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  When I was growing up, I was always told that you shouldn’t lift until you’re 13, at the earliest. The idea was that your growth plates weren’t closed and that lifting could result in growth plate fractures and/or stunted growth. Of course, I wasn’t the only one being told this. This message is still being spread today and has been for decades. It’s true that growth plates aren’t closed in adolescents. That’s about the only ounce of truth to any “weightlifting isn’t safe for kids” message I’ve ever heard, and frankly, it’s STILL not a concern. Let’s look at some of the research behind this. A 2010 review of studies looking at the safety of lifting for kids found that: 1) Youth resistance training injury rates range from 0.0017-0.176 per 100 participant hours. This translates to one injury for every 568.18-58,823.53 hours. Do you think you could play 60,000 hours of any sport without getting hurt? Not likely. 2) 2/3 of lifting-related injuries to 8-13 year olds were to the hand or foot related to dropping or pinching. In other words, if a kid is smart enough to know that dropping a weight on their foot will hurt, they’re safe. 3) 24 of the 27 of the included studies reported ZERO lifting-related injuries. The 3 studies that did all reported one injury each. 4) ZERO growth plate injuries have been documented (ever) in studies supervised by a professional. The authors of the study also noted that there was ZERO evidence that weight training stunts growth in any way. I could go on and on with stuff like this. The fact is that weightlifting is DRASTICALLY safer than sports like soccer, baseball, basketball, football, and hockey, which we have no problems with young kids participating in. In fact, lifting can significantly DECREASE young athletes’ risk of injury during sports. Consider that forces going through the hip can easily exceed 9x someone’s body weight during running. Muscles are great force absorbers. However, if the reactive forces from the activity exceed the muscles’ capability to absorb/reduce them, the forces are transferred to the joint. This does NOT mean that a 100 lb kid needs to be able to squat 900lbs to reduce the forces they see in sports; that whole concept is ridiculous. The point is that getting stronger can be done safely AND reduce sport-related injury risk (and, of course, increase performance). On top of that, quality instruction can help make sure the athlete’s movement patterns are efficient and effective, again, ensuring that their performance is high and that they’re distributing forces evenly across the joint and not excessively wearing down one area. To your continued success, Kevin Neeld Reference: Faigenbaum, AD, & Myer, GD. (2010). Resistance training among young athletes: Safety, efficacy, and injury prevention effects. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 44, 56-63.
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The Endeavor Staff would like to extend a Congratulations to Brodie Deysher, who helped his team to a National Championship last week at the Tier II U12 level. Brodie finished 2nd in his conference in scoring with 5 goals and 9 assists for 14 points in just 6 games! Brodie has been training at Endeavor for the last 3 months. His work ethic and positive attitude are both contagious and inspirational. Congratulations Brodie, and keep up the great work! -Kevin Neeld
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It's undeniable: Nutrition is a HUGE part of performance. Many athletes come to me complaining about the weight they've lost throughout the season. Others say they can't put on weight not matter what they do. Others are trying to lose a few pounds. Contrary to popular belief, the eating strategies for these goals is surprisingly similar. When I ask what they're currently eating, the response is generally a hilarious combination of junk food, candy, cereal, and pasta. Total nutrient value: None 10 Things Every Athlete Should Know 1) Thin does not mean healthy. Many young players with high metabolisms are rail thin and still incredibly unhealthy. Research has shown that thin people with unhealthy lifestyles have a drastically higher incidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Don't be too short-sighted to overlook your long-term health. 2) Fats are good for you. This is one of the biggest misconceptions in health today. Fat doesn't make you fat. It doesn't give you heart disease. In fact, many of the things reported as negative outcomes from excessive fat consumption actually result from excessive consumption of simple carbohydrates (think sugar) and excessive caloric intake in general. I'm not saying to eat excessive amounts of fat, but QUALITY fat from nuts, olive oil, fish oils will actually help you recover faster, maintain a low body fat (or lose body fat) and decrease your risk of most major diseases. 3) Frequent eating is the key to sustaining a healthy metabolism. Aim to eat a balanced meal every 2-3 hours. If you're in school, stuff your pockets and take a bathroom break. It's doable. When I was in high school and trying to put on weight, I had the smallest bladder ever! 4) Whether you like it or not, your health and performance depends on consuming a wealth of fruits and vegetables. Aim to consume 1 fruit or vegetable with every meal (6+ throughout the day). Potatoes don't count. Choose from: apples, berries, oranges, bananas, broccoli (with some melted cheese if you hate broccoli), spinach, carrots, tomatoes, asparagus, and peppers. You'll be surprised how much your energy levels skyrocket after making this change alone. 5) Protein isn't the key to adding muscle like many think. Well-timed carbohydrates are. Start drinking a protein/carb mix shake before/during your training session or a chocolate milk (low fat) after your training sessions to maximize your muscle mass gains and recovery. 6) If you're aren't assessing, you're guessing. Whether you want to gain muscle or lose fat, you can't make intelligent changes to your diet until you know what you're taking in. Spend a couple days to document your diet and plug it all in at FitDay.com to track your total caloric intake and breakdown of macro- (carbs, protein, fats) and micro-nutrients (vitamins and minerals). 7) Sports drinks are good to consume during or IMMEDIATELY after training or practice. Any other time, avoid them like the plague. The sugar is terrible for your teeth, digestive system, body composition, and overall health. 8) There is a HUGE debate about whether athletes need supplements or whether they can get all the nutrients they need from food. It's a dumb argument. Whether athletes can or can't, they aren't. Every athlete should, at a minimum, have a greens, protein, and fish oil supplement. 