Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Wellness and Healthy Lifestyle show on your VOCM.
Now here're your host, doctor Mike Wall.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm your host, doctor Mike Wall, and today we have
a special guest who is actually my first mentor in
the world of strength and conditioning. Ben Prentiss is founder
of Prentice Hockey Performance and he's widely regarded as one
of the world's best, if not the best, hockey strength
and conditioning coach. I first met Ben over twenty years
ago when he gave me my first job in the
(00:34):
fitness industry coming out of university. I had had some
experience with athletic training at umb with our hockey team
who had won nationals, but nothing close to what he
was doing.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
In New York.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hey n.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Boy outside we Go.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
He had just started a new private training facility just
outside the city in Connecticut. At the time, Ben was
just getting into training elite athletes, but since then he's
gone on to become the premier trainer for professional hockey players.
Ben himself was mentored by Canadian strength coaching legend Charles Polloquin,
who introduced him to training pro hockey players. Ever since
(01:17):
that first experience, he never looked back and has since
refined his own philosophy, which has helped shape the careers
of hundreds of NHL players. He's trained Hall of famers, MVP,
Stanley Cup winners, con smythe Trophy, and Hert Trophy winners,
and the list goes on. To date, Ben has trained
hockey players from all thirty NHL teams and is now
the strength and conditioning consultant for.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The New York Rangers.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well Ben joined me from his home in Connecticut to
talk about his experience as training pro for the last
twenty years, some things athletes and coaches should know, and
to provide some does and don'ts for aspiring hockey players.
It was great to learn about all the amazing things
he's done since I last saw him.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So let's check it out. Welcome to the show, Ben,
It's great to see you. Great to see you again.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
All right, So can you give me a bit of
a background on what your evolution was? How did you
become the guru for hockey training?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You know, like most things, it sort of started as
one thing and kind of morphed into another. So you know,
when when in nineteen ninety nine, Slash two thousand and
I opened up body tuning in a gas station. You know,
the idea was there was no sports performance places. The
model didn't exist. You know, I was coming out of
(02:34):
university where I was training people out of world gym
and in their homes, and you know, this was more
of a body building time in the nineties, and you know,
me being an athlete and me being interested in sports
and hooking onto Charles Pauloquins sort of as my early
mentor when I was in college, you know, following his stuff,
(02:58):
that was my main influence. And as time went on,
I took people's ideologies and made my own and made
my own philosophy and made my own system. So one
by one got high school athlete. And when I went
to start working for Charles in the summertime training NFL
(03:18):
and NHL guys, that kind of opened my eyes to
the world of training athletes. That was in like two
thousand and two, and then I did that for a
few few years. Then as I came back, I started
getting one guy after another, and you know, again there
was no social media. The only way you got athletes
is by results, and it wasn't about advertising or that stuff.
(03:43):
It was just about producing. So you know, we produced
whatever that means, right. I mean, hockey is a team sports,
so you know you have it's how you quantified it.
So that's kind of how it manifests itself into one
guy in another and then teams came and then you know,
I started with what four coaches, and you were there
(04:04):
kind of in the beginning, sort of at the end
of it. I mean, it was just we would do
you know, like three hundred and forty sessions, five hundred
sessions a week in that place with like thirteen trainers.
It was just guys. Just we rented a pod and
put the pot outside and we had turf outside, and
you know, it was just so it's time to move.
(04:25):
And now this is our fifth year and we're in
our twin rink where we have twelve thousand square feet.
We have you know, timing gates, force plates, ten eighty
technology on ice off ice, we have soft tissue practitioners,
you know, you name it, we have it. So it's
(04:46):
it's random spectrum in the course of twenty one years, basically.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing, like you said,
it wasn't existing beforehand, and you came from a background.
You spent some time in California as a kid next
to like the classic Venice Beach, right right, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's sort of you know, that goes way back and that.
You know, my father was a power lifter, so when
I was two years old, he basically took my mother
and I across country to train at Venice Beach at
Golds Gym. And you know, at the time, Golds Gym
wasn't just for bodybuilders. This is you know, nineteen seventy four,
(05:27):
it was for everybody. So you know, whether it's true
or not, my dad likes to tell stories about me,
him burying me in a crib and putting me in
a corner in Arnold would come over and you know,
make googly faces at me and that kind of thing.
And you know, Dave Draper was Arnold's training partner at
the time, the Blonde Bomber, And you know my father,
(05:48):
you know, I have a pictures of Dave Draper in
my office made out to me. He him and my
father were friendly, and so I don't know how long
we were there, but you know he trained there for
probably three or four years. So yeah, you could say
it was in my blood. And you know, then becoming
an athlete and then sort of coming full circle to
the training. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Right, and so you migrated into hockey. Who are some
of the athletes that you're training now because you train.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
A lot of different people. Yeah, so going to spectrum.
You know, my first NHL athlete that was you know,
on my own, meaning I was responsible for that, I
didn't train for Charles, was Jason Arnott, you know, who
won a Stanley Cup early on and had a great
sixteen sub I think sixteen years. He's from Masaga Beach
(06:36):
in Toronto. He was my very first and then actually
locally Ryan Shinnon who actually he crazy enough lived in
my hometown, the hometown of my gym, and went on
to win to Stanley Cup for the Anaheim Ducks, and
you know, had a good NHL career with the Tampa
Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators. And then it went on
(06:58):
to obviously the biggest name names of Marty Saint Louis,
who you know, I was fortunate enough to he he
trusted me in his career and you know, I say
all the time, you know, he would have had a
Hall of Fame career whether or not he met me.
But you know, I was lucky to be a part
of that, and I went to the Hall of Fame
speech where you know, give me a little shout out
and two present Marty sant Louis Black from the Hall
(07:23):
of Fame Class of twenty seventeen, Dave and Ritchok.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I believe it is important to surround yourself with good people.
My agent Lewis Gross, my trainer Ben Prentice, Bill Wickett,
who works for the Lightning thank you for everything. Thank
you for everything through the years.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And I still train Marty to this day. And then
moving on, obviously I still trained Max Pacerretti. This is
eleven years with him going through the Masterson Trophy where
you know, obviously he broke his neck and went through
all that, and then and now currently you know, I
work for the New York Rangers that has a strength
and conditioning consultant. That's kind of a thing where I'm
(08:06):
not really allowed to talk about it other than you know,
I train their prospects. So every summer I get ten
to twelve prospects that I train for them, so they
have that. And then independently on the Rangers, I have
Chris Kreid, Brendan Smith, Brett Howden. Mika's avantajad comes for
about a month when it comes from Sweden, Heatle I
(08:29):
check historikin. They kind of come in for about a
month before we go. And then right now. I'm very
close with Crid obviously, so I've trained Hid for many years.
He's here now. You know, other prospects again I have
to be hush about, but John Hayden from the New
Jersey Devils, who's with me. Trevor Ziegris who is a
(08:51):
first rounder for the Anaheim Ducks, he's here now. Sonny
Milano who's with the Anaheim Ducks, is with us right now.
Adam Fox with the Rangers is with us. I'm probably
forgetting a few that are currently with us, but you know,
al Patrick Harper who is signed to Nashville, he's here
with us. So you know, that's a few of the
(09:12):
guys that we have currently well.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
So that's you know, that's a pretty impressive roster there,
and you know the a lot of those people have
accomplished some amazing things, like Marty san Luis was MVP.
When you take these athletes, I know that you have
a different approach towards how you work with them. You
don't give them a quote unquote hockey program. You know,
how do you how do you approach these different athletes
(09:35):
when you work with them.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, you know, you you hate to say the word
or the phrase. It depends or you know it's it's specific,
but it really is. And for that reason, you know,
the model that I started twenty one years ago we
still use today, and that we only train guys to
per one coach at the most. You know, you learn
(09:58):
different things obvious, and you try different things and you
see what works. And now with force plates and with
the ten eighty and with our body fat system, we're
able to really quantify a weekly if guys are getting better.
And what young people have to understand and the strength
and conditioning is you can't freak out and expect them
(10:20):
to be on a trajectory because if say they're on
an oxplay later kind of about my system. But you know,
in general, depending on what block they're on, they might
go down in their sprint or they're skating more, or
they might go down in their vertical jump, which you
know young person would freak out and think, Okay, they're
(10:40):
not getting better or they're fatiguing. But the fact of
the matter is that's going to happen in peaks and
valleys depending on your block. If they're just going straight up,
then you're probably not training them the right way. Within
each cycle, we're measuring and testing. So each week we
have a day that guy that puts out for our
(11:02):
staff a weekly report, and on that report, we'll have
vertical jump, we'll have an RSI, we'll have a broad jump,
and we'll have a ten yard or ten meter depending
on where you're coming from, sprint, and those are the
things that we look at weekly and monthly. We'll look
at body fat on ice, sprint change a direction as
(11:24):
we start to get further on into their training. Those
are things and twenty years ago, you know, regardless of
what you're reading, you don't know these things until you
really experience them and are able to kind of quantify.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
We're here with Ben Prentiss, NHL's strength and conditioning coach.
