will change overtime. Nonetheless, make it a habit to get focused and stay focused.

3.       Be Assertive – I’ve written several tips about the differences between aggressive, assertive and passive (Click HERE, HERE and HERE). This is in part because being assertive is so crucial to one’s success. Zach Parise is a great example of a player who is effective because he is very assertive. He is small for an NHLer but he chases down defenseman with a lot of tenacity. He reaches, uses his stick, and throws his body around. Similarly, as a coach I consistently teach my players to be assertive and compete. Being assertive when battling with an opponent is instrumental. I don’t encourage slashing and crosschecking (aggression), but if you are not using your hands and stick to push and dig then you are not doing everything you can within the rules to win a battle. If you want to make it anywhere in hockey you need to make it a habit to be assertive.

4.       Have High Standards or a Low Tolerance – Great players don’t put up with teammates that create a poor team culture or environment. Team culture is extremely important for the success of team, but it is also important for individual success. A team’s culture depends on both the coach and the players of that team. The coach is obviously influential and certainly helps shape the culture and can do so knowingly; however, it is the players that ultimately create the culture through their behaviours and comments. If players on a team don’t think it is important to practice hard or they are negative and picking on other teammates, this can create a culture where these behaviours become normalized and/or accepted. In turn, this is detrimental to how the team feels about each other (team cohesion) and the team’s success, as well as the individuals’ experiences and development are hindered. Practicing battling against a player that isn’t giving his/her best effort will not be nearly as beneficial as battling against a player that is giving his/her best effort. Therefore, make it a habit to have a low tolerance for players who are creating a poor team culture, and consequently pull up your teammates to help them, your team and indirectly yourself.

5.       Have Fun – Having fun while playing hockey is so fundamental, it is often forgotten. However, it can actually be associated with increased effort, a positive state of mind and, subsequently, improved performance. Aside, if hockey isn’t fun, then you should probably reassess why you are playing in the first place. I suggest you make having fun a habit, you can always find a way to have fun, even when things aren’t going your way. And focusing back on having fun may just be what you need to turn things around!

Those 5 habits have been chosen based on what I felt as most important. There are many other important habits; some honourable mentions included: never giving up, thinking long term (click HERE), and asking for feedback (click HERE). Lastly, if players are not already practicing these habits, it is never too late. I’d suggest they should start practicing them now and continue to practice them right into next season.

Early Specialization and Youth Training

I recently came across a well written Blog on Youth Training by Victor Hall. This is an important issue for young athletes (7-12 yrs) with dreams of making it to the big leagues. Hall does a great job going through the arguments against it and illustrating his points for it. Here is the link to the post and my thoughts below - http://sportsperformancecoaching.blogspot.com/2008/12/youth-training.html

First off, I agree that Youth Training can be very effective if done properly. Hall talks about Youth Training as “laying a foundation of movement skills,” and “building multi-lateral physical competency, which in turn fosters improved levels of self-confidence/esteem and enjoyment for physical activity.” My experience makes me biased in my decision but it also has allowed me to see exactly these kinds of rewards.

When discussing what age is the most appropriate to start, Hall boils it down to physical and emotional maturity. He highlights that the kids need to be able to follow instructions and maintain an acceptable level of concentration. Moreover, I agree with his remarks that kids don’t have as much free play these days. Thus, I see venues that provide a structure for kids to develop in a fun, engaging and positive atmosphere as great alternative to free play.

Regarding early specialization, experts suggest athletes acquire elite performance through sampling. This sampling route is illustrated in the development model of sport participation as:

-          Sampling years – 6 to 12 – focus on fundamental motor skills and fun.

-          Specializing years – 13 to 15 – Reduce involvements in other sports, narrowing in on one.

-          Investment years – 16 to 18 – Focus on one sport, high amount of practice.

In contrast, early specialization has no sampling years or only a few. Experts claim following the sampling model gives athletes enhanced physical health and psychosocial development. I think we would all agree that the sampling model is the smart choice to guide a young athlete’s developmental path.

In summary, a combination of different sports and youth training can be a great way for young kids to develop their self-confidence, health and athletic abilities, if done properly.

Assertive Vs Aggressive Part 2

I discussed last year my opinions on how assertiveness was important for success in hockey and aggression was not. A year later I have now immersed myself in the literature and done my own research on aggression and success. Thus, I have much to add. Within this context the definitions of aggressive and
assertive are:

Aggressive - a behaviour that intends to cause harm physically or psychologically to another person.

