In-Season Recovery

by Travis Martell | Nov 7, 2016 | Educational

In-Season Recovery

The level of hockey you’re at will determine how many games you play in a week. Whether you are playing 4 games a week or only 2 on the weekend, your recovery between games is extremely important. The best players in the world are the most consistent. These are players that are able to play each game at a high level. They never seem to get tired. This is directly related to their hard work in off-season training and the steps they take to recover between games. Hopefully, you also worked hard during your off-season! Now that you are in-season simply follow these recovery steps and you’ll be able to maximize your recovery process and get yourself back to 100% for your next game.

I believe there are 6 parts to a quick recovery.

Strength – The stronger we are the faster we can recover, period!

Aerobic Capacity – The better our aerobic capacity the better job our body does at removing waste in our muscles after high intense bouts of exercise.

Nutrition – Eating a clean diet of fruits and vegetables and wholesome proteins like fish, chicken, and beef will aid in recovery while foods that are processed like chips, cookies, and anything packaged will hinder our recovery.

Exercise – Biking increases heart rate which in turn increases the circulation of blood throughout our bodies. As blood circulates through our working muscles it removes waste and this helps our recovery.

Rest – When we sleep our body repairs muscles, tendons, ligaments, and every other cell in our bodies. Sleeping before midnight (12 am) is proven to be more beneficial for our recovery because the hormones that aid in recovery are the highest in the first third of our sleep (this happens before midnight).

Hydration – 2% drop in bodily fluids will decrease our strength. At 4%, our core temperature will rise and our heart rate will increase and fatigue will set in faster.

Now I’ll explain how to put these 6 parts together to map out your recovery strategy.

If you play on back to back days it’s crucial that you get the proper nutrition after the game. Right after the game, you should consume a post-game shake. This will help replenish your muscle glycogen (muscles stored energy). For the fastest absorption of the nutrients, the post game shake should have a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio. Using an 80kg male hockey player, for example, his post game shake should be about 20g of protein and 80g of carbs (this is the 4:1 ratio). The easiest way to achieve this is by mixing your protein powder with some type of sugary juice. As soon as you can eat a real meal try and consume a meal with this breakdown; 55-60% Carbohydrates, 20-25% Proteins, and 15-20% fat. Hopefully, you’ve read my post on sweat rate because you’ll want to weigh yourself after your game to know how much fluid to replenish. Remember you want to drink 1L of water for every 1kg of body weight loss during your game (or practice).

As hard as it may be to fall asleep after games because adrenaline is still running through your body, it’s extremely important for your recovery to fall asleep as quickly as you can. If you find you don’t have a great sleep or your sleep was too short, make sure you take naps during the day. Don’t nap longer than 90mins at a time (especially on game days) because each sleep cycle lasts approximately 90mins. If you happen to nap longer you will find yourself more tired when you wake up because you’ll be waking up in the middle of a new sleep cycle.

If you have a day off between games you’ll want to take advantage of this time. This is the perfect day for light exercise. If you don’t have practice then I suggest making your way down to the gym and hopping on a bike for an easy 10-minute spin. After the 10-minute bike ride grab your foam roller and spend about 15-minutes rolling out your legs. Foam rolling increases blood flow to the targeted muscles which will help bring nutrients to aid in recovery. Foam rolling also helps reduce muscle soreness when performed immediately after the game and again the following day. Once you’ve finished foam rolling, spend about 5-10minutes working on your mobility.

As I mentioned above, aerobic capacity and strength are key parts to your recovery, however, these recovery tools are hard to improve on during the season. Although you can work on both of them during the season, it’s during the off-season where you’ll make the most gains.

Download my Recovery Checklist below to give yourself the best possible chance to be at 100% for your next game.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

Hockey Players Are NOT Weightlifters!

by Travis Martell | Oct 24, 2016 | Educational

Hockey Players Are NOT Weightlifters!

If you’re a hockey player, don’t get so wrapped up in how much weight is on the bar. It’s really not that important! Here’s why…

Hopefully, you’ve been reading the articles I’ve been posting and you’ve started to implement my training tips. When speaking with Junior level coaches (players 15-20 years of age) I keep hearing the same thing. Their players are training for the beach and not the hockey rink. Their players are only training to get big and look good, they aren’t overly concerned with their athleticism. On the other hand, there are also hockey players who only train to get as strong as possible. While strength is very important when trying to improve athletic performance, there are a lot of other aspects of training that need to be taken into consideration when training for hockey.