When we come back, he'll walk us through how he
trains his athletes. As we spend today's episode diving into
the world of sport performance, we'll.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Be right back.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Welcome back. We're here with Ben Prentiss, NHL strength coach.
In this segment. I asked him about establishing a baseline
for his athletes and some of the fundamentals he preaches,
including sleep and diet. We also clear up some common
misconceptions around aerobic training and working out until failure. These
are things that all young hockey players should hear if
(12:23):
they want to improve their performance.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Let's check it out.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Oh, I think that everybody thinks that these hockey players
are super athletes and that you know, they're living perfectly.
But the role of somebody like you, you can make
a significant difference because a lot of the time they
might not have any background in this and they really
need that guidance. What are some of the things that
you help coach them on when it comes to you know, standing.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Try to you know, when somebody is sort of all
in with us. You know, that's when we feel almost
comfortable in getting the results. And when we say all in,
what we mean is it's not just you know, five
or six hours of training week. It's how you're sleeping,
which we call sleep hygiene. It's how you're recovering, it's
(13:07):
how you're eating, it's how you're managing stress. You know,
all of those things will put you into position So
if a guy's not losing body fat and he said,
as he's eating right, well then we look at his
sleep and you know how his cortisol is or how
he's recovering, and how is a dreamal fatigue. You know,
(13:28):
luckily we have a nutritionists on staff that's able to
test those things if need be, food sensitivity, adrenal cortisol,
full blood panels, those things. I mean, most of the
time that's not needed. You can usually do it by
just fixing a diet. But in some cases, you know,
we go to that. But you know, young kids who
(13:49):
want to talk about taking pre workout or you know,
what's the supplement to get you know, I stop him
right there, and you know the best supplement is for
those guys is hours to sleep and uninterrupted sleep. And
you know, if you're a fourteen to eighteen year old kid,
you want to recover and you want to get stronger
(14:09):
in the gym, get good night's sleep, and that alone
with you know, water and food will typically do it.
I mean that sounds very simple, but your average high
school kid is is not eating breakfast, is not drinking water,
is not eating correctly, is looking at their iPad, which
blue light, as we know, is affecting their sleep. And
(14:31):
you know, so all of these things. That's kind of
what we say all in is we you know, for
the lack of being hokey, is we incorporate a lifestyle
with everything. So it's we'll tell you how to eat,
we'll tell you how to stretch, so we'll tell you
how to train, and we'll tell you how to recover.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
That's awesome, And I know these athletes are also coming
in at various stages too, right, So you got people
that are young in their career, but you deal with
a lot of athletes that are coming in off of
grueling seasons.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, but again that sort of what goes down to
each training. So we might have two people trained together
that are on different programs because they you know, one
guy's three months in and you like, for instance, the
Tampa Bay Lightning, you know, we'll have a guy, you know,
we have guys on that team where you know they're
(15:18):
not going to train for a couple of weeks here,
but when they start training, they're obviously not training with
somebody that didn't even go into the bubble who's been
trained for six months. So you know, you have to
take all those things into where you're starting, and you
can't ever speed up the process. You know, guys will
be like, hey, I'm going on vacation, let's dour four
(15:38):
in a row this week, and you know, no, you
know you have to have those days off in between training,
and no, you can't speed up the process. So yeah,
it's specific, and you know we're looking at what are
aerobic work we're gonna do. Well. Most aerobic work typically
is only done in the beginning. You know, hockey is
not in aerobic sport. But as we know a little
(16:00):
bit of aerobic work will help for recovery, and it
will help them sort of intrat sets, and it will
help them down the road into moving on to anaerobic
alactic work, which we'll move on to. So you know,
those energy systems change as the phase has changed. So yeah,
it all is super specific.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
No, that's that's great, and we're gonna I'd like to
talk a little bit about how you approach these athletes
after this, but just for the people are listening, you know,
like a lot of people feel that because hockey players
are working hard and their sweating and their heart is beating,
and it must be aerobic in nature, but it's not
because shifts are you know, less a minute or less.
And so you know, the way that people train has
to be specific. You go, get really good at running
a marathon and that's not going to translate at all.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No. Well, now, and not only that, but you know,
long distance aerobic work could effect your immune system. So yeah,
and the you know the problem is coaches, gms whatever,
athletic directors don't know and they just are stuck on, Hey,
so and so is slow in the third period. You
(17:04):
know he needs to run more. Well, you know, that's
the worst thing you can do, and that makes them
even slower. And you know, even though you know, we know,
because this is what we do every day. You know,
trying to convince a coach still to this day is
very difficult. So for your listeners, what that really is
is like an eight hundred. We wouldn't have a run
(17:26):
in eight hundred, but meaning eight hundred is sort of
that energy system. It is the closest thing between anaerobic
and aerobic, right, So that's where we like our sled
work to kind of be in that sweet spot of
that that energy system, and that sort of keeps them
out of being lacked, it can tell the later in
(17:46):
the summer when we want to get closer, you want
to get away from the more specific things they do.
So that's why, you know, when people that are not,
you know, trained in training hockey players think well, let's
put them on a slideboard, because that's just like hockey
well er, that's you know, too specific to what they
(18:07):
already do. So why overuse that pattern. So if we
were to even use that sort of motion, that would
be way early in the summer when they're not doing it.
And then when they get closer to the specific skills
of their sport, you then get away from those in
the gym and help them on things that they're not
(18:27):
going to.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Build the stereo, then put the CD in after right,
make the speakers bigger, make the wires better. This is
all stuff that I love to view when I was
twenty years old to tell you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
And so let's talk a little.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Bit about how you progress people, because the progression, the peaking,
all these things are so critically important because at each
phase when you're training people, you're trying to accomplish something different,
and like you said, sometimes their performance may drop in
certain areas. So walk me through if it just so
happened I was actually a good hockey player, And what
would happen if I came in and it said, okay, Ben,
(19:00):
I need I need to get better at hockey.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
You know, obviously the first thing we do with everybody
is a full assessment, and the assessment is not just performance.
It's more limb to limb, joint by joint, and we're
looking at the you know, obviously the hips are the
big thing with hockey, but then you know, shoulders are,
and the shoulder and the hip are a lot the same.
(19:23):
So you know, we're looking at hockey the internal rotation
of the hip is very poor. And then on the
shoulders from getting hit all the time, we're seeing really
bad shoulder mobility and really bad risks as well. I mean,
very few hockey players can do Olympic lifting just for
the fact that not only are they poor in their technique,
(19:45):
but it's because the fact that mus zoom can't even
get You know, this is what I deal with all day,
every day for twenty years. And I'm telling you ninety
percent from kids on up can't do a front rack position.
Because they can't they have no mobility and their wrists,
their shoulders are messed up, their ankles, you know, the
ankle and foot because of the skate there's no dorsuflection.
(20:08):
So these are typically the areas that we have to
really work on, so literally from the ground up. Then
we test on ice off ice different performance, so we
look more at structural stuff and then move on to
you know, our KPIs what we deem for upper body larbody.
Once that's done, obviously they're they're now on a program.
(20:30):
Hockey players have the mentality of just you know, go
for boar, throw up. That was a good workout. I
didn't throw up. It wasn't a good workout. I want
to run stairs, I want to you know, shoot whatever
two hundred pucks. I want to sweat during the workout.
And you know what, people, as I've gotten older and
older and really fight tuned workouts, and as athletes get older,
(20:54):
I think one of the keys is to actually do
less and really focus on changing the intensity. And so
one things we've scaled in. You know, we still have
the same exercise template that you back twenty years ago,
but you know we've scaled it where we now have
on it power velocity. To keep track of those, but
(21:14):
we also have RPI now, which a rate of perceived
sorry RPE, rate of perceived exertion, right, and so we'll
put on there, you know, and it does you know,
for so for your listeners, what that means is roughly
really quick. You know, if I say seven, that means
I want you to have three reps in the tank.
But still it's based on our tempo. Well, there shouldn't
(21:39):
be a thing in everybody's workout, at least in my
world if in performance as a finisher, you know, you
don't have to you know, one thing that people need
to take away and and I'm telling you, no matter
how much you tell them, they just can't. It's like
you will be better off stronger and faster not crushing
yourself every single workout. And why you know, adrenal fatigue
(22:02):
and increasing cortisol is a big, big process, especially now
with stress of jobs and the world and lack of sleep.