Assertive – an action that is forceful, vigorous, and legitimate, but the individual performing this behaviour has no intent to cause harm to any living being; instead has a strong intention to complete a task while respecting the well-being of others.

Everyone involved in hockey knows aggression exists, and the literature has supported this social norm for all levels of hockey. What stands important is working towards changing the culture where young boys and girls are encouraged to use and accept aggression. However, first we must understand why aggression is so prevalent in hockey.

I have found two plausible explanations for this social norm of aggression. The first explanation I’ve found is the frustration-aggression theory. This theory simply means that frustration or failure is followed by acts of aggression. From my review of the literature I did not find research to significantly support this theory for individual failure and frustration, such as missing an opportunity or making a mistake. However, I did find enough evidence to suggest that some of the existence of aggression is the result of team frustration. Specifically, the research illustrated that when a team is losing by two or
more goals late in a game, players were significantly more likely to be aggressive.

My second explanation for the existence of aggression, as I touched on last year, is that aggression leads to success. Research has found that players do believe that aggression is necessary for success. Further, research has supported Bandura’s (1973) social learning theory which predicts that aggressive acts are followed by successful performance, encouraging future aggressive acts. However, this belief that it LEADS to success can rightfully be challenged. First off, the research has only shown correlations between
aggression and success not causations. Secondly, although the definition of aggression is set in the literature, the measures of aggression are not without flaws. A lot of the research has measured aggression by observational tactics such as recording body checks or penalties taken. The problem is that these measures are assuming that all of these actions always include the intent to cause harm. Therefore, a researcher may record a slashing penalty as an aggressive behaviour, but the player could have had no intention to hurt the other player, he/she merely wanted to win a puck battle and was being
assertive, not aggressive.

Therefore, my research and past research, which claims to find correlations between aggression and success, may in fact be more indicative of the relationship between assertiveness and success. This is what I believe is the true relationship. However, future research will need to be able to distinguish
aggression from assertiveness before this relationship can be illustrated through an academic study.

Now we can apply this knowledge to help change our culture. First off, we need to be teaching players how to properly deal with frustrations. Instilling fair play, respect and sportsmanship is fundamental in sports. However, this doesn’t seem to always be the case with hockey. More specifically, researchers Cote, Trudel, Bernard, Boileau, and Marcotte (1993) believe that some coaches are actually encouraging aggression by displaying contradicting behaviours when losing by two or more goals. Such contradicting
behaviours included arguing with the referee after telling the players to respect the officials. Cote et al. suggest that these incongruences may be interpreted by the players as permission to violate the rules. So as coaches and parents, be aware that the actions you choose influence how young players choose their actions.

Moreover, it is essential to be emphasising that players need to be assertive, not aggressive. It appears that our current culture is sending out mixed messages about aggression. Players are told to go out and be aggressive, but are then told not to hit players from behind. The word assertiveness needs to be utilized in order to change the culture. I strongly believe that if we started to encourage assertiveness, and separate aggressive from assertive, then we will start to see a decline in on-ice aggression at all levels.

In conclusion, I will re-emphasise that players need to be assertive. Particularly, some players need to turn up their intensity and assertiveness level. This doesn’t mean you have to be a big hitter. I’ll use a skilled player like Crosby for example. He plays with a high level of assertiveness but he isn’t a big hitter. On the other hand is a player like Ovechkin. He also plays assertively, but his style is slightly different, being that he is out there making clean big hits. The point here is that they are both great players and they are both assertive, yet they have different styles of play. So how you play is your choice, but I stand that if you want to be successful you need to be assertive.

Conversely, if you find yourself being too aggressive, contemplating hurting players, then you need clarify your intentions. You are probably getting results, but you probably also receive the odd suspension. You could get the same results without the suspensions if you firmly set your intention on performing tasks
while respecting the well-being of others. You may even be thinking that aggression really isn’t that bad. It’s more so unfortunate for the other guy and you even get away with it sometimes. However, the kind of player you are is also a reflection of the kind of person you are. So, if you want to stay an aggressive player, careless of injuring other players, you will have to live with that player off the ice. You can take it from me, a player who has played my share of hockey on the line between aggressive and assertive, that life is a lot more enjoyable being the player and the person who doesn’t disregard the well-being of other people.

A full look at my research and accompanying sources will be made available soon.