Hockey players’ NUMBER ONE training purpose needs to be to improve muscle health and function; In other words, injury prevention. If you are injured then you can’t train and missed training days or missed games can be detrimental to your overall improvement. There are some things you can’t control and little setbacks may happen but following a program that is designed to make you be as healthy as possible is much better than one that only focuses on strength or size.

Hockey players need to lift weights to get stronger but that should never be the main focus. Becoming faster and more powerful while increasing your endurance should be the top priority for a hockey player’s workout program. If you solely focus on lifting weights you’ll miss out on the other aspects that will improve you as a hockey player. Hockey is a very dynamic sport so you must have all aspects of athleticism to excel at this sport.

Here is a quick list of areas to focus on for your off-ice training:

A strong core is mandatory. The core is the centre of all of the body’s movements. If your core can’t support your own bodyweight with certain movements then how do you expect your core to brace and help you lift weights? To learn how to strengthen your core click here.

Focus on moving better. If you can’t perform a bodyweight squat properly then why are you performing a squat with weights? Don’t add load to dysfunction! Learn to move better and then add weight to the bar. You’ll get stronger a lot faster and this strength will transfer better to your on-ice performance.

Work on your stability. Having improved stability in the gym will help with sharper and more defined movements in the field when performing agility and change of direction drills.

Focus on power exercises. Once you are moving better and your core strength and stability is improved start working on your power. Performing plyometrics is a great way to improve power. Click here to read how to safely work on your plyometrics.

Improving your endurance can be done simultaneously while working on all of these other areas.

The form is more important than weight. For example, when performing a power exercise like a hang clean, the focus needs to be placed on the bar speed and not the weight. The speed of the bar is what will transfer into a more explosive stride on the ice.

Everything you’re doing in the gym has to transfer to your performance on the ice. If you’re not feeling more mobile, quicker, stronger, more powerful, and better conditioned on the ice, then you’ve wasted your time and energy in the gym. Because at the end of the day it’s the results on the ice that matter not how much weight you’ve lifted.

Game Day Nutrition

by Travis Martell | Sep 26, 2016 | Educational

Game Day Nutrition

If you follow my blog regularly then you’d know that my last post was about the importance of a pre-game meal and what it should look like.

Today I am going to cover the other 2 meals of the day plus the pre-game snack.

Let’s try and make this as foolproof as possible. We are going to assume your game is at 7:30pm. Most teams will have a pre-game skate in the morning. If you are on a team that doesn’t have one then I would strongly suggest that you wake up by at least 9:00am and go for at a 20-30 minute walk to get the legs moving. If you read my post on the pre-game meal then you’d know you should eat your big meal about 6 hours before the game. So if your game is at 7:30pm then you’re eating your pre-game meal at 1:30pm. You should then be eating breakfast around 10:00am. Since you are eating your big meal 6 hours before a game you could start to feel a little hungry by 7:30pm. This is why the pre-game snack is important. Eating your pre-game snack around 4:00pm will give you enough satisfaction of feeling full but it won’t be enough food to make you feel sluggish come game time.

You should keep the same carbohydrate (carbs), protein, and fat ratio for all meals. This ratio is 50-55% carbs, 25-30% proteins, and 15-20% fat. The example athlete we used in my pre-game meal post was a male who weighed 80kg. We’ll keep the same example so the numbers remain the same. In the pre-game meal post, we said his caloric intake for the day was 3600. Of those 3600, 1300 were allocated towards his pre-game meal. This means that we have 2300 calories left to split between breakfast, pre-game snack, and post game meal.

Now let’s talk breakfast! If you don’t like breakfast or don’t feel hungry in the morning, too bad for you! You have to eat breakfast! It’s EXTREMELY important! So if you don’t like it, start to like it, and slowly incorporate this meal into your daily routine. Breakfast should be about 800 calories, pre-game snack about 500 calories, and the post game meal the remaining 1000 calories.