And to just then go on top of that and
just crush yourself in a workout, you know, doesn't make sense.
But you know, strength coaches are fighting for getting athletes
(22:22):
and they feel like, you know, putting somebody on the
prowler till they puke or breathe it, whatever the case
may be, is the answer. Now, Yes, there's a time
and a place for that, and there's a time and
a place for training to failure. But you need to
have the concept of overall controlling your RPE and the
intensity of your workouts, and we're able to then, you know,
(22:43):
keep track of everything. And really it's not simple, but
we've simplified it to the point where we really understand
it really well because it's all put into a nice package.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
We're talking hockey training with Ben Prentiss, the go to
stringth coach for NHL hockey players. We'll be right back
after this break. Let's continue our chat with Ben Prentiss,
founder of Prentice Hockey Performance and strength and conditioning consultant
(23:18):
for the New York Rangers. In this segment, we talk
about what athletes really need and that many don't make
it to the intensity of training we see in the commercials.
Ben also talks about the widely misused training tool called plyometrics,
which involves jumping and hopping that uses the body stretch
reflex of our muscles to propel the athlete and develop power.
(23:40):
He talks about the best ways to use these exercises,
why grip training is the cherry on top but not
the most important thing for hockey and the benefits of
complex movements. There's lots to talk about, so let's get
to it. Well, if we use like an analogy of
building a car, it sounds like your first phase is
to make sure the frame and all the parts are
there and working order, and then you start working on
(24:02):
the engine and all the performance pieces after that. So
like what comes after you've sort of you've taken this person,
you put them in a structure, they're able to move
their body appropriately.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What comes next so get then you know, unfortunately people
don't want to hear this as well. But some people,
some athletes don't get to the Gatorade commercial exercises because
you know, they're too weak to With that being said,
certain people for three months won't train plometrics. And that
doesn't mean they're not getting faster. They're going to get
(24:33):
faster by getting stronger because they're too weak to train
for speed. And that's okay. And then you know that's
not a they feel like they're being get being treated
a disservice. But you know the fact of the matter
is if you give a kidd who can't squat his
body weight, you know, plios, you're wasting his time and
(24:53):
you're doing him at disservice. So you know, in theory,
you come in and we'll work on unilateral where and
we'll train small muscles, and we'll do you know, our
isometric work, and you'll do some aerobic work for recovery,
which is barefoot work, which we're looking at your heart
rate not getting too high, so we're not putting you
(25:15):
in more. We're making sure that there is recovery there,
and then it'll phase out where then they're going to
get into more sledge sprinting where we're changing the load
of the sled, and then they'll get into cliometrics, and
so slow work gets taken out and higher velocity stuff
(25:35):
gets put in with lower force. We're fortunate enough to
have a ten eighty, which is you know, for the
lack of a better expression, for all of your people
out there, it's a robotic system that allows us to
with an iPad at the touch of a button, ecentrically overload.
We can go into pure isokinetic, which other than university
(25:57):
type machines, you can't do your listeners out there what
that means is I can put put any exercise at
zero point two millimeters per speed. And then that means
for your listeners, no matter how strong you are, that
bar is only moving at zero point two. And what
that does is that's the only way to produce force,
(26:18):
and that is a super super efficient way to get
really strong, and you need less reps, you need lots
of rest. But it's also something you can do in
season because it doesn't call it a lot of damage.
So you're looking at two reps and your listeners are
going to be like, well, that sounds ridiculous, that's easy. Well,
(26:38):
if anybody's ever tried to do a split squad or
a squad at zero point two or zero point one
millimeters per second, you feel like your spleen's gonna come out,
and that set so that one rep will take you like,
you know, ten seconds. Yeah, right right. And I think
that you've already said some things that are really key.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
You've debunked some of the typical you know, these are
the exercises like the bench press and all those things
you don't need to have, and that no matter what,
every four weeks you change depend just because the program
says to change, which I think is massive. You talk
about different types of contractions, so using exercises in different
ways to elicit different responses, and then tweaking that as
they start to adapt and they go forward, and also
(27:18):
about talking about things at different speeds, because I think
that you know, there is still that old school philosophy
towards things that they're going to do all these lunges
sideways and we're going to do some twists, and then
we're going to work on our risk grip to make
sure that we could do things.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
That's another one that just drives me crazy is that
you know, look, grip training is important for life, like
our parents should trand grip. I mean, if you have
a dimominator, you know, we use that for measuring fatigue.
It's a grain way to measure unilateral grip strengths for
ncus and fatigue. We've used that with our teams that
we that I've had. But specific training for grip is good.
(27:54):
Why because it's obviously recruiting a lot of motor units
and we're getting strong and it's a good neural exercise.
But for hockey specifically, you don't need a grip crushing grip.
You actually need more work with radiation and deviation and
supernation and pronation and strengthen the forearms rather than pure grips.
(28:16):
So you know, again that's the misconception to sort of
how obviously we use thick grip things because we want
our athletes to be strong anyway. But the point is
more to train sort of the forearm and the mobility
and strength of the risk rather than pure grip strength.
But again, you have to look at your training economy
(28:39):
and who you have, so it real. You know, a
week fourteen fifteen year old, don't waste your training economy
on grip strength. You know, you with compound movements that
will sort of cover those things. And then you know,
I like to call that sort of the cherry on
the top in terms of when they've gotten you know,
(29:00):
obviously they can get stronger by just doing chin ups
with thicker grips and and doing those things.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
So well, that's that's that's critically important to understand some
of those things. A couple of things I wouldn't mind
chatting about. Two would be, uh, you quickly talked on plyometrics,
and I think that you know, plyometrics are kind of
a exercise that people think are cool and they're they're
doing them, Maybe explain like how you can actually fatigue
the nervous system by doing too much. You talked about
ground contacts and doing two hundred, Like, why is that
(29:27):
not helpful for people?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Sure, so you know the lame I'll try to go
in Layman's terms, it is the whole point of pliometrics
is to increase the stretch reflex. So if you're thinking
about a depth jump, which is probably the most advanced plyometric,
you're starting off to say a six inch box only
(29:50):
our our rule for depth jump is you have to
jump as tigh as the box you're jumping off of
to then move up. So what a depth jump is
is you're kind of falling off the box and when
you're touching, you want to get off of the ground
as quick as you possibly can. So a general rule
of thumb is you know your heels shouldn't touch the
(30:12):
ground in most biometric exercises, and what that is is
the stretch reflex. And then you're looking for in like
in most exercises is sort of triple expansion of the ankle,
the knee, and the hip. And why because that's what
we've seen translates to sports. So you know, the biometric
requires very little reps and a lot of sets and
(30:38):
a lot of rest. And you know, one of the
things strength coaches aren't comfortable with, which I tell my
young guys, is you have to be comfortable with the
uncomfortable sort of time where you just have an athlete
sit there for two to three minutes, you know, because
it's an uncomfortable, weird thing, and you know to sit
there it say, okay, four jumps, now sit there for
(31:01):
three minutes. Well this is boring. Well I'm not here
to entertain you. I'm here to get you better. This
jumping around for fatigue is not a real thing. I mean,
that's a that's not plyometrics. Pliometrics are to make you
stronger and more explosive by using the stretch reflex. Now,
one could argue, well, Ben, there's no stretch reflex on
(31:24):
the ice because there's no friction coefficient of the ice.
There is none that there is no stretch reflex, So
why do plyometrics. And the whole point is, well, you're
still applying force into the boot. You're still applying force
into the ground off the ice, which will then translate
in the ice. We've seen time into time and time
again through research that the athlete that jumps the highest
(31:50):
skates the fastest. And we've seen it over and over again,
even our heavier athlete. Still if they're the fastest guys,
they jump the highest. We see it over and over
and over again. Now that doesn't mean they're the best
hockey player, but us as a strength coach is still
telling us, Okay, we're doing our job. If this guy
jumps the highest in the gym, he jumps the highest,
broad jump, is the fastest ten or he's among the
(32:13):
top three in all of the above, we know now
that this guy can skate fat.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
We're here with Ben Prentiss, hockey strength and conditioning expert.
