"Today, I want to introduce a simple way to understand the workouts we do every week. We've renamed our training blocks to focus on the benefits you'll get. From now on, we have three blocks: Burn, Build, and Boost."

The Burn block is all about improving endurance and burning fat. In this zone, your body works efficiently to fuel itself with fat, which helps with weight loss, recovery, and long-term energy. Plus, it’s great for heart health and longevity. You’ll leave this block feeling energized and ready for more.

The Build block focuses on developing lean muscle, increasing strength, and protecting your body from injury. You’ll be building the kind of strength that prepares you for real-life tasks—whether that's lifting your kids, carrying groceries, or just feeling strong and capable in your daily routine. Stronger muscles, stronger you.

The Boost block is your high-intensity, high-fun training. This is where we push boundaries and improve anaerobic endurance, Vo2Max, and mental resilience. It prepares you for anything life throws at you—emergencies, sprints, or heavy lifts—while boosting your metabolism and confidence. These workouts are tough but rewarding, and you’ll leave feeling like you’ve conquered a challenge.

"So remember: Burn for endurance, Build for strength, and Boost for performance. Every block has a purpose designed to help you grow, improve, and thrive. Let’s get after it!"

Strength and conditioning science for hockey has never been better than it is right now.

Leading the way: NCAA schools increasing their budgets for athletic training. True, much of this budgeting is toward athletic training for basketball and football (the big moneymakers) but the carryover has been great for hockey.

Unfortunately, there's also a lot of BAD information out there for hockey players. Stability balls, balance boards, and wobbly surfaces are prevalent - not because they work, but because the Strength and Conditioning Coaches for the players are sometimes unfamiliar with the skating motion and stride. More balance training isn't necessary; after the age of 12, if you can't balance on skates, you're not playing at a high level, and it's too late to develop the balance necessary for NHL play anyway.

With all this good information available, why is the rate of groin pull/strain/injury increasing in hockey every year? Why are we seeing valuable players sit out, burning up contracts worth up to $8 million/year, with injuries that should be completely preventable?

First, consider how the groin works. The adductor musculature (pictured, right) works to do two things that are of primary concern to a skater. First, they bring the legs together (adduction.) That's their primary role, and that's how most people think of them: as little muscles to be stretched and occasionally exercised on the Thigh Machine. However, their secondary role is crucial for hockey players: they also stabilize the pelvis when the hamstrings are engaged in rapid hip extension.

During a powerful hockey stride (or a rapid, short stride,) the hamstrings are fully engaged. The pelvic muscles brace to hold the pelvis in check, so that the foot can push off without the femur popping forward or rotating out of the hip socket. However, if the muscles of the groin can't bear the full thrust of the hamstrings, then they're at risk of damage.

Exercised properly, there's no reason for the groin muscles to ever become the weak cousin to the powerful hamstrings. There's no reason for a large difference in strength - unless, of course, the hamstrings are being trained without the adductors being engaged at the same time. When does that occur? Isolation exercises on machines.

Yes, folks, when asked to name exercises for the hamstrings, most coaches would put Hamstrings Curls (prone, seated, or standing) on a machine at the top of their list. However, during machine-based hamstrings training, the pelvis is stabilized and locked into place by the seat/machine; there's no need for the adductor group to do anything. They laze around, getting weaker, while the hamstrings strengthen and the deficit between the two groups grows. It's NOT GOOD ENOUGH to strengthen individual muscles; you have to teach them to work together at a high intensity.

Like any relationship, when two groups have less and less in common, they stop working together. They lose the ability to find common ground; they're dysfunctional.

How can you avoid dysfunction of the groin, or better yet, IMPROVE its function to allow MORE hamstrings explosiveness? Big, compound movements like squats and deadlifts and lunges and stepups. You need to move weight around at varying speeds to get adductors and hamstrings on the same page. If they're working together, you're going to be faster, avoid downtime (probably more important now, BEFORE you're a pro) and avoid pain.

Get a good trainer, and get in the weight room. Spend a month machine-free, and watch your strength, speed, and power...