The post game meal of 1000 calories can be difficult for some players to consume. I personally find it very hard to eat 1000 calories of food right after a game. Do you? If you are like me then I recommend that you consume most of your calories in liquid form. Post game shakes are a great way to get the nutrients you need to replenish your muscle glycogen (muscle’s stored energy) without having to eat solid food. To allow for the fastest absorption of the nutrients, the post game shake should have a 4:1 carbohydrate to protein ratio. Using the 80kg male hockey player example from above, his post game shake would be about 20g of protein and 80g of carbs (this is the 4:1 ratio). The easiest way to achieve this is by mixing your protein powder with some type of sugary juice. Most of the time we want to avoid sugary drinks but right after activity our muscles have depleted their glycogen stores and the best way to replenish them is by ingesting simple sugars. This example of a post game shake is 400 calories, therefore, the remaining 600 calories should be solid food. Having the combination of liquid and solid foods after games helps recovery and the feeling of being satisfied.

Make sure you are eating all your meals and doing everything you can to play at your best!

Now that you know the importance of eating properly on game day you can’t forget about drinking enough water. Here is a visual guide to follow so you know how much water to drink and when to drink it!

This Youth Sports Hydration guide was created by Cisco Athletic

Pre-Game Meal For Hockey Players

by Travis Martell | Sep 12, 2016 | Educational

Pre-Game Meal For Hockey Players

For some odd reason, I can remember the weirdest things pertaining to my hockey career, even from when I was younger. This one particular time has to do with food and a regular bag skate we would do to help get us in shape. Looking back at my youth hockey, we actually did a lot of skating drills at the end of practice. I remember always being one of the last kids to finish the drills. I always thought it was because I was slow. Although that part was partially true, I later figured out it also had to do with what I was eating before I went on the ice.

I came to realize this because one time when we were doing our normal conditioning drill at the end practice I wasn’t as slow as normal. I figured it had to do with my diet and not only the fact I lacked leg strength and power. Years down the road when I became more educated on nutrition I looked back at that particular practice and wondered what the difference was that day? (this is how weird my memory is at times).

When I got older I was able to connect the dots and figure out that what I did differently before that practice was actually pretty simple. I had a huge plate of pasta! This whole time my muscles were missing the energy from the carbohydrates in the noodles. At the time I didn’t know the importance of eating a high carbohydrate diet for energy.

So what makes the perfect pre-game meal?

The timing of the meal
What we are eating
How many grams of each macronutrient (protein, carbohydrate, fat)

Let me first explain the timing of the meal and why this is important.

I’ve played hockey with guys who like to eat their pre-game meal 8 hours before a game and guys who like to eat their meal as close as 4 hours before the game. My professional (and personal) preference is around 6 hours before game time. This allows enough time for the meal to fully digest and helps prevent any type of stomach or indigestion issues that might arise come game time.

Now that we know when we should be eating, the next question is what should we be eating?

The ideal meal is some form of pasta (whole wheat is better) and some type of protein (chicken is best because it digests faster than steak). The amount of food we should be eating is where things get a little trickier.

How much we need to eat is based on how much we weigh and our activity level. If you are a hockey player I think it’s safe to say that you’re practicing at least 3 times a week with about 2 games on the weekends and possibly 1-2 off-ice workouts as well. I would consider this very active. To get your daily caloric allowance multiply your weight in kilograms by 45 for males and by 39 for females (Males use the following scale 42-51 and females 37 – 43. Use a higher or lower number based on your activity level)

As an example let’s say you’re a male and weigh 80kg. Multiply that by 45 and you should get 3600. This number represents the amount of calories you’re allowed in a day to maintain your current body weight. Breakfast should be about 800 calories and your pre-game snack should be about 500 calories and post game meal should be about 1000 calories leaving you with 1300 calories for your pre-game meal.

Of these 1300 calories, you’ll want 50-55% of them to be carbohydrates, 25-30% protein, and 15-20% fat. Since 1 gram of carbohydrates and protein represents 4 calories and 1 gram of fat represents 9 calories we can figure out how many grams of each macronutrient we need in our pre-game meal.