We'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
If you're listening to what we broadcast of the Wellness
and Healthy Lifestyle Show with Doctor Mike Wall, listen live
Thursday nights at seven pm and Sunday's at four pm.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Welcome back to our conversation with Ben Prentiss, NHL strength
training expert.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
He's been sharing his approach.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
To training hockey players of all levels for the last
twenty years. In his final segment, we'll talk about the
importance of sprinting speed for hockey players, the role of
stretching immobility, as well as some must do tips for
any aspiring hockey players so they can get stronger and
improve performance. Let's hear what he has to say.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We did a study at the.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
University here actually, and sprinting speed was the number one
determinant of who was a fast skater. And if you
think about that, that is lowest amount of time on
the ground, the fact like you know, their heel isn't
hitting there, moving their fee quickly and their ground reaction
is low, and that's the expression of speed right right.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Well, and there you go. I mean again, a lot
of times we don't need sort of we look at research,
but we don't rely on it or because we're kind
of ahead of it. And yeah, it's good to see
when universities come around it, but we also have many
many you know, people coming through to use so and
if you remember, you know, back twenty years ago, we
didn't run hockey players at all other than sort of
(33:48):
in the first phase where they would do more like
aerobic work. And as I've gone on in the years,
I still don't have them run Why because they're terrible,
terrible and if you try to sort of And number two,
the reason we run tens is because tens if we've
(34:09):
seen mimics, we've slowed down on ice, and on ice,
you know, you have about eight propulsion strides until you
sort of hit your top speed, and that mimics the
running off ice, which you just said. But you know,
it sort of took us a while to get to
that point, and they're not going to get hurt. You know,
(34:32):
that could almost be a warm up because it activates
your central nervous system. So sprinting before you squat, if
you're giving yourself enough time, could potentiate that squat because
you're really it's a high CNS thing. But again, each
sprint needs two to three minutes. After a ten yard sprint,
you know you're not doing it for conditioning, you're doing
(34:54):
it to get faster.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Well, that's that's the connection between the brain and the muscle, right,
that's what you're training right there out the muscle at
that point, correct exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
And that's why we're talking about your CNS. So you know,
and we've seen if you get anything higher than now,
you're looking at hamstring pulls and you're looking at poor
I mean terrible form and you know to again we
talk about training economy. If you want to spend your
entire offseason coaching your athlete trying to run, you're really
(35:22):
doing him at this service. So you know, at ten yards,
getting him stronger and training sort of the things we
talked about from the foot all the way up will
make him faster in his tent. And then typically the
slowest guys are the slowest guys on the ice. So
you know, we've made it a point that you know,
(35:42):
over the years, we are not going to do anything
in the gym that's not going to affect them on
the ice, which I think gets lost in training when
young guys are looking to train people and they're looking
at youtubes or Instagrams and they're just kind of throwing
things in. You know, we're at a level where we
can't afford to do that. So if you came to
(36:03):
our gym, you you will know that every single thing
I'm giving you is tried and true and it's going
to make you better on the ice, whether it be
our mobility day where we're just doing mobility, or like
I said, the ten the ten yard sprain or ten
meters sprain or however you want.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Say.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
You just said something that actually I was going to
mention as well.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Mobility sounds like you're using that term almost interchangeably with
stretching or flexibility, but it sounds like it's functional.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Right well, and those are remember for your listeners, those
are different, you know, you know what's more important being
flexible or mobile. For hockey players, the majority of them
A hate to stretch, and then b are super tight
to begin with, and then c Generally speaking, if you
don't Wayman's term stretch five times a week, generally, you're
(36:56):
not going to make a difference in that tissue and
you're wasting your time. So you know, a half an
hour stretch or of ten minute stretches or end of
the workout is not going to do anything for you
in terms of changing that tissue. You'll have a temporary relief.
You know, static stretching has a different change on tissue
than dynamic stretching. So what we do is we call
(37:19):
them fillers. And unfortunately for the athlete, I say, hey,
you don't want to stretch and you don't want to
come to our stretches, then I'm going to take out
an exercise and I'm going to emphasize this stretch because
you are at risk with your lack of internal rotation
that you will get hurt. So I'm going to force this,
you know, again lack of a better word, stretching on
(37:40):
you to and take away exercise and you're going to
continue to do this because you're not going to do
it on your own. It's hard. It needs to be coached.
We have a very specific mild fascil stretching that we do,
and we have different types of We've done all the FRC,
which is the function in each condition, which is a
(38:00):
doctor Speen out of Toronto that's created this system, so
we use that. We use obviously all DOIR, which when
you were with us we still use. For Givoya is
a brilliant osteopathetic quebec. So we've sort of taken all
of that and integrated it with dire formatic breathing and
again posturology, but not get away from get too excited
(38:24):
with it where we're like, only do that. The problem
is when you teach them modality, that's the only thing
you want people to use. The science of it is
picking specifically how much certain people need. You know, again,
most women like to stretch a lot, and some of them,
guess what, don't need it at all, and it could
be a harmful for them where they need to create
(38:46):
some type of muscle mass and strength rather than the stretching.
So it's important to see that, especially with the girl
hockey players that we have in terms of joint laxity
and developing some unscile masks rather than stretching. So it's
about knowing your athlete and incorporating not only flexibility, button
(39:07):
mobility and using that sort of in the right the
right areas. Right.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Well, I so you know we're starting to wind down here,
But what I was wondering. You know, obviously nutrition has
been important. You stress that, you stress the importance of sleep,
especially for kids because sleep hygiene is so critically important.
To talk about drinking water, some of those basic things
generalizations in training. Obviously that is not your approach. But
if a kid wants to be safe and they want
to start to look into getting better conditioning, where would
(39:35):
they start.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I would say the first thing is to sort of
swallow your ego, think of the weights with no numbers
on them, and train for full range of motion. That
would be number one. So like for us when we squat,
they start with what's called the Frankenstein squat where you're
just your arms out in front of you and the
bar is underneath your chin, and the strength will come
(40:01):
with the load, but don't let the range of motion.
And okay, well I can't get there. I'm too tight,
I'm pinching here, I've closed rain pained here. Okay, step back. Now,
let's go to full range split squats. Let's train fare
foot where we're looking at our foot, doing a short foot,
activating our foot, getting the knee over the toe, full
(40:23):
range of motion, and then you increase some weight, but
let's follow the tempo and you can use the same
weight week to week and still get stronger because the
time under tension changes. So whether it be a five
second hold on your ice to day on a peak
muscle contraction or a five second ecentric you're changing a
(40:47):
different tissue, but you're using the same week, so you're
still getting strong. So for young kids, stop worrying about
the weight you will get. You're not gonna get strong
by that way. You're gonna get it strong if you
have the patience now it's hard because chances are in
their gym they're going to be the only one doing that.
(41:08):
But in the long term, your hips, your shoulders, you're
growing will be far better if you can get full
range of motion. Then when you get older, in your
early twenties, you'll be able to use load because you
can then get into position. I can't tell you how
many pros do we have that I won't let squat
(41:29):
because they can't get into that position and it's too late.
It's too late. They're twenty seven years old. So we
have to get split squats and step ups and things
like that because they can't get into the position. So
elevating your heels is a good way to start to
sort of take out your tight calves and to get
full range of motion. But get rid of the ego
(41:50):
and go for full range of motion would be number one.
Number two would be, you know, really use that RPE
and not go to failure all the time and leaves
them in the tank. And if you're young, you know,
give yourself a day off after each training session and
that as you get older you can sort of train
back to back. But in the beginning, I think training
(42:12):
every other day for younger athletes is much better. You'll
get stronger, quicker, and you'll have more recovery. You know.
I think those would be simple things that they can
do that they probably don't want to do. You know,
they want to chase the pump, so to speak. And
you know, you know, for younger kids that are interested
in that, then you know, give yourself fifteen minutes at
(42:36):
the end of a workout for quote unquote beach work
and then you know, sort of eat your vegetables first
and then have your dessert after. Awesome. I love that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
That's great, and we become a pro hockey player, they
can come down and train with you, so then they're
all set exactly exactly. Thank you so much for taking
the time today, Ben, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
You see you, and thank you for having me. Well.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
For all the hockey players, coaches, trainers, and parents listening,
I hope you learned something you can apply to your
training for the upcoming hockey season. I think that Ben's
message resonates the importance of seeking the right advice and
the role that patients, tracking and individualized approach plays for
any athlete. Now all of us aren't pro hockey players,
(43:20):
but there's lots of us that are trying to improve
our sport performance, and this glimpse into the science of
how it's done should make us all a bit more
curious about what we're doing. I'd like to thank Ben
for taking the time to chat and for letting me
be a part of what he built all those years ago.
I think it's safe to say that we all need coaches.
(43:41):
I'm your host, doctor Mike Wall. We'll see you next
week for another episode of the Wellness and Healthy Lifestyle
show on your VOCM
Welcome to the Wellness and Healthy Lifestyle show on your VOCM.
