2023 was an incredible year for my development as a strength coach. I was able to work with literally ALL levels of athletes at different stages of their season. Working with a professional AND two collegiate hockey teams during the hockey season to working with professional and elite level athletes in the off-season, I got many hours of hands-on experience. Personally, it's through actually working with athletes and making MISTAKES that I learn the best (not that I try to make mistakes). Throughout all the hours of coaching and watching athletes, here are my top three lessons learned in 2023:
1. Speed work is Over-Rated
Everybody loves speed. You go on YouTube or Instagram and you’ll see post after post of speed training. Often times it’s fast-paced clips with highlights of people just moving their feet fast, with an attention-grabbing caption like “SPEED KILLS”. It’s sexy and gets athlete interested in their service because, at the end of the day, SPEED DOES KILL.
However, if we steer away from the marketing ploys and dive deep into what ACTUALLY develops an athlete, it’s not as sexy as people think.
How do I know? Cause I made this mistake.
I emphasized too much speed work OR was working at too high of a velocity for the athletes I was working with and wasn’t seeing the results I was expecting on their vertical jumps (my thoughts on looking purely at vertical jump height will be saved for another article). It baffled me, and honestly pissed me off, because it was the complete opposite of what I was expecting.
With a little reflection and research, I realized that I had jumped the gun a bit and over-emphasized fast-velocity training and neglected building absolute strength and muscle hypertrophy. Both of these training qualities build the foundation of an athlete, which are often under-developed. Only after the base of strength has been established can speed training really work its magic.
“One reaches their potential faster if muscle mass is developed first and afterwards methods that favor motor unit activation” – Dietmar Schmidtbleicher
2. Structural Balance is Under-Rated
Besides the majority of athletes lacking muscle hypertrophy and absolute/relative strength, they are also extremely unbalanced structurally. What I mean by that is their bodies are banged up and very prone to injuries because of muscle strength imbalances.
I was fortunate enough to do an internship with the Laval Rocket (AHL team for the Montreal Canadiens) and then get a part-time contract with them, which allowed me to get insight into the day-to-day grind of professional hockey players in-season. Even though I played at a high level and had first-hand experience, what really stood out to me the first year was how banged up the players would be throughout the season from all the travel, sleeping in hotels, and the intensity of games. What this ingrained in me was the importance of building a HEALTHY athlete heading into the season.
Working with an elite level athlete means understanding they will:
1. Have specific movement compensations, resulting in over-development of certain muscles, and under-development of other muscles.
2. Lack joint mobility and stability because of their sport (constantly working in a
sport-specific range of motion).
The two points somewhat go hand in hand, but the overarching theme here is that, as a strength coach, we need to emphasize building up the anatomical structure (tendons, ligaments, muscles) before thinking about training speed and power.
I like to compare to an athlete as a race car. You can’t send a car out to race if there is something wrong with the engine or the brakes. Many times, it’s necessary to pop open the hood, check the engine, change the oil, and make sure everything under the hood is good. No point in having the most powerful engine if every time it goes over 130 km/hour, it blows and you’re out of the race.
Speed work is sexy. Mobility work, remedial exercises, and hypertrophy training are not. However, our FIRST goal as a strength coach is to make sure our athletes stay on the field of play, meaning they are healthy to start and strong enough to withstand the rigors of competition. If they aren’t competing, helping their team, or showcasing their worth (to earn a better contract) because they are hurting, we are doing a disservice to the athlete.
3. Significance of Building Relationships
The first day I started with the Laval Rocket, Stephane Gervais (Head Strength Coach) told me to start building relationships with the players as soon as possible. This has been one of the best pieces of advice I have received for my development as a coach.
Anybody that knows me knows that I’m a relatively quiet and introverted person. I’m not great with small talk and I’m sure as shit not a salesperson. However, I do genuinely care about people and helping them get to where they want to be, so to do that, I need to know more about the athlete on an individual level and this requires me to go out and start conversations with them. Luckily for me, I was a hockey player so I could connect with the Laval players a little bit more easily.
Building relationships with the players on an individual level was huge for me because it helped build trust and created buy-in from them. The old saying “they don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care” might be cliché but is 100% true. I could have the secret formula to being the best hockey player in the world and tell them about it, but if they don’t trust me, they won’t listen.
Once a connection is established an athlete or client, understanding how to use the connection and their individual personality to get them to buy-in is the second step. Besides working with Laval, I also work with the men and women’s hockey teams at McGill University. Let me tell you, you can’t have the same style of coaching for both teams. Even within teams, you can’t treat everyone the same because what works for one person might not work for another. Building a relationship with each player allows you as a coach to know which buttons to press and when to press them to get the athlete on board with what you’re trying to accomplish.
2023 was an enormous year for my coaching development because I got the opportunity to spend many hours in the weight room with all sorts of different personalities. Those hours have sharpened my coaching eye and developed my ability to communicate and build relationships. I still may not be the most outgoing person, but I definitely feel more confident walking into a weight room full of athletes I don’t personally know and gaining their trust.
Even though 2023 was a great year, 2024 will be even greater.
Train hard folks.
Coach Max
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