Next, we need to do some math to figure out much to eat, 55% of 1300 is 715 (this is how many calories of carbohydrates we’ll consume). Now that we know we can consume 715 calories of carbohydrates we need to divide that number by 4 (because we know 1 gram of carbohydrates equals 4 calories) to figure out how many grams we’re allowed. With some quick math, we know we’re allowed about 179 grams of carbohydrates in our pre-game meal.

We’re not ready yet because we still need to do this for protein and fat. Our allowance for protein is 30% and when we multiply that by 1300 we get 390 calories of protein and when we divide that number by 4 (1 gram of protein equals 4 calories) we end up with 98 grams of protein. And the final macronutrient is fat and 15% of 1300 is 195 calories and when we divide this number by 9 (1 gram of fat equals 9 calories) we get 22 grams of fat.

I am sorry if this part is a little confusing but it is important that we don’t overeat as this will not give us any more of an athletic advantage. To the contrary, it can contribute to stomach and digestive issues. If we under eat we will deprive our muscles of the nutrients they need to provide us with the energy to perform at a high level.

Now that we have our numbers we can put together our pre-game meal. With our calculations from above, we’ll want 240 grams of whole wheat spaghetti with sauce, 190 grams chicken breast, and 1 tbsp of olive oil. Bake the chicken in the oven, boil the spaghetti noodles and put a nice red sauce over the noodles along with the olive oil and you’ll have a meal that will fuel you throughout the whole game.

Do You Know Your Sweat Rate?

by Travis Martell | Aug 29, 2016 | Educational

Do You Know Your Sweat Rate?

Ever since I was a child I sweat a lot, no matter the activity. Things have not changed as I’ve gotten older. My first year playing professional hockey over in Germany really showed me how much I could actually sweat. The arena we played in was partially outdoors, as the whole back wall was exposed to the outside. And since training camp started in August it was very hot and humid in the rink. It felt like a rain forest. There was so much fog you couldn’t even see the puck in the corner from the blueline. There was condensation dripping from the ceiling of the arena. These conditions made me sweat more than I ever had in the past and it was very difficult to stay cool because of the humidity in the air. This wasn’t the ideal environment to be playing hockey in but it had to be done.

Being a guy who already sweats a ton, these conditions made it so much worse for me. I was losing so much water weight that when I wasn’t training I needed to do nothing but drink water and juice to replenish everything I had lost.

Do you know how do you figure out your sweat rate so you know exactly how much water to drink after training to replenish all the fluids you lost?

Before a typical training session (60-minute duration) you need to weigh yourself naked (or with a minimal amount of clothing) and then weigh yourself again after the training session (make sure you’re not wearing your sweaty clothes). The difference between your pre-workout weight and your post-workout weight is what we call your sweat rate. For example, if you weighed 85 kg (187lbs) before the training session and 82kg (180lbs) after the training session you would have a sweat rate of 3kg (7lbs) per hour. And each 1kg (2.2lbs) of sweat loss is equivalent to 1L (32 ounces) of fluid.

If you didn’t already know, muscles are made up of approximately 75% water. And in order for our muscles to perform at their full potential, we need to keep them hydrated. All it takes is a 2% drop in bodily fluids for us to see a decrease in strength. If we use our 85kg athlete as an example, it would only take this individual a 1.7kg of weight loss during their training or competition to see a decrease in strength. At 4% loss of bodily fluids, our core temperature will rise and our heart rate will increase and we will fatigue much faster.

To prevent dehydration during training and competition it is extremely important to continue to drink water throughout your activity. A good rule of thumb is to drink at least 80% of your hourly sweat rate in fluids during your event. If we reference back to the sweat rate of 3kg per hour this means you will want to consume 2.4L (76.8 ounces) of fluids during your event. Consuming this will help prevent dehydration and keep your muscles performing at optimal levels.

On event days, 4 hours before the competition you should drink 5-7 ml/kg of bodyweight (BW) of water and 2 hours before you should consume another 3-5 ml/kg of BW of water. However, we can not only drink fluids on the days of our events and expect that we will be hydrated and perform at our highest potential. We have to drink water on a daily basis to maintain a healthy fluid balance. Recommended daily fluid intake will depend on a few variables like body size, the intensity of exercise, and levels of heat and humidity in your environment. Coffee, tea, juices, and foods containing high water content all contribute to your daily fluid intake. Males should drink a minimum of 3 litres of water daily and females should drink a minimum of 2 litres daily.