Now here're your host, doctor Mike Wall.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
I'm your host, doctor Mike Wall, and today we have
a special guest who is actually my first mentor in
the world of strength and conditioning. Ben Prentiss is founder
of Prentice Hockey Performance and he's widely regarded as one
of the world's best, if not the best, hockey strength
and conditioning coach. I first met Ben over twenty years
ago when he gave me my first job in the
(00:34):
fitness industry coming out of university. I had had some
experience with athletic training at umb with our hockey team
who had won nationals, but nothing close to what he
was doing.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
In New York.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hey n.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Boy outside we Go.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
He had just started a new private training facility just
outside the city in Connecticut. At the time, Ben was
just getting into training elite athletes, but since then he's
gone on to become the premier trainer for professional hockey players.
Ben himself was mentored by Canadian strength coaching legend Charles Polloquin,
who introduced him to training pro hockey players. Ever since
(01:17):
that first experience, he never looked back and has since
refined his own philosophy, which has helped shape the careers
of hundreds of NHL players. He's trained Hall of famers, MVP,
Stanley Cup winners, con smythe Trophy, and Hert Trophy winners,
and the list goes on. To date, Ben has trained
hockey players from all thirty NHL teams and is now
the strength and conditioning consultant for.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The New York Rangers.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Well Ben joined me from his home in Connecticut to
talk about his experience as training pro for the last
twenty years, some things athletes and coaches should know, and
to provide some does and don'ts for aspiring hockey players.
It was great to learn about all the amazing things
he's done since I last saw him.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So let's check it out. Welcome to the show, Ben,
It's great to see you. Great to see you again.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
All right, So can you give me a bit of
a background on what your evolution was? How did you
become the guru for hockey training?
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You know, like most things, it sort of started as
one thing and kind of morphed into another. So you know,
when when in nineteen ninety nine, Slash two thousand and
I opened up body tuning in a gas station. You know,
the idea was there was no sports performance places. The
model didn't exist. You know, I was coming out of
(02:34):
university where I was training people out of world gym
and in their homes, and you know, this was more
of a body building time in the nineties, and you know,
me being an athlete and me being interested in sports
and hooking onto Charles Pauloquins sort of as my early
mentor when I was in college, you know, following his stuff,
(02:58):
that was my main influence. And as time went on,
I took people's ideologies and made my own and made
my own philosophy and made my own system. So one
by one got high school athlete. And when I went
to start working for Charles in the summertime training NFL
(03:18):
and NHL guys, that kind of opened my eyes to
the world of training athletes. That was in like two
thousand and two, and then I did that for a
few few years. Then as I came back, I started
getting one guy after another, and you know, again there
was no social media. The only way you got athletes
is by results, and it wasn't about advertising or that stuff.
(03:43):
It was just about producing. So you know, we produced
whatever that means, right. I mean, hockey is a team sports,
so you know you have it's how you quantified it.
So that's kind of how it manifests itself into one
guy in another and then teams came and then you know,
I started with what four coaches, and you were there
(04:04):
kind of in the beginning, sort of at the end
of it. I mean, it was just we would do
you know, like three hundred and forty sessions, five hundred
sessions a week in that place with like thirteen trainers.
It was just guys. Just we rented a pod and
put the pot outside and we had turf outside, and
you know, it was just so it's time to move.
(04:25):
And now this is our fifth year and we're in
our twin rink where we have twelve thousand square feet.
We have you know, timing gates, force plates, ten eighty
technology on ice off ice, we have soft tissue practitioners,
you know, you name it, we have it. So it's
(04:46):
it's random spectrum in the course of twenty one years, basically.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing, like you said,
it wasn't existing beforehand, and you came from a background.
You spent some time in California as a kid next
to like the classic Venice Beach, right right, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
That's sort of you know, that goes way back and that.
You know, my father was a power lifter, so when
I was two years old, he basically took my mother
and I across country to train at Venice Beach at
Golds Gym. And you know, at the time, Golds Gym
wasn't just for bodybuilders. This is you know, nineteen seventy four,
(05:27):
it was for everybody. So you know, whether it's true
or not, my dad likes to tell stories about me,
him burying me in a crib and putting me in
a corner in Arnold would come over and you know,
make googly faces at me and that kind of thing.
And you know, Dave Draper was Arnold's training partner at
the time, the Blonde Bomber, And you know my father,
(05:48):
you know, I have a pictures of Dave Draper in
my office made out to me. He him and my
father were friendly, and so I don't know how long
we were there, but you know he trained there for
probably three or four years. So yeah, you could say
it was in my blood. And you know, then becoming
an athlete and then sort of coming full circle to
the training. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Right, and so you migrated into hockey. Who are some
of the athletes that you're training now because you train.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
A lot of different people. Yeah, so going to spectrum.
You know, my first NHL athlete that was you know,
on my own, meaning I was responsible for that, I
didn't train for Charles, was Jason Arnott, you know, who
won a Stanley Cup early on and had a great
sixteen sub I think sixteen years. He's from Masaga Beach
(06:36):
in Toronto. He was my very first and then actually
locally Ryan Shinnon who actually he crazy enough lived in
my hometown, the hometown of my gym, and went on
to win to Stanley Cup for the Anaheim Ducks, and
you know, had a good NHL career with the Tampa
Bay Lightning and Ottawa Senators. And then it went on
(06:58):
to obviously the biggest name names of Marty Saint Louis,
who you know, I was fortunate enough to he he
trusted me in his career and you know, I say
all the time, you know, he would have had a
Hall of Fame career whether or not he met me.
But you know, I was lucky to be a part
of that, and I went to the Hall of Fame
speech where you know, give me a little shout out
and two present Marty sant Louis Black from the Hall
(07:23):
of Fame Class of twenty seventeen, Dave and Ritchok.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
I believe it is important to surround yourself with good people.
My agent Lewis Gross, my trainer Ben Prentice, Bill Wickett,
who works for the Lightning thank you for everything. Thank
you for everything through the years.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And I still train Marty to this day. And then
moving on, obviously I still trained Max Pacerretti. This is
eleven years with him going through the Masterson Trophy where
you know, obviously he broke his neck and went through
all that, and then and now currently you know, I
work for the New York Rangers that has a strength
and conditioning consultant. That's kind of a thing where I'm
(08:06):
not really allowed to talk about it other than you know,
I train their prospects. So every summer I get ten
to twelve prospects that I train for them, so they
have that. And then independently on the Rangers, I have
Chris Kreid, Brendan Smith, Brett Howden. Mika's avantajad comes for
about a month when it comes from Sweden, Heatle I
(08:29):
check historikin. They kind of come in for about a
month before we go. And then right now. I'm very
close with Crid obviously, so I've trained Hid for many years.
He's here now. You know, other prospects again I have
to be hush about, but John Hayden from the New
Jersey Devils, who's with me. Trevor Ziegris who is a
(08:51):
first rounder for the Anaheim Ducks, he's here now. Sonny
Milano who's with the Anaheim Ducks, is with us right now.
Adam Fox with the Rangers is with us. I'm probably
forgetting a few that are currently with us, but you know,
al Patrick Harper who is signed to Nashville, he's here
with us. So you know, that's a few of the
(09:12):
guys that we have currently well.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
So that's you know, that's a pretty impressive roster there,
and you know the a lot of those people have
accomplished some amazing things, like Marty san Luis was MVP.
When you take these athletes, I know that you have
a different approach towards how you work with them. You
don't give them a quote unquote hockey program. You know,
how do you how do you approach these different athletes
(09:35):
when you work with them.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
Yeah, you know, you you hate to say the word
or the phrase. It depends or you know it's it's specific,
but it really is. And for that reason, you know,
the model that I started twenty one years ago we
still use today, and that we only train guys to
per one coach at the most. You know, you learn
(09:58):
different things obvious, and you try different things and you
see what works. And now with force plates and with
the ten eighty and with our body fat system, we're
able to really quantify a weekly if guys are getting better.
And what young people have to understand and the strength
and conditioning is you can't freak out and expect them
(10:20):
to be on a trajectory because if say they're on
an oxplay later kind of about my system. But you know,
in general, depending on what block they're on, they might
go down in their sprint or they're skating more, or
they might go down in their vertical jump, which you
know young person would freak out and think, Okay, they're
(10:40):
not getting better or they're fatiguing. But the fact of
the matter is that's going to happen in peaks and
valleys depending on your block. If they're just going straight up,
then you're probably not training them the right way. Within
each cycle, we're measuring and testing. So each week we
have a day that guy that puts out for our
(11:02):
staff a weekly report, and on that report, we'll have
vertical jump, we'll have an RSI, we'll have a broad jump,
and we'll have a ten yard or ten meter depending
on where you're coming from, sprint, and those are the
things that we look at weekly and monthly. We'll look
at body fat on ice, sprint change a direction as
(11:24):
we start to get further on into their training. Those
are things and twenty years ago, you know, regardless of
what you're reading, you don't know these things until you
really experience them and are able to kind of quantify.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
We're here with Ben Prentiss, NHL's strength and conditioning coach.
