The Client Side: Guest blog post from HSW's Trina Diner

The Client Side: Why Train?

Because you have everything to lose and everything to gain

By Trina Diner

Training feels risky. It feels risky because it is. You are paying out hard earned dollars for gym memberships and trainers for non-instant gratification. You are risking this for gains that take shape over periods of time and rely on what you do outside the gym as much as on what happens in the gym. You are risking feeling like a fool and maybe looking like one too. You risk that you will be seen as stupid, inept, use girly weights, bad technique, because other people that do it look so confident in your eyes. You risk facing yourself, how things got this far, how you ‘let’ yourself get out of shape. You risk your known comfort zone. Comfort is warm and fuzzy and there are lots of wine, chips and chocolates there. Why leave that for risky? If you can face your fears to take the first step towards risky, you might be surprised at what you can gain and the forms it will take.

The largest single risk hurdle is to choose you. To choose to forgo the cost of a dinner out, entertainment, clothing or other pleasure in order to train is the first step. Deciding that your health and wellbeing is a priority over “shoulds” in your life and giving yourself the time to do so is a conscious choice. It is made by you and only you. This act, by itself, tells you that you are worth investing in. You are worth it, you will master what seemed impossible and you have faith in yourself to achieve. Motivation is an interesting phenomenon and can be an ongoing challenge, but likely there was or will be an initial something that has gotten you thinking about training. Whatever your initial trigger, maybe a health complication, inspiration, death, new baby or other event that has almost gotten you to the point of training, it will not translate into commitment until you decide you are worth it. You may lose on dinner out but you will gain in innumerable ways. You will achieve in small ways each time in the gym and you will see these small steps translate into gains that you will not understand until much later.

The things that you will begin to see over time are hard won. These gains are yours. The feeling of accomplishing something physical in the body can uplift the spirit. The feeling of accomplishment and the connection between mind and what your body can do will become known to you as you begin to get to know yourself. You will gain in increased confidence, there will be that day when someone says casually ‘you look good’, and you will begin to do more because you know you can. You will begin to understand your own internal battles. You will understand that the outside job was actually an inside one all along, you may have lost some things. You may lose inches, pounds and a negative self image, and gained a level of mastery of your body. Confidence in understanding yourself, your triggers, your fears, your risks, these are different for everyone but you will begin to know this as you train.

Training is risky. If anyone tells you it’s not I’m here to tell you it is. If you hear that its time wasted, too expensive or you tell yourself you can’t get up early, or go late, or possibly do THAT, I say phooey! It boils down to understanding that yes there is a very personal risk in undertaking this. Yes, it will be trial and error. But you will begin to understand yourself and your body in a way that you didn’t before. You will begin to feel like an athlete, sexy, confident, esteem. You do have to lose your old self, but you will gain a new self, a brighter self, an accomplished self. It is an inside job. Once you make the first critical decision that you are worth it you are then ready to start, you have inches to lose and yourself to gain.

Parents in Hockey

Recently, Kevin Neeld posted an article on his blog regarding the state of hockey parents. Kevin is someone who I really respect in the hockey strength & conditioning world so I would really suggest checking it out. He highlighted a seminar for USA hockey that featured Brian Burke. I could not have said it better myself regarding the environment that we set up for our kids to play in. It does not facilitate enjoyment of the game and as a result, we are losing more and more kids to other sports. Also, I feel Brian Burke is bang on when it comes to putting kids in different sports throughout the year. This is something that I have always believed in: Young kids should NOT be playing hockey all year round. Not only will they get burned out by playing one sport, but by putting them in other sports it allows them to develop physically and as a person. Kevin's article can be found here: http://www.kevinneeld.com/2011/3-lessons-for-hockey-parents-from-the-nhl

I just recently came across a video of this little hockey player who explains what it is like from a kid's perspective. This is a story about the "magic helmet": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWjBvcfhRX0

Interestingly, when I was growing up and playing minor hockey in Thunder Bay, an article hit the local paper in 1996 describing one parent's disgust with the way that hockey parents handled themselves during their child's game. That parent was my father, and I thought I would share the article with you today. I am so thankful for my parent's take on the game and how, just like Brian Burke, felt that if I felt like talking about the game I could and if I didn't, then I didn't have to. As kids, we all knew when we did something wrong in a game, we didn't need our parents harping at us, turning us off from the game that we thought we loved.

So, I hope the message hits home to hockey parents, especially at this time of year when we get into playoffs. Here's the article my dad wrote to both the editor and then the paper:

Dear Editor,

I’ve written an editorial that I hope your paper will see fit to print because it addresses a very critical situation unfolding in the Minor Hockey loop in Thunder Bay.

I am one who also believes that hockey is the greatest sport ever invented when played properly and for the right reasons, however, the parents of the kids playing right now could very well be responsible for minor hockey dissolving.

I have heard from league officials that they are considering abolishing 11 year old playoffs because of parental abuse of coaches, referees, and players. There is consideration of bringing in off-duty police to keep unruly parents in line during regular season games. A sixteen year old referee was accosted the other night by the parent of a novice-aged player.

Some say it would be best to ban the parents from the arenas altogether but parents will not spend registration money if they are not allowed to watch nor would I turn my kid over to a coach whose credentials I knew nothing about. So, here in lies the dilemma.

Parents need to be reminded that minor hockey is not about them – it’s about the kids and 99.9% of those kids are going to be watching Hockey Night in Canada from their living rooms, not from their seat on the Maple Leafs player’s bench.