Plyometrics play an important role in the development of any athlete. They're effective at turning strength into speed, which is critical in every sport. In a simple linear plan for training an athlete, plyometrics would fall between power generation and speed development. However, many coaches use them as a substitute for strength training exercises, or as a sport-specific developer of anaerobic capacity, which misses the point.

How They Work: Plyometrics (as defined by a rapid stretch-shortening cycle in muscle fibre) improve speed by increasing Rate of Force Development. This happens in three ways: by recruiting more muscle fibres with each movement; by recruiting muscle fibres in a more efficient pattern; and by turning each individual fibre on more rapidly. All three of these are limited by the nervous system, NOT muscular energy systems. That's absolutely critical to understand, if you're to use plyometric training appropriately.

How They're Meant To Be Used:

In very low-rep, high-rest-interval training blocks. Plyometrics are usually used in blocks of 1,3, or 5 reps. It's useful to have a knowledgeable trainer close by, because if form degrades, it's best to end the block early than to reinforce bad technique. Practice makes permanent!

Since they're primarily used to improve nervous system recruitment, rest intervals should be determined by the same. Your muscular metabolism will have the muscles prepared to move again BEFORE the neuromuscular aspect is ready, so force long rest intervals between blocks.

Plyometrics also take advantage of stored elastic energy in the muscle, which means a rapid turnover of force and a quick direction change, usually from down to up (with gravity to against gravity.)

When To Use Them:

If you really want to improve your speed and explosiveness, then plyometrics should follow a phase of solid strength training that includes some heavy movement in all planes. If you're too young, or injury prevents you from heavy movement, plyometrics can be used effectively after a few weeks of bodyweight strengthening exercises.

Do plyometrics first in your workout, ahead of strength exercises, and immediately following skill-based exercises. A solid warmup is required, so agility work is good beforehand, as long as it's not too intensive. 10 minutes or less is a good guideline. Be fresh, not tired, or you'll just reinforce bad motor patterns.

How To Use Them Best:

Plyometrics, by definition, begin with a rapid shortening of the muscle (a contraction,) followed by an explosive lengthening of the muscle. For example, dropping from a height, landing on two feet, sinking into a squat position, overcoming your downward momentum, and exploding upward into a jump is a plyometric maneuvre. Jumping from a static position onto a box is not, since there's no pre-loading of the CNS.

A good program would be put together this way:

1. Agility/Coordination as a warmup

2. Plyometrics - lower body

3. Plyometrics - upper body

4. Explosive, non-plyometric lifts: speed squats, cleans, jerks, speed deadlifts, speed bench

5. Rep work

Common Mistakes: many coaches simply do too many repetitions, or don't allow adequate rest for the nervous system to recover. Remember: the CNS recovers more slowly than the muscle does; increasing speed and power requires a longer rest interval, which has little correlation to heart rate. If your goals include increasing

Investing In Yourself

Last night, I opened an envelope from my financial advisor. If you've received one of these, you know the next part already. My loudness almost woke up my kids. Unlike our anatomy, our savings and investments should improve with time. I don't know much about that, but I spend a LOT of time with human bodies, and there's one thing that's true of all of us: we're on a downward slope. Rage, rage as much as you want, but you're not going to be as strong when you're 70 as you are now (unless you're weak now. Maybe you are. If so, keep reading anyway.) The investment you're making through exercise and good dietary practices are slowing that decline dramatically, though. Consider the largest problems faced by our elderly: Type II Diabetes (not only avoidable, but reversible), heart disease (largely avoidable,) and bone/muscle injury due to lack of use or misuse (completely avoidable.) You've read the headlines: health care is declining faster than the TSX. Your savings are back at 2003 levels. Do you REALLY believe that we'll have the same health care system 10 years from now? How about 20? What if you injured your back at work TODAY: what kind of advice would you get at the hospital? A referral to a physiotherapist, or a prescription for OxyContin? Advice to take time off work, get bed rest, and take drugs? My point: would the advice help you avoid the problem in the future? Chances are, you're going to have to work longer than you'd planned. Maybe 5 extra years. Are you going to be able to handle 5 more years? Will you emerge healthy enough to enjoy retirement, or will you be so far into the twilight that you'll have to scrape to finish? Sure, you may live long enough to still have a long retirement. Or you may live long enough to suffer through long illness. Maybe you'll be too ill to travel. Maybe your final years will be spent in hospital. Maybe, instead of fulfilling your dream of giving birth to triplets at age 72, you'll require your own medical care. Exercise is cumulative. One bout is fun, but won't help long-term. You need to compound the interest yourself. You need to be investing, every day, time. You need to be paying ATTENTION. Time is now the most valuable asset you have: invest it wisely.