When we come back, he'll walk us through how he
trains his athletes. As we spend today's episode diving into
the world of sport performance, we'll.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Be right back.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
Welcome back. We're here with Ben Prentiss, NHL strength coach.
In this segment. I asked him about establishing a baseline
for his athletes and some of the fundamentals he preaches,
including sleep and diet. We also clear up some common
misconceptions around aerobic training and working out until failure. These
are things that all young hockey players should hear if
(12:23):
they want to improve their performance.
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Let's check it out.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Oh, I think that everybody thinks that these hockey players
are super athletes and that you know, they're living perfectly.
But the role of somebody like you, you can make
a significant difference because a lot of the time they
might not have any background in this and they really
need that guidance. What are some of the things that
you help coach them on when it comes to you know, standing.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Try to you know, when somebody is sort of all
in with us. You know, that's when we feel almost
comfortable in getting the results. And when we say all in,
what we mean is it's not just you know, five
or six hours of training week. It's how you're sleeping,
which we call sleep hygiene. It's how you're recovering, it's
(13:07):
how you're eating, it's how you're managing stress. You know,
all of those things will put you into position So
if a guy's not losing body fat and he said,
as he's eating right, well then we look at his
sleep and you know how his cortisol is or how
he's recovering, and how is a dreamal fatigue. You know,
(13:28):
luckily we have a nutritionists on staff that's able to
test those things if need be, food sensitivity, adrenal cortisol,
full blood panels, those things. I mean, most of the
time that's not needed. You can usually do it by
just fixing a diet. But in some cases, you know,
we go to that. But you know, young kids who
(13:49):
want to talk about taking pre workout or you know,
what's the supplement to get you know, I stop him
right there, and you know the best supplement is for
those guys is hours to sleep and uninterrupted sleep. And
you know, if you're a fourteen to eighteen year old kid,
you want to recover and you want to get stronger
(14:09):
in the gym, get good night's sleep, and that alone
with you know, water and food will typically do it.
I mean that sounds very simple, but your average high
school kid is is not eating breakfast, is not drinking water,
is not eating correctly, is looking at their iPad, which
blue light, as we know, is affecting their sleep. And
(14:31):
you know, so all of these things. That's kind of
what we say all in is we you know, for
the lack of being hokey, is we incorporate a lifestyle
with everything. So it's we'll tell you how to eat,
we'll tell you how to stretch, so we'll tell you
how to train, and we'll tell you how to recover.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
That's awesome, And I know these athletes are also coming
in at various stages too, right, So you got people
that are young in their career, but you deal with
a lot of athletes that are coming in off of
grueling seasons.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
Yeah, but again that sort of what goes down to
each training. So we might have two people trained together
that are on different programs because they you know, one
guy's three months in and you like, for instance, the
Tampa Bay Lightning, you know, we'll have a guy, you know,
we have guys on that team where you know they're
(15:18):
not going to train for a couple of weeks here,
but when they start training, they're obviously not training with
somebody that didn't even go into the bubble who's been
trained for six months. So you know, you have to
take all those things into where you're starting, and you
can't ever speed up the process. You know, guys will
be like, hey, I'm going on vacation, let's dour four
(15:38):
in a row this week, and you know, no, you
know you have to have those days off in between training,
and no, you can't speed up the process. So yeah,
it's specific, and you know we're looking at what are
aerobic work we're gonna do. Well. Most aerobic work typically
is only done in the beginning. You know, hockey is
not in aerobic sport. But as we know a little
(16:00):
bit of aerobic work will help for recovery, and it
will help them sort of intrat sets, and it will
help them down the road into moving on to anaerobic
alactic work, which we'll move on to. So you know,
those energy systems change as the phase has changed. So yeah,
it all is super specific.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
No, that's that's great, and we're gonna I'd like to
talk a little bit about how you approach these athletes
after this, but just for the people are listening, you know,
like a lot of people feel that because hockey players
are working hard and their sweating and their heart is beating,
and it must be aerobic in nature, but it's not
because shifts are you know, less a minute or less.
And so you know, the way that people train has
to be specific. You go, get really good at running
a marathon and that's not going to translate at all.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
No. Well, now, and not only that, but you know,
long distance aerobic work could effect your immune system. So yeah,
and the you know the problem is coaches, gms whatever,
athletic directors don't know and they just are stuck on, Hey,
so and so is slow in the third period. You
(17:04):
know he needs to run more. Well, you know, that's
the worst thing you can do, and that makes them
even slower. And you know, even though you know, we know,
because this is what we do every day. You know,
trying to convince a coach still to this day is
very difficult. So for your listeners, what that really is
is like an eight hundred. We wouldn't have a run
(17:26):
in eight hundred, but meaning eight hundred is sort of
that energy system. It is the closest thing between anaerobic
and aerobic, right, So that's where we like our sled
work to kind of be in that sweet spot of
that that energy system, and that sort of keeps them
out of being lacked, it can tell the later in
(17:46):
the summer when we want to get closer, you want
to get away from the more specific things they do.
So that's why, you know, when people that are not,
you know, trained in training hockey players think well, let's
put them on a slideboard, because that's just like hockey
well er, that's you know, too specific to what they
(18:07):
already do. So why overuse that pattern. So if we
were to even use that sort of motion, that would
be way early in the summer when they're not doing it.
And then when they get closer to the specific skills
of their sport, you then get away from those in
the gym and help them on things that they're not
(18:27):
going to.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
Build the stereo, then put the CD in after right,
make the speakers bigger, make the wires better. This is
all stuff that I love to view when I was
twenty years old to tell you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
And so let's talk a little.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Bit about how you progress people, because the progression, the peaking,
all these things are so critically important because at each
phase when you're training people, you're trying to accomplish something different,
and like you said, sometimes their performance may drop in
certain areas. So walk me through if it just so
happened I was actually a good hockey player, And what
would happen if I came in and it said, okay, Ben,
(19:00):
I need I need to get better at hockey.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
You know, obviously the first thing we do with everybody
is a full assessment, and the assessment is not just performance.
It's more limb to limb, joint by joint, and we're
looking at the you know, obviously the hips are the
big thing with hockey, but then you know, shoulders are,
and the shoulder and the hip are a lot the same.
(19:23):
So you know, we're looking at hockey the internal rotation
of the hip is very poor. And then on the
shoulders from getting hit all the time, we're seeing really
bad shoulder mobility and really bad risks as well. I mean,
very few hockey players can do Olympic lifting just for
the fact that not only are they poor in their technique,
(19:45):
but it's because the fact that mus zoom can't even
get You know, this is what I deal with all day,
every day for twenty years. And I'm telling you ninety
percent from kids on up can't do a front rack position.
Because they can't they have no mobility and their wrists,
their shoulders are messed up, their ankles, you know, the
ankle and foot because of the skate there's no dorsuflection.
(20:08):
So these are typically the areas that we have to
really work on, so literally from the ground up. Then
we test on ice off ice different performance, so we
look more at structural stuff and then move on to
you know, our KPIs what we deem for upper body larbody.
Once that's done, obviously they're they're now on a program.
(20:30):
Hockey players have the mentality of just you know, go
for boar, throw up. That was a good workout. I
didn't throw up. It wasn't a good workout. I want
to run stairs, I want to you know, shoot whatever
two hundred pucks. I want to sweat during the workout.
And you know what, people, as I've gotten older and
older and really fight tuned workouts, and as athletes get older,
(20:54):
I think one of the keys is to actually do
less and really focus on changing the intensity. And so
one things we've scaled in. You know, we still have
the same exercise template that you back twenty years ago,
but you know we've scaled it where we now have
on it power velocity. To keep track of those, but
(21:14):
we also have RPI now, which a rate of perceived
sorry RPE, rate of perceived exertion, right, and so we'll
put on there, you know, and it does you know,
for so for your listeners, what that means is roughly
really quick. You know, if I say seven, that means
I want you to have three reps in the tank.
But still it's based on our tempo. Well, there shouldn't
(21:39):
be a thing in everybody's workout, at least in my
world if in performance as a finisher, you know, you
don't have to you know, one thing that people need
to take away and and I'm telling you, no matter
how much you tell them, they just can't. It's like
you will be better off stronger and faster not crushing
yourself every single workout. And why you know, adrenal fatigue
(22:02):
and increasing cortisol is a big, big process, especially now
with stress of jobs and the world and lack of sleep.
