It's Not About The Bike "The Specificity of Training"
I have gotten a bad rap.
In hockey circles, I have gained the reputation as being “Anti-Aerobic”. I have also heard people say “Matt Nichol does not believe in cardio for hockey players”.
Neither of these statements could be further from the truth.
First, It is important to define these two terms. Webster's dictionary defines the following two words:
Aerobic – “Living, active or occurring in the presence of oxygen”
Cardiovascular – “Of, relating to, or involving the heart and blood vessels”
So, in light of these definitions, I am in fact a very strong proponent of both oxygen and a healthy and functioning heart and vascular system. I am also a big believer in respiration – I even confess to be participating in it now as I type this! So I guess that it is safe to say that I believe that all of my athletes should participate in “aerobic” work and that all of them should also participate in “cardio-vascular” activity on a daily basis.
What I am not a fan of is
1) Ineffective or In-efficient training
2) Coaches who blindly follow doctrine and protocols without any thought as to why they are doing so or if there might be a better way
Glad we got that cleared up.
Second pint
Contrary to popular belief, I don't hate bicycles.
I think bicycles are fantastic. They are a cheap and effective means of transportation for billions of people worldwide and are good for the environment. They can also be very fun to ride, specifically if your bike is a BMX and you can do really cool tricks on it, like “popping wheelies”…..Rad Dude!!!.
I am less of a fan of stationary bikes….but… I still don't HATE them. I am quite indifferent about them. I think stationary bikes can be an affordable and effective piece of exercise equipment. In fact, I have my own gym and in my gym I own 2 stationary bikes. I have used and will continue to use stationary bikes where applicable.
I am, however, a strong opponent of the stationary bike being the focus of the strength and conditioning training for elite hockey players.
For some reason, the stationary bike has become the focus of the majority of strength and conditioning programs in the NHL.
Every strength coach in the NHL has his own unique philosophy and if you went around visiting every weight room in the NHL, you would find some where some of the strength coach's use Olympic Lifts and some do not. You would find some that still use machine-based training and some that do not. Some of them make use of Swiss balls, BOSU's, and other unstable surface devices and some do not. You would find big spacious gyms and small cramped gyms. Some are fully loaded and some are very sparse….but ALL of them have bikes!
I am actually quite baffled as to how this specific piece of equipment has become the centre of the hockey training universe. Why not a treadmill? An elliptical? A rowing machine? Or maybe even one of those old Nordic Track Skiing Machines? Nope….for whatever reason, the stationary bike has become the holy grail of hockey training.
It never ceases to amaze me how much time and attention coaches will devote to this simple piece of equipment.
As a private strength and conditioning coach, I work with players from various teams around the NHL. This summer I had players training with me from 16 different NHL teams and thus I had access to the training and testing information from these teams. Several of these NHL teams distributed specific stationary bike programs that were to be followed by all of their players and the majority of the teams used a stationary bike test during training camp as their primary method of determining which players were “in-shape” for ice hockey and which players had worked hard and demonstrated dedication to training over the off-season. Relatively few of these teams included an on-ice speed or fitness test in their pre-season testing.
The sad thing is that I have seen players who work extremely hard and are very dedicated and disciplined with regards to their off-ice habits all summer yet they perform un-spectacularly on these tests. I have also seen players who were not particularly diligent about their off-ice work perform very well on these tests. Odd?
Recently, one NHL team even went so far as to hire a cycling coach to oversee their strength and conditioning program and mandated that all players must purchase stationary bikes and ride them daily, sometimes as much as 90 minutes per session! They also hired a strength and conditioning coach to watch the players ride the bikes and record their performances and report their compliance to the coach and GM. Wattage, RPM's, and heart rates were to be reported daily and every aspect of their stationary bike riding was tracked and monitored closely. Not once were these same players given any orders (or even suggestions) as to what they should be doing specifically to improve their skating, stick handling, passing or shooting. Odd?
So why does this bother me?
I have spent a large part of my professional life studying the specificity of training and more recently the concept of plasticity – neural and muscular. With these concepts in mind, it become pretty clear that stationary bike riding is not the most efficient or effective means of training for elite hockey players. In fact, it is a pretty lousy choice.
So now to the premise of my article
‘AEROBIC ENDURANCE TRAINING ON A STATIONARY BIKEIS COMPLETELY OUT OF PHASE WITH THE BIOMECHANICS AND PHYSIOLOGY OF ICE HOCKEY”
Skeletal muscle is highly plastic and human neuro-physiology is highly adaptable. As Aristotle said – “We become what we repeatedly do”.
One has only to do a very rudimentary search of the scientific literature on the subject of “specificity of training”, “motor learning” or “neural plasticity” to realize that this concept is firmly backed by science (not to mention good old fashioned common sense).
The principal of specificity of training dictates that if you train your muscles to perform in a certain fashion on a consistent basis they will be more likely to behave that way all the time.
If you prepare for a test by studying the specific requirements of a test you will be more likely to perform well on that test. If you prepare for a test by studying un-related topics, you are less likely to be successful.
For example, if you have a test in mathematics and you study mathematics you will be more likely to get a good grade than if you had studied geography or Spanish.
Makes sense, right?
Likewise, performing off-season conditioning programs that movement patterns, muscular recruitment patterns and energy systems that are dissimilar to the ones that you actually need in a game are less likely to yield favorable results
Makes sense right?
Stationary Bike riding is
- Open Chain
- Cyclical
- Requires no balance
- Requires no co-ordination
- Requires no reactive abilities
- Requires no amortization or core stabilization
- Requires no visual or auditory or tactile acuity
- Requires no skills relevant to playing ice hockey
Energy Systems Training is pattern and skill specific. Training on a stationary bike will make you good at riding a stationary bike.
So as long as your sport does not require weight-bearing, balance, co-ordination, righting and/or tilting reflexes, core stability or amortization abilities…then you should be fine with just riding a stationary bike.
Perhaps the best example of this is the case of cycling legend Lance Armstrong
Lance is widely regarded as one of the greatest endurance athletes of all time. Certainly he is one of the greatest endurance cyclists of all time. Many people use his name as the gold standard for cardio-vascular endurance in sport.
When Lance Armstrong ran the New York City Marathon in 2006 he BARELY managed to run across the finish line in a time of 3 hours, which was shockingly slow for the man that many people regard as the most aerobically fit athlete in the world today
Argument #1 – It is because he had no experience as a runner.
Incorrect
Lance Armstrong was not a novice runner. He had a very rich background in distance running and was at one time the top teenaged triathalete in the United States.
A marathon runner with a VO2 as high as Lance Armstrong's (which is rumored to be in the mid to high 80's) would be expected to run a much faster time…somewhere in the neighborhood of 2:05-2:15.
In subsequent marathon attempts Lance was able to improve upon his performance but still finished in times that were rather pedestrian for a man who is supposed to be the pinnacle of aerobic fitness with access to some of the greatest minds in the field of aerobic training.
Argument #2 – “Well….maybe he didn't try…”
Highly Unlikely.
After struggling across the finish line at the NYC Marathon in obvious discomfort, Lance was quoted as saying
“In 20 years of endurance sports, triathlon's, cycling, even the worst day on the tour, nothing was as hard as that. Nothing has ever left me feeling the way I do right now”
It's obvious that even though the two sports tax the same energy system they are still too dissimilar to have a sufficient carry-over. Despite years of cycling at the highest level possible and under the guidance of some of the brightest minds in the world of exercise physiology, biochemistry and ergogensis, Lance was still ill prepared for the sport of distance running.
I wonder how he would have held up in an NHL hockey game?