Insulin is your internal UPS. When you eat, and your blood glucose level rises above 90 mg/dl, the pancreas kicks out insulin to start moving blood sugar and other nutrients around. Without insulin, you couldn't digest food; you could literally eat all you want, and none of it would reach the muscle cell, and you'd starve to death. Insulin, obviously, is a critical hormone.

Unfortunately, insulin is an equal-opportunity dump truck. It doesn't care what gets dumped where; it just looks for a big 'VACANCY' sign and fills accordingly.

When blood sugar's rising too fast or too high, the pancreas overreacts a bit. Insulin pours into the bloodstream, pushing blood sugar and amino acids,etc. anywhere possible. Unfortunately, this results in a blood sugar crash, because insulin doesn't know when to stop. So a few hours later, you're tired and hungry again. Long-term, your muscles become resistant to these insulin waves. That's diabetes, friend: the resistance of muscle to insulin.

How can you moderate the insulin response? Well, dull the sharp spike in blood glucose with proteins and healthy fats. Your blood sugar level won't rise as quickly, and the pancreas will release insulin in a controlled, orderly fashion. You can also cut back your total intake of carbohydrates (which are just complex or simple sugar molecules.)

This all sounds like a bunch of chemistry so far, so let's talk about how insulin levels affect YOU. What's your typical breakfast? Cereal? Well, with enough milk, your blood sugar levels shouldn't rise too quickly. Not bad, but consider the type of cereal you're eating. If it's too sugary or processed, blood sugar levels will still rise too quickly; you'll secrete too much insulin, leaving you sleepy and hungry. Think that only kids' cereals are this way?

Here's a good story: Corn Flakes were invented by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (yep, THAT Kellogg) to reduce sexual desire and cure the 'epidemic' of masturbation by lulling the eater into a lazy, unmotivated state. Graham Crackers were invented by Rev. Sylvester Graham to do the same. They weren't aware of the mechanism, but knew that carbohydrates would lull the eater into sedation. Kellogg, by the way, had a lot of other great ideas, including inflicting genital pain on kids to discourage overactive sexuality later.

One of the main reasons that diets don't work (at least, not for long!) is because they usually don't address the hormones behind the storage of fat and the insulin spikes associated with processed food. While most diets now recognize the value of 5-6 small meals per day, few acknowledge the goal behind frequent meals: controlled insulin levels. Instead, they choose to restrict carbohydrates, or proteins, or fat, or total calories. Take Weight Watchers, for instance: if you ate 6 small meals per day, and some of those meals were solely carbohydrate, your blood sugar spikes would make you store carbohydrate as fat. Likewise, on a strict Atkins diet, insulin levels are too low, and the protein isn't effectively used as energy. You CAN use protein for energy (gluconeogenesis,) but it's an inefficient process, especially without insulin to help.

Why the obesity epidemic? Why the skyrocketing rates of Type II diabetes? Look at our dinner plates. At least 2/3 is carbohydrate. A pasta dinner is ALL carbohydrate. What chance does your pancreas have to control insulin output? None. Look at the FDA: they're not only responsible for regulating intake of foods, but also selling crops. And which crop gets all the government funding support? Corn, full of fructose and a major insulin overstimulant. Corn is in everything: pop, bread, virtually any food containing fructose...even protein bars. What diet does the government recommend for avoiding heart disease? Low-fat (read: high carbohydrate.) What do doctors recommend for Type II diabetes - a totally reversible...

The week's group programming ahead. But first: RESISTANCE IS FUTILE!

Great article from Josh Grenell:

https://fitnessfirstreport.beehiiv.com/p/resistance-is-futile

The week's programming ahead. But first: The Cost of Doing Nothing.

The week's programming, AND why Catalyst is probably the gym for you.