And to just then go on top of that and
just crush yourself in a workout, you know, doesn't make sense.
But you know, strength coaches are fighting for getting athletes
(22:22):
and they feel like, you know, putting somebody on the
prowler till they puke or breathe it, whatever the case
may be, is the answer. Now, Yes, there's a time
and a place for that, and there's a time and
a place for training to failure. But you need to
have the concept of overall controlling your RPE and the
intensity of your workouts, and we're able to then, you know,
(22:43):
keep track of everything. And really it's not simple, but
we've simplified it to the point where we really understand
it really well because it's all put into a nice package.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
We're talking hockey training with Ben Prentiss, the go to
stringth coach for NHL hockey players. We'll be right back
after this break. Let's continue our chat with Ben Prentiss,
founder of Prentice Hockey Performance and strength and conditioning consultant
(23:18):
for the New York Rangers. In this segment, we talk
about what athletes really need and that many don't make
it to the intensity of training we see in the commercials.
Ben also talks about the widely misused training tool called plyometrics,
which involves jumping and hopping that uses the body stretch
reflex of our muscles to propel the athlete and develop power.
(23:40):
He talks about the best ways to use these exercises,
why grip training is the cherry on top but not
the most important thing for hockey and the benefits of
complex movements. There's lots to talk about, so let's get
to it. Well, if we use like an analogy of
building a car, it sounds like your first phase is
to make sure the frame and all the parts are
there and working order, and then you start working on
(24:02):
the engine and all the performance pieces after that. So
like what comes after you've sort of you've taken this person,
you put them in a structure, they're able to move
their body appropriately.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
What comes next so get then you know, unfortunately people
don't want to hear this as well. But some people,
some athletes don't get to the Gatorade commercial exercises because
you know, they're too weak to With that being said,
certain people for three months won't train plometrics. And that
doesn't mean they're not getting faster. They're going to get
(24:33):
faster by getting stronger because they're too weak to train
for speed. And that's okay. And then you know that's
not a they feel like they're being get being treated
a disservice. But you know the fact of the matter
is if you give a kidd who can't squat his
body weight, you know, plios, you're wasting his time and
(24:53):
you're doing him at disservice. So you know, in theory,
you come in and we'll work on unilateral where and
we'll train small muscles, and we'll do you know, our
isometric work, and you'll do some aerobic work for recovery,
which is barefoot work, which we're looking at your heart
rate not getting too high, so we're not putting you
(25:15):
in more. We're making sure that there is recovery there,
and then it'll phase out where then they're going to
get into more sledge sprinting where we're changing the load
of the sled, and then they'll get into cliometrics, and
so slow work gets taken out and higher velocity stuff
(25:35):
gets put in with lower force. We're fortunate enough to
have a ten eighty, which is you know, for the
lack of a better expression, for all of your people
out there, it's a robotic system that allows us to
with an iPad at the touch of a button, ecentrically overload.
We can go into pure isokinetic, which other than university
(25:57):
type machines, you can't do your listeners out there what
that means is I can put put any exercise at
zero point two millimeters per speed. And then that means
for your listeners, no matter how strong you are, that
bar is only moving at zero point two. And what
that does is that's the only way to produce force,
(26:18):
and that is a super super efficient way to get
really strong, and you need less reps, you need lots
of rest. But it's also something you can do in
season because it doesn't call it a lot of damage.
So you're looking at two reps and your listeners are
going to be like, well, that sounds ridiculous, that's easy. Well,
(26:38):
if anybody's ever tried to do a split squad or
a squad at zero point two or zero point one
millimeters per second, you feel like your spleen's gonna come out,
and that set so that one rep will take you like,
you know, ten seconds. Yeah, right right. And I think
that you've already said some things that are really key.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
You've debunked some of the typical you know, these are
the exercises like the bench press and all those things
you don't need to have, and that no matter what,
every four weeks you change depend just because the program
says to change, which I think is massive. You talk
about different types of contractions, so using exercises in different
ways to elicit different responses, and then tweaking that as
they start to adapt and they go forward, and also
(27:18):
about talking about things at different speeds, because I think
that you know, there is still that old school philosophy
towards things that they're going to do all these lunges
sideways and we're going to do some twists, and then
we're going to work on our risk grip to make
sure that we could do things.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
That's another one that just drives me crazy is that
you know, look, grip training is important for life, like
our parents should trand grip. I mean, if you have
a dimominator, you know, we use that for measuring fatigue.
It's a grain way to measure unilateral grip strengths for
ncus and fatigue. We've used that with our teams that
we that I've had. But specific training for grip is good.
(27:54):
Why because it's obviously recruiting a lot of motor units
and we're getting strong and it's a good neural exercise.
But for hockey specifically, you don't need a grip crushing grip.
You actually need more work with radiation and deviation and
supernation and pronation and strengthen the forearms rather than pure grips.
(28:16):
So you know, again that's the misconception to sort of
how obviously we use thick grip things because we want
our athletes to be strong anyway. But the point is
more to train sort of the forearm and the mobility
and strength of the risk rather than pure grip strength.
But again, you have to look at your training economy
(28:39):
and who you have, so it real. You know, a
week fourteen fifteen year old, don't waste your training economy
on grip strength. You know, you with compound movements that
will sort of cover those things. And then you know,
I like to call that sort of the cherry on
the top in terms of when they've gotten you know,
(29:00):
obviously they can get stronger by just doing chin ups
with thicker grips and and doing those things.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
So well, that's that's that's critically important to understand some
of those things. A couple of things I wouldn't mind
chatting about. Two would be, uh, you quickly talked on plyometrics,
and I think that you know, plyometrics are kind of
a exercise that people think are cool and they're they're
doing them, Maybe explain like how you can actually fatigue
the nervous system by doing too much. You talked about
ground contacts and doing two hundred, Like, why is that
(29:27):
not helpful for people?
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Sure, so you know the lame I'll try to go
in Layman's terms, it is the whole point of pliometrics
is to increase the stretch reflex. So if you're thinking
about a depth jump, which is probably the most advanced plyometric,
you're starting off to say a six inch box only
(29:50):
our our rule for depth jump is you have to
jump as tigh as the box you're jumping off of
to then move up. So what a depth jump is
is you're kind of falling off the box and when
you're touching, you want to get off of the ground
as quick as you possibly can. So a general rule
of thumb is you know your heels shouldn't touch the
(30:12):
ground in most biometric exercises, and what that is is
the stretch reflex. And then you're looking for in like
in most exercises is sort of triple expansion of the ankle,
the knee, and the hip. And why because that's what
we've seen translates to sports. So you know, the biometric
requires very little reps and a lot of sets and
(30:38):
a lot of rest. And you know, one of the
things strength coaches aren't comfortable with, which I tell my
young guys, is you have to be comfortable with the
uncomfortable sort of time where you just have an athlete
sit there for two to three minutes, you know, because
it's an uncomfortable, weird thing, and you know to sit
there it say, okay, four jumps, now sit there for
(31:01):
three minutes. Well this is boring. Well I'm not here
to entertain you. I'm here to get you better. This
jumping around for fatigue is not a real thing. I mean,
that's a that's not plyometrics. Pliometrics are to make you
stronger and more explosive by using the stretch reflex. Now,
one could argue, well, Ben, there's no stretch reflex on
(31:24):
the ice because there's no friction coefficient of the ice.
There is none that there is no stretch reflex, So
why do plyometrics. And the whole point is, well, you're
still applying force into the boot. You're still applying force
into the ground off the ice, which will then translate
in the ice. We've seen time into time and time
again through research that the athlete that jumps the highest
(31:50):
skates the fastest. And we've seen it over and over again,
even our heavier athlete. Still if they're the fastest guys,
they jump the highest. We see it over and over
and over again. Now that doesn't mean they're the best
hockey player, but us as a strength coach is still
telling us, Okay, we're doing our job. If this guy
jumps the highest in the gym, he jumps the highest,
broad jump, is the fastest ten or he's among the
(32:13):
top three in all of the above, we know now
that this guy can skate fat.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
We're here with Ben Prentiss, hockey strength and conditioning expert.
