Hockey Training Programs

With over 20 years experience working with NHL athletes including Ryan Kesler, Kevin Bieksa, Brendan Morrison, Ryan Johansen and Kyle Turris, Karp has designed premier off-season hockey programs to ensure elite athletes maximize their performance.  Each program is individually tailored to provide maximum results.

• Improve strength, speed and acceleration
• Cutting edge core stability programs
• Lower body-fat
• Improve consistency and career longevity
• Muscle balance and injury prevention
• Sports nutrition programs
• Sport-specific plyometric training

Spice Up Your Hockey Conditioning – Part 1

If you are a hockey player and looking to elevate your training program then be sure to join us on our two part series.   The first step in designing a sport-specific program is to identify the main components of a workout.

1.    Specialized warm-up and stretching routine specific to each joint
2.    Balanced strengthening routine focusing on each major muscle group
3.    Sport-specific power exercises- cleans, snatch, deadlifts…
4.    Cardio- Boxing, skipping, bike…
5.    Speed, outdoor running program
6.    Plyometrics, includes jumping and bounding movements
7.    Sport-specific drills (shooting drills, face off drills…)

Each workout needs to start with a specialized warm-up routine designed to prevent injuries.  The most common areas of injury for hockey players are the groin, knee, shoulder and lower back. Players need to focus on muscle balance, flexibility and joint stability in order to prevent wear and tear and overuse injuries.

A strengthening routine needs to be focused on increasing strength but also on being balanced.  If an athlete increases the strength in their quadriceps but not there hamstrings they will not benefit from full leg power and become susceptible to a knee injury.  Similarly, if an athlete develops a strong chest but has weaker back muscles they become susceptible to a shoulder injury and decreased performance due to poor body mechanics.

Power exercises such as hang cleans and deadlifts are good for hockey because they help to improve strength and speed.  It is best to choose two or three power exercises and to perform three to five sets of each.

When performing cardiovascular exercises it is effective to vary the exercise and monitor your heart rate.  Alternate between skipping, stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical machine, or stair climber.  It is also a good idea to perform time specific interval training when doing your cardio.  For instance, if you normally have 45-second shifts then perform 60-second intervals at a higher intensity every two minutes to simulate a shift.  Your heart rate can vary from 80%-90% of maximum.

Speed programs are beneficial not only for the development of speed but also for the strengthening of the tendons around the knee and ankle.  Plyometrics are most effective if they are performed six weeks before the start of the season.  They can be hard on your body so it is not recommended to perform them for long durations.  This includes jumping, bounding, and hopping type exercises.

Sport specific drills such as shooting drills and face-off drills are an effective way to improve coordination and overall performance.  Practice makes perfect.  Be sure to join us next time as we will go into more detail about scheduling and organizing your workouts.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or visit their web site www.karpfitness.com.

Plyometrics Improve Power

Q. What are plyometrics? My hockey coach says they are good to improve power and explosiveness…

A. Your coach was correct, power is the name of the game, and plyometrics are a good way to develop it. Plyometric exercises have their roots in Europe where they were first know as “jump training”. Plyometric exercises are used by athletes and trainers to improve strength, power, speed, quickness, and jumping ability while also helping to develop better coordination and balance. However, plyometrics are not for the beginner, it is important to have a sufficient strength base before you start this advanced form of training.

Plyometric exercises are unique because they link strength with speed of movement to produce power. This may include bounding, box jumps, high stepping, skipping, hops, various jumps as well as medicine ball movements. These highly accelerated movements can improve maximal strength levels leading to rapid increases in strength. Because this type of training is extremely intense, it is too stressful for long-term training and is usually performed for 12-week cycles.

Side jumps are a great plyometric exercise to improve hockey performance. To perform this exercise, place a telephone book on the floor in the middle of a room. With your feet together jump sideways over the book landing as softly as possible. As soon as you land on the floor, jump back to the starting position. Repeat this movement 20 times, take a 30 to 60 second break, and repeat the exercise for two to three sets depending on your comfort level. To increase the difficulty jump over a taller object such as a milk crate.

Plyometric drills can be used for the upper and lower extremities and are good for all sports, however, a plyometric routine must be tailored for each individual and sport. For instance, a skiing plyometric routine should be designed to mimic the amount of energy that expended while making explosive turns down a mountain. On the other hand, a plyometric exercise program for a throwing athlete should be designed to prepare the shoulder muscles for the repetitive overload that is applied during overhead sport activities. This would include more of a focus on medicine ball throwing movements rather than jumping and bounding movements.