I am disgusted and frustrated that unruly mobs of parents are robbing my son of what should be the time of his life. On more than once occasion I have felt like punching a father in the mouth for what he has said, but then, I would become part of the problem instead of the solution.

If one of the guilty parents reads this and changes their conduct for the good you will have done your community a service and my son, for one, will thank you. I read every one of your columns because what you lack in style, at times, you more than make up for in honesty and conviction and you are to be commended.

Sincerely,

Rob Hemsworth

Hockey Madness - By Rob Hemsworth March 14/1996.

Last night I asked my 12 year old son if he could hear the parents yelling from the stands as he sat on the players’ bench across the ice at the Neebing Arena. He responded, “Oh, ya!” and then continued, “but that’s nothing. It’s really bad when we have to skate off the ice to the dressing room. That’s when they swear at us and call us names. Some guys even get threatened!”

When my son left the relative sanity of one of the recreational hockey leagues in the city last year to move to a more skill-oriented, competitive challenge, we were warned that our eyes would be opened to the savagery of “rep” hockey. I took this to mean that the kids would be bigger, faster and stronger than my son was used to, however, I felt confident that, while there would be an adjustment period, his athletic ability would allow him to adapt and compete.

I was correct in my assumption of his ability but the savagery is happening every night in the stands. Referees – some as young as 14 years old – have been verbally assaulted, sworn at, and physically accosted at nearly every game I have attended. I have witnessed countless screaming matches and verbal threats between the parents of opposing teams. Shoving matches have escalated into a few slug fests out in the parking lot and parents and coaches, as well as players have had court action taken against them.

A mother, whose child was on the receiving end of a well aimed elbow, flew into a rage and screamed at the ref to “Open your F_____G eyes. J____S Ch___st are you F_____G blind?” while several children ranging in age of 5-8 years old were sitting or playing only a few feet away. Not that it would have mattered if they were playing at the other end of the rink.

I watched a father chew out his son in the lobby for getting thrown out for hitting from behind. At first, I thought, “Good for you, Dad” as that is a very serious infraction, until the father said, “Next time don’t be so stupid to drill him with the ref watching. Wait til the play goes back up the ice!”

In a conversation with a league official the other night, he told me that this has been the worst year he has ever seen for complaints to the league about abusive coaches, players, inadequate referees and uncontrollable parents. Let’s face it, coaches have fifteen different player personalities to mold together while dealing with fifteen or more sets of parents. The players are only 12 years old trying to play like the professionals their parents are so desperately demanding them to be. The referees are always going to miss calls because of the speed of the game and their youth and inexperience (the players aren’t the only ones trying to hone their skills).

This brings us to the parents. If you are trying to create foul-mouthed, axe-wielding, maliciaous delinquents who abuse every authority, then keep coming to the rink and behaving the way many of you have been all year long. But when you find your kid crying and quaking in his bedroom saying he no longer wants to play hockey, it may be that he was threatened in the parking lot by a parent who was bigger, meaner and more malicious than you.

Please, check your attitudes and especially your egos at the door. That way we’ll develop better athletes and responsible citizens for the future.

Goalie Specific Off-Ice Conditioning, Updates, and Shaw Cable!

Hi Everyone,

Hemsworth Strength & Wellness is extremely excited to announce its partnership with Zulie's Goalie Academy. I have known Colin Zulianello for a few years now and he has always been someone who I felt could excel at anything he did. Lucky for goaltenders, he has stuck with what he knows best: Teaching & Goaltending. His goaltending academy is very on par with my philosophies of training as he hires VERY qualified and current goaltending instructors and has a very impressive 1 instructor to every 2.5 participant ratio.

Specific off-ice conditioning is something that they feel is missing at the team level and Hemsworth Strength & Wellness will be providing this. I will be releasing a series of articles relating to the importance and application of goalie-specific off-ice training in the near future. Again, we are very excited to be teaming up with Colin and Zulie's Goalie Academy and look forward to providing goaltenders around the Northwestern Ontario area with an extremely well-rounded integrative training approach.

I also wanted to give you a review of the past week and the public presentations that I was lucky enough to give. The Thunder Bay 55+ Center asked me to give a presentation on kettlebell training and their application to older adults. It was a great turnout and a nice intro to the class that I will be running in April. It will be an intro to kettlebell training and will run twice a week for 4 weeks starting April 4th. For more information, you can contact the Thunder Bay 55+ Center and they will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

After the presentation I was interviewed by Shaw Cable and the interview will be airing sometime this week on Channel 10 (Thunder Bay region) as part of "The Daily" loop that airs over and over. So, eventually, you might get sick of me!

Later on Tuesday, myself and physiotherapist Leah Boeckermann-Belanger presented to the Metre Eaters running group on Injury Prevention and Strength Training for Running Performance. Leah did a fantastic job talking about many factors that contribute to overuse injuries as well as informing the group on the Functional Movement Screen that she uses to screen for future injury. I talked on many of the myths associated with strength training and runners, as well as touched on the latest research linking proper strength training with running performance. All in all it was a great evening with many intelligent questions asked.

Lastly, I just wanted to let everyone know that the spring sections of both Building a Strong Foundation and Lift Strong classes are now up on the website and open for registration. The response has been great for both classes with 2 sections sold out very quickly for the last set. Check out www.hemsworthstrength.com for info and registration!

Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Paul Hemsworth