9) It's impossible for young players to eat a quality, high performance, health-conscious diet if their parents eat garbage. Parents, get it together. It's in the best interest of your family to throw out the junk and spend your hard-earned grocery money on foods that will improve your health and energy levels. It's true that healthy foods can be more expensive, but not NEARLY as expensive as the doctor visits, medications, and surgeries that ALWAYS result from lazy convenience eating. Set a good example. 10) CONSISTENCY IS KEY. Alternating high-quality and low-quality meals won't get you very far. About 10% of your meals can be "cheat meals" (insert pizza, ice cream, etc. here). If you eat 6 meals/day (every 2-3 hours), 7 days/week, that's 42 meals/week. This means that 4 meals can be junk. The rest have to be quality. The Ultimate Nutrition Resource World-renowned Sports Nutritionist Dr. John Berardi has put together the greatest nutrition resource I've ever come across: Precision Nutrition. I use Precision Nutrition as the basis for all the nutrition recommendations I make to both athletes and non-athlete clients. It walks you through exactly how you should be eating and why. It gives you the eating strategies you need to achieve your performance and health goals. Best of all, it comes with a cook book with some of the simplest, most delicious and nutritious recipes I've ever seen (no boring, bland foods at all). Everyone I know that has invested in Precision Nutrition raves about how it's transformed their life. It's the ONLY book that I think every coach, parent, and athletes should own. Frankly, you'd have to be crazy not to have it! Click the link below for more information: Precision Nutrition To your success, Kevin Neeld
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I’m under the impression that my last post furrowed some eyebrows: “Less hockey in the off-season is better for development?” Let me clear things up about what hockey players should be doing in their off-season to maximize their development. To Skate or Not to Skate... Last week I mentioned that many hockey players make the fatal mistake of spending the entire off-season on the ice. Many players are on the ice for over 4 hours per week during the long season. It is ABSOLUTELY crucial that they start their off-season by taking a break and doing some things to reverse the physical adaptations that result from so much skating (e.g. foam rolling and stretching the glutes and hip flexors). After a month or so of NO ice time, players can skate within this context: 1) Power Skating Instruction: Avoid the coaches that just run you through drills and watch. Find a coach that will actually teach you technique and actively help you improve your mechanics. There should also be a focus on edge control, not just overspeed work. 2) Skill Instruction: While I don't think it's completely necessary to be on the ice to do this, many players can make huge improvements in their hands in an off-season by spending some time practicing handling a puck on all sides of their body and with specific footwork/bursts of speed (which is why skating instruction is so crucial!). 3) Many players feel stale if they don't play some sort of game for 6 months. If you can find a decent league (competition equal to or better than what you're used to) that plays a 6-10 game schedule toward the end of the Summer, then hop right in. Playing in a showcase tournament or two throughout the Summer isn't going to kill you, but you should not be playing tournaments ALL off-season! The mistake players (and parents) make is that they finish their season, then immediately register for spring and summer league and as many clinics as they can. It's too much. Think QUALITY here, not quantity. The adverse effects of this are becoming increasingly clear: As the year-round hockey craze infects younger players, we see high level hockey injuries spreading to all age levels. There is NO reason why peewees and bantams should have chronic groin and hip flexor pain! I'm not preaching here. I made all the mistakes myself, and I have the double hernia surgery and inevitable hip arthritis to prove it! Off-Season Training Following a structured, well-designed training program during the off-season can completely transform a player's career, especially at the youth levels. There is a critical time period during development when the body is highly "malleable". If you create the right training stimulus, your body is primed for a long career of explosive movement. Unfortunately, creating the wrong training stimulus will prime your body to stay slow and weak. Our off-season hockey training programs serve three major purposes: 1) Improve performance 2) Decrease injury risk 3) Improve stress handling capacity Players leave the Summer faster, stronger, and better conditioned than they've ever been in the past. THAT is how every player should enter the season! To your success, Kevin Neeld Director of Athletic Development P.S. Call me today at (856) 269-4148 or send me an email to get started on the training program that will help you become a strong, fast, well-conditioned, INJURY FREE player!
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I've recently teamed up with Michael Boyle (Boston University), Sean Skahan (Anaheim Ducks) and Mike Potenza (San Jose Sharks) to launch an incredible hockey training website: www.HockeyStrengthandConditioning.com. On the site, U of Minnesota Strength Coach Cal Dietz shared an interesting article with us. The article outlined research with groundbreaking results. If you value your hockey career, you'll read carefully! This article outlined a study that took MRI's of the hips of 39 NHL and NCAA Division I hockey players. Of the 39 players, twenty-one (54%) twelve (31%) had muscle strains, and 2 (5%) had tendinosis (degeneration of the tendon) of the hips. Overall, 70% of the players had irregular findings on their MRIs. Interestingly, the majority of these players were considered "healthy" at the time of the study, meaning they were okay to play. As shocking as these results may appear, I wasn't at all surprised. Hockey players completely abuse their hips. Many spend no time doing the stretches they need to (because they're either too lazy or don't know which ones they should do), have poor motor control of muscles around the hips (which tears up the joint and labrum!), and spend WAY too much time on the ice. Last night I was on the phone with Mike Potenza (San Jose Sharks); he mentioned that in over 90% of cases, the players he sees that have sports hernias do little to nothing in terms of training. Everyone at the collegiate and professional strength and conditioning levels understand that good training can improve a player’s performance, lengthen their career, and keep them out of the surgeon’s office. Hopefully youth players and parents will get the message. -Kevin Neeld P.S. Call me today at (856) 269-4148 or send me an email to get started on the training program that will help you become a strong, fast, well-conditioned, INJURY FREE player!
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