A plyometric program must consider the athletes’ age, skill level, injury history and a myriad of other variables that comprise his or her athletic development. If used correctly plyometrics can boost your athletic ability to new heights.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or visit their web site www.karpfitness.com.

Prevent Groin Injuries

Question:  Why are we seeing so many injuries in the NHL this year?

Answer: Hockey is a high impact sport and the most common areas of injury for hockey players are the groin, knee, shoulder and lower back.  To prevent injuries, players need to put an increased focus on muscle balance and flexibility. Working out hard and being strong or fast is not enough. Elite athletes need individualized workouts that take their body type and athletic goals into consideration.  A player who is small and quick needs a different workout from a player who is big and strong. Goalies, defenseman and forwards need to do exercises specific to their position.  Most professional sports organizations are good at rehabilitating an injured player, but are lacking when it comes to injury prevention. Simply including mandatory flexibility and joint stability tests on a monthly basis would be the first step to stop injuries from happening in the first place.

Most hockey players work on their core muscles all year to prevent groin injuries. Stability balls, Bosu® balls, balance boards and medicine balls are more popular than ever. Yet, we are seeing more and more groin injuries. The problem with most of these exercises is that they isolate the upper and side abdominal muscles but are not that effective at isolating the lower abdominal and pelvic floor muscles. All athletes should be performing pelvic thrusts for their low abs, as this exercise is the foundation for targeting that area. However, such a basic exercise can seem too easy and monotonous and often gets left out of a program. This is when an imbalance starts to occur and an injury may follow. The athlete is then quickly entered into rehabilitation and starts with the basic exercises that could have prevented the injury in the first place. It is a basic philosophy that I call “prehabilitation”.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer.  For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or go to www.karpfitness.com.

Prehabilitate To Prevent Injuries

Question:  Why are we seeing so many injuries in the NHL this year?

Answer: Most professional sports organizations are good at rehabilitating an injured player, but are lacking when it comes to injury prevention.  Simply including mandatory flexibility and joint stability tests on a monthly basis would be the first step to reducing injuries.  Group stretches and exercises are not effective at taking into consideration the unique imbalances of each athlete.  Rather than adopting a proactive approach to preventing injuries, most sports teams follow the common reactive model that dominates our medical environment.

The most common areas of injury for hockey players are the groin, knee, shoulder and lower back.  To prevent injuries, players need to put an increased focus on muscle balance and flexibility. Further, elite athletes need individualized workouts that take their body type and athletic goals into consideration.  A player who is small and quick needs a different workout from a player who is big and strong. Goalies, defenseman and forwards need to do exercises specific to their position and body-type.  Working out hard and being strong and fast is not enough.

Most hockey players work on their core muscles all year to prevent groin injuries. Stability balls, Bosu® balls, balance boards and medicine balls are more popular than ever. Yet, we are seeing more and more groin injuries. The problem with most of these exercises is that they isolate the upper and side abdominal muscles but are not that effective at isolating the lower abdominal and pelvic floor muscles. All athletes should be performing pelvic thrusts for their low abs, as this exercise is the foundation for targeting that area. However, such a basic exercise can seem too easy and monotonous and often gets left out of a program. This is when an imbalance starts to occur and an injury may follow. The athlete is then quickly entered into rehabilitation and starts with the basic exercises that could have prevented the injury in the first place.

The key with preventing groin injuries and many other soft-tissue injuries is to keep the small muscles responsible for stabilizing a joint strong and ensuring that each joint is balanced and operating in a full and pain free range of motion.  It is essential to maintain proper body mechanics at each joint.  As soon as the joint loses stability is becomes susceptible to wear and tear and injury. This is the philosophy of “Prehabilitation”.

The goal of prehabilitation is to monitor and maintain joint stability to prevent injuries.  It takes an athlete between 15-20 minutes a day to perform a prehabilitation routine.  I am confident that sports teams are catching on and headed in this direction.  It will be great to see teams adopt this cutting edge pro-active approach, and perhaps one day the rest of the medical community will follow.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer.  For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or go to www.karpfitness.com.

Athletes Require Specialized Conditioning Programs

Question:  With hockey I have one or two games each week and practices almost every day, should I still workout with weights?