Along with fluid loss through sweat, we also lose minerals (electrolytes) like potassium and sodium. Water alone will not replace these electrolytes, therefore, you should consume some juices, sports drinks or potassium rich food to replenish these electrolytes.

Below is a list of items that contain high levels of potassium:

1 large Potato (820mg of potassium)
250 ml of Orange Juice (475mg of potassium)
1 medium Banana (450mg of potassium)
1/4 cup of raisins (300mg of potassium)

To help increase your sodium levels it is recommended to add a little table salt to your meals or you can consume some of the following items:

1 can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup (2225mg of sodium)
1 packet of Ramen Noodles (1560mg of sodium)
1 cup of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (560mg of sodium)
1 Bagel (500mg of sodium)

Remember that it’s good to sweat because it’s our body’s way of keeping us cool and allowing us to exercise longer and at a higher rate. But as soon we lose too much bodily fluid through sweat we become dehydrated and our performance will decrease drastically. Drinking water continuously throughout the day is the best way to prevent dehydration.

With all the sweating hockey players do there is typically a smell that goes along with it. Check out the infographic from Prostockhockey.com to help combat the stink that goes along with all the hard work!

Pro Stock Hockey offers stench control tips for players, coaches and parents — thanks to input from NHL trainers and staff — that are sure to give a helping hand off the ice. Below are the steps you need to take to defend against the stench.

Click arrows in the bottom right corner to expand full screen

Importance of aerobic capacity in hockey

by Travis Martell | Aug 15, 2016 | Educational

Importance of aerobic capacity in hockey

As you probably already know, hockey is a very intense sport. The game is played over 3, 20 minute periods and each player’s shift typically lasts 45-60 seconds. Hockey players change on the fly and every once in awhile there is a stoppage in play for an icing, offside, penalty, and a goal. With everything going on, the rest between each player’s shift can last anywhere between 90-120 seconds.

This type of cycle between flying around on the ice and resting on the bench waiting to get back out on the ice classifies hockey as a very anaerobic sport.

So, do hockey players really need aerobic capacity?

When performing a high-intensity exercise like a game of hockey a lot of physiological things are taking place. There is a depletion of adenosine triphosphate phosphocreatine (ATP-PC), an increase in inorganic phosphate, accumulation of hydrogen ions, increase in lactate formation, and a decrease in pH. With all these physiological changes happening to the body, an athlete will start to feel fatigued and they will notice a decline in power output. It is thought that restoring all these metabolites to normal levels will result in a full recovery.

What is the best way to restore the metabolites to normal levels?

Let’s start by stating that the greater capillary density we have and the more Oxygen our body can supply to our fatigued muscles, and as a result, the faster our muscles can recover.

To simplify, the greater our aerobic system is the faster we can recover. So to answer the question “Do hockey players really need aerobic capacity?”, YES!

Now that we know that we need some level of aerobic capacity, we need to know how much is the right amount…

I believe this is up for debate because hockey is a very anaerobic sport by nature and we need this system to be very efficient in order for us to be successful. But without a strong aerobic base, we might not be recovering to optimal levels between practices, training sessions, and most importantly games.

From my own personal experience playing professional hockey and changing up my off-season training I can honestly say that the summers I performed more aerobic training, I felt fresher during the entirety of the hockey season.

The most important time of the off-season to perform aerobic training is in the first 4 weeks. During this time, it is smart to get in 1-2 aerobic training sessions per week. Then over the next 4 weeks another 1-2 times. And over the last 8 weeks of summer training, performing aerobic training 1-2 times should be adequate because when training our anaerobic system we still improve the capacity of our aerobic system. As you can see, we want to start our summer training by building a good aerobic base and then as the summer progresses we can start to decrease the amount of aerobic specific training and transfer into more anaerobic style training.

It’s still very important to keep up our aerobic training during the hockey season but with games, practices, and weight training sessions it leaves us with a minimal amount of time for our aerobic training. So during the hockey season, it is important to dedicate at least 2 aerobic training sessions per month and no more than 4.

Since most hockey players have poor running mechanics I recommend my athletes to use the bike to develop their aerobic base.