Tag Archives: Conditioning

Dave Smith, NHL Officials Health and Wellness Coach

Posted on by

During the International Coaching Conference, we had the opportunity to listen to David T. Smith, the NHL officials health and wellness coach.

Dave Smith NHL Official Health and Wellness Coach

The NHL officials Health and Wellness program >>

National Hockey League Officials Fitness and Conditioning

  • This is a sample program for NHL Officials. As all people are different so are Fitness Programs, the following is used as a guideline with minimum standards for NHL Officials.
  • Consult your family doctor before starting any training program

Off season training

  • Start by setting some fitness goals for the start of the next season and focus on those throughout your program.
  • Incorporate and maintain good eating habits such as frequent small meals rather than a few large ones so your body is burning calories all day. Maintain a balanced diet between carbohydrates, fats and protein.
  • Incorporate a stretch and exercise routine before every training session.

Schedule

  • 5 days a week / Up to 2 hrs a day
  • Strength twice a week
  • Aerobics twice a week
  • Run, bike, roller blade or other activity once a week

Strength

  • Weight training utilizing a variety of programs with changes in repetitions, sets, tempo and exercises.
  • Push-ups using varying arm position and use of blocks
  • Sit ups, crunches – proper form is very important
  • Leg Strength (lunges, squats, step ups)

Aerobics

  • Use heart rate monitor to maximize training zones
  • Run – 15 min increasing to 60 min.
  • Ice sprints – 30 sec increasing to 60 sec.
  • Bike – 35 min increasing to 60 min.
  • Roller blade or Stairmaster
  • Jump rope and plyometric exercises with Resistance Bands to increase foot speed and agility

Cardiovascular Exercise (Run, Bike, Stepper or Glider)

  • Warm up (5 min)
  • 1 minute increasing intensity intervals for 30 min in your target heart rate zone
  • One minute work, one to two minutes rest intervals
  • Lower the intensity if you are not recovering to your original Heart Rate after first work/rest interval
  • Cool down (5 to 8 minutes)
  • You should monitor Heart rate at all times

Maintaining fitness during the season

  • 15- 20 minute warm up before games
  • Light jog, bike or jump rope to warm up muscles and joints and increase Heart Rate
  • Stretch and flexibility as a daily wellness program
  • Aerobic Exercise 2 or 3 times a week on non game days
  • Strength and Resistance exercises are done as travel and game schedule allows. Maintaining a base throughout the season will allow an easier transition into the off season training program and helps promote an overall healthy and productive lifestyle.

The program is picked from the NHL officials page >>

Dave Smith, NHL-official coach

Floorball – Off-season training and Injuries

Posted on by

“We were sailing into the floorball playoffs when our star player sprained his ankle, and then BOOM, we were eliminated in the first round”. Sound familiar? If you’ve been around the sports/floorball world for any length of time, you have seen it happen, probably more than once. What can you do to prevent this, and how can you overcome this when it does happen to your floorball team?

First off all, conditioning and well prepared players, that’s what it’s about. If you want to prevent most of your floorball player’s injuries, then make sure that they are well conditioned, good pre-season practicing. Devote most of your early season to get your floorball players in good physical shape. Figure out your players during the early part of the pre-season. Do not just assign the entire floorball team to run x-number of laps or km/miles and then attend to other things while they run. Make sure that out of condition floorball players, work gradually themselves up to game shape. Assign well conditioned players even more work to improve their fitness to an even greater level.

Floorball practices and drills 2 vs 2

Never ever scrimp on warm-up time (can and should be done before the floorball practice, in my eyes!) Make sure that late arriving players go through a full warm-up period before allowing them to join in the activities. Many floorball players are injured each year when they get to floorball practice late and then jump right into high stress movements.  Do not injure your players with over-enthusiasm.