Answer: It is important to workout all year to prevent injuries and to maximize your performance.  Being on the ice everyday can be tiring, but if you want to be the best athlete you can be you have to dig deep inside to find the energy to workout in order to keep your muscles strong and balanced.

Hockey is great for strengthening many of your muscles, but many still get left out.  The problem with this is that the muscles that don’t get worked end up losing strength while the other muscles keep getting stronger.  When this happens your joints become out of balance and then you are at a higher risk for getting an injury.  In hockey the most common injuries are to the groin, knee, lower back and shoulder and your workouts should reflect this.  Exercises for you hamstrings can help to prevent knee injuries, exercises for you lower abdominals and core can help to prevent groin and lower back injuries, and exercises for your postural muscles and rotator cuff can help to reduce shoulder injuries.

Working out during the season not only helps you prevent injuries it will improve your performance.  Many hockey players workout hard in the summer but stop working out during the season and as a result as the season progresses their strength declines. Of course you don’t have to workout as hard during the regular season compared to the off-season, you just shouldn’t go from one extreme to the other.  A good rule during the regular season is to make sure that your off-ice workout doesn’t make you sore where it affects your on-ice performance.  The simple goal of you season workout should be to keep your muscles strong and balanced.  You don’t need to set any personal strength records; you just don’t want to lose strength.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or visit their web site www.karpfitness.com.

Functional Training Has Changed The Workout Scene

Functional training is fast becoming a popular alternative – and a fun addition – to traditional methods of weight training and exercise. Although it is open to wide interpretation, it general involves performing exercises that mimic a movement in a sport or daily activity or a multi-joint movement designed to improve performance in a sport or daily activity.  It is quite the opposite of bodybuilding, which generally involves isolated muscle fatigue. Whether you are a professional athlete, just beginning a workout regimen or simply looking for an interesting alternative to your regular routine, functional training offers many physical benefits, including improved neuromuscular coordination, speed, agility, endurance and balance.

Functional training has its roots in rehabilitation.  When a person is injured and off work registered therapists often use functional exercises to help prepare the injured patient so they can return to work without re-injury.  For instance, if a carpenter were off work they would perform exercises to simulate lifting, hammering and ladder climbing activities to prepare their bodies for a safe return to work.

A wood-chop using a medicine ball is a great functional exercise that simulates the movement involved in swinging an axe.  It incorporates upper body, lower body and core muscles and it also increases your heart rate and improves your flexibility and range of motion. Because this exercise uses so many different muscles it can make everyday activities such as grocery shopping, cleaning and lifting much easier. It can also be used with athletes, such as a boxer or hockey player who want to improve their agility, balance and coordination.  There are many great functional exercises that use a stability ball, wobble board, exercise tube or traditional dumbbells and pulley systems that can improve athletic performance.

Another benefit of this type of training is improved coordination between the muscular and nervous systems. When full-body coordinated movements are performed repeatedly, we are actually training our nervous system to send a signal to our brain before we even realize there is a need for a particular muscle contraction. For example, a snowboarder would benefit from engaging muscle groups in their entire body while balancing on an unstable environment, as their reflexes would naturally improve with increases in balance and stability; the body’s response to different physical environments becomes almost automatic as we subconsciously improve the communication between our nerves and muscles.

Functional training is also extremely beneficial to elderly people who experience difficulty with performing everyday activities, as it serves to strengthen core muscles while conditioning arms and legs, and translates improvements in functional strength to activities of daily living. As such, functional training improves quality of life and can be very liberating for individuals who have struggled with performing simple daily tasks.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or visit their web site www.karpfitness.com.

Do Not Neglect Your Hamstring Muscles

Question:  I have been neglecting my hamstrings for years and now I have a serious muscle imbalance, what are a few good exercises for them?

Answer:  You are not alone; many people work very hard at strengthening their quadriceps and forget about their hamstrings.  Many of the common leg exercises including squats, lunges, and leg press work predominantly the quadriceps and gluteals with the hamstrings playing a much smaller role.  Similarly, most sport activities including hockey, soccer, cycling and running place much more stress on the quadriceps than the hamstrings.

To keep your leg muscles balanced it is important to strengthen your hamstrings to keep them in check with the front of your legs.  Failure to do so may result in knee injury and decreased performance for an athlete.  Below are a few good hamstring exercises and an important hamstring stretch.

