Category: Coaching

Time to Start Your In-Season Training

Hopefully all your goals were met for the pre-season and your team is ready to start the regular season. Now it is time to change your training emphasis for the in-season.

Here is an excerpt from The Hockey Conditioning Handbook chapter on the in-season. Your focus now is on maintenance.

In-Season Training Emphasis:

1)      Aerobic maintenance

2)      Flexibility

3)      Explosive Energy maintenance

Training in-season should be focused on maintenance sessions. This is assuming you have reached the necessary fitness levels prior to the start of the season. If not, you may find there are not enough practice hours in a day or week to do everything that needs to be done. Concentrate on aerobics, flexibility, and explosive energy, regardless of the fitness levels. The game cannot be played well without these.

Following are some suggested programs for in-season conditioning maintenance.
Sample In-Season Training Programs

Off-Ice
Aerobics is still the foundation for training. A good practice will usually have an aerobic drill package built in. Cycling and running are two common ways to do aerobic work off ice. Skiing, both water and snow, is excellent for hockey players because it includes upper body work.
Flexibility should be done daily with emphasis on proper warm up/cool down stretching before and after practices and games. Add at least one weekly flexibility training session.
Explosive energy can be done as outlined in the pre-season section. You can also incorporate stair sprints (2 steps at a time), or stair hops (up and down) using one leg only for each 5-10 second work bout.
Maintenance of strength/endurance and high energy can be accomplished by exercising at least the level attained in the pre-season. If a player’s ability to sustain high energy is still weak, players will need to do additional training. Continue to do high energy training 1-2 times per week, depending on game schedule. High energy work should not be done the day prior to a game. Try to do at least one of the two sessions on the ice.

On-Ice
All aspects of conditioning should be done at least to the level attained in pre-season work using programs and drills as outlined in the pre-season section. To save training time, or for variety in training, exercise circuits can be designed to meet all components of conditioning, except flexibility.

Flexibility should be done separately before and after workouts. A complete on ice training circuit is presented below.

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A Communication Lesson From the NFL

The Globe and Mail newspaper ran an article from The Associated Press on October 4, 2008. There were some interesting coaching tips on player communication from two very successful NFL coaches.Here is most of the article.

RENTON, WASH. — There may be a secret to coaching success in today’s NFL, though it’s one Vince Lombardi would never stand for: empower your players.

Giants coach Tom Coughlin was 25-23 in New York with no playoff wins when he arrived for the 2007 training camp in Albany, N.Y., to begin a must-win season. The man renowned for inflexible discipline was concerned over players misunderstanding why he made certain decisions. So he established a leadership council of about a dozen players to deal with internal issues.

Mike Holmgren has had his own players’ committee of about half that size in each of his 10 years with the Seahawks. He also had one from 1992-98 while leading Green Bay. Holmgren won a Super Bowl and went to another with the Packers before moving to Seattle…

Coughlin’s Giants are undefeated and the Super Bowl defending champions.

Coincidences?

Players on both teams say the committees enlighten them, unite them, strengthen their teams’ trust.

“It just gives us a chance for you to relate stuff better to your teammates than maybe a coach can,” said all-pro left tackle Walter Jones, a Seahawks committee member. “Not saying you don’t want to hear it from the coach, you are just more comfortable hearing it from a player.

“You build a bond in the locker room. It’s all about respect.”

Added quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, also a committee member: “It makes the players feel they have input.”

Coaches having veterans as their deputies isn’t new in the NFL – or even with the Giants. Bill Parcells used to rely on Harry Carson and George Martin to deliver his intentions and report back on the pulse of New York’s locker room.

But Holmgren and Coughlin have formalized the practice, setting committees and having philosophies on who it should include. Coughlin’s represents older and younger players. Holmgren’s is limited to the captains of the offence, defence and special teams, so it usually includes only established veterans…

Last season, the Giants were 0-2 after routs by Dallas and Green Bay. Fans screamed for Coughlin’s dismissal. Coughlin went to his leadership council and told it there was no other group that he would rather be coaching.

The council relayed the coach’s message. The Giants went on a six-game winning streak en route to shocking the undefeated New England Patriots, one of the biggest upsets in a Super Bowl.

“I think that I’ve communicated better than I have in the past,” Coughlin, 62 and a grandfather, said. “I think I’ve taken the time to do that, attach more significance to that, and been more keenly aware of trying to make everyone understand what’s being done, why it’s being done. And do so with enough advance notice so that there’s time for it to sink in.”

Manning said Coughlin went to his council during New York’s bye last week to inform it he wanted to suspend star receiver Plaxico Burress for that Sunday’s game for missing a team meeting. The quarterback appreciated knowing what was going on.

Coughlin said there was a “very good reaction. The players understood it, they understood why, and they went back to work.”

His last meeting with them was on Monday, apparently over Holmgren wanting to change the way the players review game and practice video.

The 60-year-old has a limit to the give-and-take with his committee.

“I don’t want them coming up to me saying, ‘We want grilled cheese sandwiches on the airplane,’ ” Holmgren said.”We’re talking about things more important