We'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
If you're listening to what we broadcast of the Wellness
and Healthy Lifestyle Show with Doctor Mike Wall, listen live
Thursday nights at seven pm and Sunday's at four pm.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Welcome back to our conversation with Ben Prentiss, NHL strength
training expert.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
He's been sharing his approach.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
To training hockey players of all levels for the last
twenty years. In his final segment, we'll talk about the
importance of sprinting speed for hockey players, the role of
stretching immobility, as well as some must do tips for
any aspiring hockey players so they can get stronger and
improve performance. Let's hear what he has to say.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
We did a study at the.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
University here actually, and sprinting speed was the number one
determinant of who was a fast skater. And if you
think about that, that is lowest amount of time on
the ground, the fact like you know, their heel isn't
hitting there, moving their fee quickly and their ground reaction
is low, and that's the expression of speed right right.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Well, and there you go. I mean again, a lot
of times we don't need sort of we look at research,
but we don't rely on it or because we're kind
of ahead of it. And yeah, it's good to see
when universities come around it, but we also have many
many you know, people coming through to use so and
if you remember, you know, back twenty years ago, we
didn't run hockey players at all other than sort of
(33:48):
in the first phase where they would do more like
aerobic work. And as I've gone on in the years,
I still don't have them run Why because they're terrible,
terrible and if you try to sort of And number two,
the reason we run tens is because tens if we've
(34:09):
seen mimics, we've slowed down on ice, and on ice,
you know, you have about eight propulsion strides until you
sort of hit your top speed, and that mimics the
running off ice, which you just said. But you know,
it sort of took us a while to get to
that point, and they're not going to get hurt. You know,
(34:32):
that could almost be a warm up because it activates
your central nervous system. So sprinting before you squat, if
you're giving yourself enough time, could potentiate that squat because
you're really it's a high CNS thing. But again, each
sprint needs two to three minutes. After a ten yard sprint,
you know you're not doing it for conditioning, you're doing
(34:54):
it to get faster.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Well, that's that's the connection between the brain and the muscle, right,
that's what you're training right there out the muscle at
that point, correct exactly.
Speaker 2 (35:02):
And that's why we're talking about your CNS. So you know,
and we've seen if you get anything higher than now,
you're looking at hamstring pulls and you're looking at poor
I mean terrible form and you know to again we
talk about training economy. If you want to spend your
entire offseason coaching your athlete trying to run, you're really
(35:22):
doing him at this service. So you know, at ten yards,
getting him stronger and training sort of the things we
talked about from the foot all the way up will
make him faster in his tent. And then typically the
slowest guys are the slowest guys on the ice. So
you know, we've made it a point that you know,
(35:42):
over the years, we are not going to do anything
in the gym that's not going to affect them on
the ice, which I think gets lost in training when
young guys are looking to train people and they're looking
at youtubes or Instagrams and they're just kind of throwing
things in. You know, we're at a level where we
can't afford to do that. So if you came to
(36:03):
our gym, you you will know that every single thing
I'm giving you is tried and true and it's going
to make you better on the ice, whether it be
our mobility day where we're just doing mobility, or like
I said, the ten the ten yard sprain or ten
meters sprain or however you want.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
Say.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
You just said something that actually I was going to
mention as well.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Mobility sounds like you're using that term almost interchangeably with
stretching or flexibility, but it sounds like it's functional.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Right well, and those are remember for your listeners, those
are different, you know, you know what's more important being
flexible or mobile. For hockey players, the majority of them
A hate to stretch, and then b are super tight
to begin with, and then c Generally speaking, if you
don't Wayman's term stretch five times a week, generally, you're
(36:56):
not going to make a difference in that tissue and
you're wasting your time. So you know, a half an
hour stretch or of ten minute stretches or end of
the workout is not going to do anything for you
in terms of changing that tissue. You'll have a temporary relief.
You know, static stretching has a different change on tissue
than dynamic stretching. So what we do is we call
(37:19):
them fillers. And unfortunately for the athlete, I say, hey,
you don't want to stretch and you don't want to
come to our stretches, then I'm going to take out
an exercise and I'm going to emphasize this stretch because
you are at risk with your lack of internal rotation
that you will get hurt. So I'm going to force this,
you know, again lack of a better word, stretching on
(37:40):
you to and take away exercise and you're going to
continue to do this because you're not going to do
it on your own. It's hard. It needs to be coached.
We have a very specific mild fascil stretching that we do,
and we have different types of We've done all the FRC,
which is the function in each condition, which is a
(38:00):
doctor Speen out of Toronto that's created this system, so
we use that. We use obviously all DOIR, which when
you were with us we still use. For Givoya is
a brilliant osteopathetic quebec. So we've sort of taken all
of that and integrated it with dire formatic breathing and
again posturology, but not get away from get too excited
(38:24):
with it where we're like, only do that. The problem
is when you teach them modality, that's the only thing
you want people to use. The science of it is
picking specifically how much certain people need. You know, again,
most women like to stretch a lot, and some of them,
guess what, don't need it at all, and it could
be a harmful for them where they need to create
(38:46):
some type of muscle mass and strength rather than the stretching.
So it's important to see that, especially with the girl
hockey players that we have in terms of joint laxity
and developing some unscile masks rather than stretching. So it's
about knowing your athlete and incorporating not only flexibility, button
(39:07):
mobility and using that sort of in the right the
right areas. Right.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Well, I so you know we're starting to wind down here,
But what I was wondering. You know, obviously nutrition has
been important. You stress that, you stress the importance of sleep,
especially for kids because sleep hygiene is so critically important.
To talk about drinking water, some of those basic things
generalizations in training. Obviously that is not your approach. But
if a kid wants to be safe and they want
to start to look into getting better conditioning, where would
(39:35):
they start.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
I would say the first thing is to sort of
swallow your ego, think of the weights with no numbers
on them, and train for full range of motion. That
would be number one. So like for us when we squat,
they start with what's called the Frankenstein squat where you're
just your arms out in front of you and the
bar is underneath your chin, and the strength will come
(40:01):
with the load, but don't let the range of motion.
And okay, well I can't get there. I'm too tight,
I'm pinching here, I've closed rain pained here. Okay, step back. Now,
let's go to full range split squats. Let's train fare
foot where we're looking at our foot, doing a short foot,
activating our foot, getting the knee over the toe, full
(40:23):
range of motion, and then you increase some weight, but
let's follow the tempo and you can use the same
weight week to week and still get stronger because the
time under tension changes. So whether it be a five
second hold on your ice to day on a peak
muscle contraction or a five second ecentric you're changing a
(40:47):
different tissue, but you're using the same week, so you're
still getting strong. So for young kids, stop worrying about
the weight you will get. You're not gonna get strong
by that way. You're gonna get it strong if you
have the patience now it's hard because chances are in
their gym they're going to be the only one doing that.
(41:08):
But in the long term, your hips, your shoulders, you're
growing will be far better if you can get full
range of motion. Then when you get older, in your
early twenties, you'll be able to use load because you
can then get into position. I can't tell you how
many pros do we have that I won't let squat
(41:29):
because they can't get into that position and it's too late.
It's too late. They're twenty seven years old. So we
have to get split squats and step ups and things
like that because they can't get into the position. So
elevating your heels is a good way to start to
sort of take out your tight calves and to get
full range of motion. But get rid of the ego
(41:50):
and go for full range of motion would be number one.
Number two would be, you know, really use that RPE
and not go to failure all the time and leaves
them in the tank. And if you're young, you know,
give yourself a day off after each training session and
that as you get older you can sort of train
back to back. But in the beginning, I think training
(42:12):
every other day for younger athletes is much better. You'll
get stronger, quicker, and you'll have more recovery. You know.
I think those would be simple things that they can
do that they probably don't want to do. You know,
they want to chase the pump, so to speak. And
you know, you know, for younger kids that are interested
in that, then you know, give yourself fifteen minutes at
(42:36):
the end of a workout for quote unquote beach work
and then you know, sort of eat your vegetables first
and then have your dessert after. Awesome. I love that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
That's great, and we become a pro hockey player, they
can come down and train with you, so then they're
all set exactly exactly. Thank you so much for taking
the time today, Ben, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
You see you, and thank you for having me. Well.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
For all the hockey players, coaches, trainers, and parents listening,
I hope you learned something you can apply to your
training for the upcoming hockey season. I think that Ben's
message resonates the importance of seeking the right advice and
the role that patients, tracking and individualized approach plays for
any athlete. Now all of us aren't pro hockey players,
(43:20):
but there's lots of us that are trying to improve
our sport performance, and this glimpse into the science of
how it's done should make us all a bit more
curious about what we're doing. I'd like to thank Ben
for taking the time to chat and for letting me
be a part of what he built all those years ago.
I think it's safe to say that we all need coaches.
(43:41):
I'm your host, doctor Mike Wall. We'll see you next
week for another episode of the Wellness and Healthy Lifestyle
show on your VOCM
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