D.B. Hamstring Deadlifts: This exercise is effective at isolating the hamstrings, gluteus and spinal erectors.  Start standing upright with your feet shoulder width apart with a dumbbell in each hand.  Keeping your back straight, slowly bend forward at the waist and lower the dumbbells down to your knees until you feel a gentle stretch in your hamstrings.  Reverse the procedure to return slowly to the starting position.  Most of the effort should be felt in your hamstrings and not your lower back.

Hamstring Ball Tucks: Lying on your back, place your feet on the ball with your hands on the floor by your side.  Lift your hips off of the floor so that your body is straight.  Keeping your hips lifted, bend your knees rolling the ball towards your buttocks and then return to the starting position. Perform two to three sets of 10-20 repetitions depending on your comfort level.  The effort should be felt in your hamstrings and your trunk stabilization muscles.

Hamstring Stretch: To stretch out your hamstrings stand facing a table or a similar object approximately the height of your waist.  Keep your left foot flat on the floor and place your right foot on the object.  Make sure both legs are straight but not in a locked position.  Lean forward towards your right foot while keeping your back flat and shoulders back.  The stretch should be felt in the hamstrings of the right leg.  Repeat the stretch with the opposite leg.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or visit their web site www.karpfitness.com.

Spice Up Your Hockey Conditioning – Part 2

If you want to be an elite athlete you need an individualized workout that can take your body to the next level.  You can only reach your full potential if you continually focus on your weakest link.  A player who is small and quick needs a different workout from a player who is big and strong. Goalies, defenseman and forwards need to do exercises specific to their position.

In the first of this two part series we outlined the main components of a hockey-conditioning program.  After understanding each component the next step is to decide how much time will be spent on each component.  This is essential because it is not effective for any athlete to exercise for more than two hours/day five days/week.  The key is to start with a structured and organized plan and to set concrete goals so you understand where you want to be and how long it will take to get there. Specialized conditioning programs are vital and essential for elite athletes as they improve performance, consistency and help to prevent injuries.

There are many possibilities of how to coordinate a program that involves strengthening, plyometrics, agility, core specialization, speed, stretching, and cardio.  The first step in deciding how to set up a program for an athlete is deciding what components will be done on each day.  Below is a very effective 5-day split system.  The great thing about this plan is that the exercises can be adjusted on each day to individualize the workout for each athlete.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
	Power exercises		Power exercises
Lower Body (60 min.)	Core & Agility (30 min.)	Upper Body (60 min.)	Core & Agility (30 min.)	Whole Body (60 min.)	Off	Off
	Plyometrics (20 min.)		Plyometrics (20 min.)
30 min. Cardio		30 min. Cardio		30 min. Cardio

The lower body workout on Monday is crucial because the legs are responsible for most of our explosive movement.  The other great thing about having a workout designated for the lower body is that many lower body exercises require use of the whole body making it very functional.  For instance, when performing squats, hamstring deadlifts and lunges many of our core and upper body muscles are used to stabilize our bodies when performing the exercises.

The core and agility workout is also a sport specific workout designed to improve your core strength and foot speed and coordination.  It is good to use a medicine ball to step up the intensity of the core exercises and think about using an agility ladder or agility ball to improve coordination.

The upper body workout should focus on improving the strength of the major muscle groups of your upper body.  This includes specific exercises for your back, chest, shoulders and arms.  This day can help keep your upper body balanced to avoid injuries.  It is very common for athletes to have stronger chest muscles compared to their back muscles, which can lead to a shoulder or back injury.

The whole body workout should be a functional workout designed to target all of your muscles.  It is good to use multi-joint movements on this day and it is also good to add stability exercises with stability or bosu balls.

This workout plan can be used for athletes from the ages of 16 all the way to the professional level.  Each workout is designed to be approximately 90 minutes to two hours.  Warm up before each workout and be sure to take two days off on the weekend for a full recovery.

Shaun Karp is a certified personal trainer. For further information call his office at 604-420-7800 or visit their web site www.karpfitness.com.

Hockey Programs

With over 15 years experience working with NHL athletes, Karp has designed premier off-season hockey programs to ensure elite athletes maximize their performance. Each program is individually tailored to provide superior results.

* Improve strength, speed and acceleration
* Sport-specific plyometric training
* Cutting edge core stability programs
* Lower body fat
* Improve consistency and career longevity
* Muscle balance and injury prevention
* Sports nutrition programs

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