Today's guest
Chris Schwarz
In today’s episode I’m joined by an NHL Strength & Conditioning coach veteran from the Ottawa Senators, Chris Schwarz. Chris has been coaching at the NHL level for over 10 years now working with guys such as Craig Anderson, Rick DiPietro, Anders Nilsson, and Andrew Hammond. We dive into several misconceptions among amateur goaltenders relating to body type, body composition, and developing athleticism and athletic intelligence. The difference between goalies and players regarding on and off ice load management. Where the biggest shift has taken place in high performance training the last several years. Why eccentric training can help you avoid injury, and the importance of activating the parasympathetic nervous system to actually start your rest period.
Show Highlights
- We chat about body types for goalies versus players
- Important to more stronger and beefier, or more on the lighter side
- How Chris Schwarz assess his goaltenders and their needs
- His time with Andrew Hammond and Craig Anderson, both different goaltenders
- How much body composition affects your athletic performance
- The importance of stepping back and treating each athlete different
- What separates Craig Anderson, Erik Karlsson, Mark Stone, Daniel Alfredsson from everyone else
- Athletic intelligence, and why the most elite athletes understand why it’s so important to develop this
- The appropriate age for boys and girls to get into resistance training and weight lifting
- Why it’s important to understand your children, and to not push things too son
- How to develop athleticism and improve it at a young age
- How Bobrovsky handles nutrition, how things have changed, and how important it is
- Why managing your weeks, months and years is so important for goaltenders – and keeping track of load management
- The trap of falling into medium-based training when people aren’t feeling well
- His time working with Rick DiPietro when he worked with the New York Islanders
- Where the biggest shift in high performance changing has taken place the last several years
- How he structures his summer training programs, and how he tailors it to each athlete
- Are supplements good and do they provide benefit to athletes
- Is off ice training the same for goalies and players or should it be different and specialized
- Pitch count for goalies, and why we need to be careful with hips and how often we’re opening and closing the doors
- How conditioning work should look like for a goalie versus a player
- The importance of studying heart rate variability, and how you should mimic that to mirror your heart rate on the ice
- The importance of VO2, and how goalies like Robin Lehner fair in that category
- What the goal of the off-season is exactly, and what it should look like
- What the goal of in-season training is, and what it should look like
- How guys at the pro level know exactly what they need, and these NHL teams just provide the resources to support the players
- How important it is to keep up with your off-ice training as the season continues
- What the biggest misconception is among young athletes when it comes to off-ice training
- How routines play in to confidence, and the difference athletes who like chaos and athletes who like structure
- A new way of assessing and viewing athletes from over top of them
- What plyometric, eccentric, and isometric mean to Chris Schwarz
- Why it’s important to make movements off the ice mimic movements on the ice
- What ranges and plains of motion are you working in
- The best athletes, and the least injured athletes, typically have the most eccentric control and understanding of the concept
- Why Mark Schwarz loves isometric training, and how it prevents wear and tear on goaltender’s joints and tendons
- How it helps build stability, and why it’s great for using during the season
- Why goalies should start incorporating isometric and eccentric training into their off-ice routines
- What recovery looks like to NHL goaltenders, and their routines
- Are you recovering enough to power down quickly and activate the parasympathetic nervous system
- Can you get a body back into a state of rest faster, so you can climb more of the mountain tomorrow
- The importance of hydration, and staying hydrated to speed up recovery
- Why stability along with mobility is important, and why you need both
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