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5 Lessons I Learned About Training Youth Athletes at Endeavor Sports Performance

It’s been five weeks since my internship at Endeavor Sports Performance – the premier strength & conditioning facility for hockey players in the NJ/PA/DE area – came to an end.

Endeavor

During a typical week I had the chance to coach and work with dozens of athletes from various sports – mostly hockey players but there were some wrestlers, baseball, lacrosse and soccer players in the mix as well.

One of the teams I got to work with was the Philadelphia Flyers U20 team playing in the USPHL.

Research Corner November 2014 – How to Optimize Creatine Supplementation For Enhanced Strength and Muscle Gains?

Among a wide variety of mass gainers, fat boosters, diet pills and other bogus supplements, the one sports supplement that has been shown to actually work time and time again rarely gets featured in the limelight.

Today we’re going to take a cold, hard look at the facts behind this one product that does enhance athletic performance – and the best part is, it won’t set you back financially by a fortune unlike many of the other supplements on the market with exceptional marketing tactics but woefully inadequate impact on strength levels and body composition.

Enter creatine.

What Creatine?

Creatine is the most well researched supplement out there, with numerous studies showcasing its efficacy regarding increases in strength, power and muscle mass. [1-5]

9 Tips For Nailing the CSCS Exam Like a Boss

I took the CSCS exam (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) in London back in 2013 and wanted to write down my thoughts on passing it.

Since I couldn't find a proper study guide for it anywhere on the interwebz and recently had a few people ask me how I prepared for my CSCS, I decided to come up with a few pointers so you'll go in ready for war like FDR and rock the test on your first try.

LAST UPDATE: MAY 28, 2019

This guide will be to your exam success what his mojo is to Austin Powers' ability to be the international shag-master that he is.

What CSCS Exam?

The CSCS certification, provided by the NSCA (National Strength and Conditioning Association), is generally regarded as the "gold standard" of training certificates.

5 Things I Learned About Making NHL Players Strong and Powerful at Prentiss Hockey Performance

Posing with Stanley Cup champ, MVP, 2x Art Ross winner and Olympic gold winner, Martin St. Louis of the New York Rangers

I just wrapped up my one-week internship at Prentiss Hockey Performance in Darien, CT – a sports performance facility known for its top end pro hockey clientele.

I had the great opportunity to observe numerous NHL players (not to mention AHL and college players and guys who play in Europe) training for improved strength, power and conditioning.

And obviously I got to pick the brain of head honcho and owner, Ben Prentiss, on any training related question I could come up with. Ben was even nice enough to give me daily homework to ensure I got the most out of this fantastic experience.

Strength & Conditioning World Tour 2014 – Part 6: Pitman, NJ

After two straight weeks of hopping from city to city making the rounds, I arrived at my final destination on my US tour – the small town of Pitman, New Jersey.

What brought me down here was not the chance to blow my humble travel budget at blackjack tables in Atlantic City or attending a seminar on how to look like a huge douchebag on national TV and make a million bucks while at it hosted by the Jersey Shore crew.

Oh well… maybe next time

Instead, I opted to visit Endeavor Sports Performance – a sports performance facility mainly catering to the improvement of physical attributes of hockey players (though they have some baseball, basketball and soccer athletes as well) for 5 full days to get my learn on.

In practice this meant that I got to observe the workouts taking place at the gym throughout the day and ask questions from Kevin Neeld who is responsible for running the athletic development side at Endeavor.

Advanced Bodyweight Training Strategies – Interview with Alex Zinchenko

Alex Zinchenko – author of Rough Strength Files

As you know, I’ve been traveling extensively all over the place in the past couple of months.

First it was Eric Cressey’s seminar on shoulder health & lower extremity mobility in Slovenia, then attending a bodyweight training seminar with Al and Danny Kavadlo in Germany, after that I went to one of the biggest S&C seminars of the year, visited some of the most established training facilities and coaches in the industry, observed how NHL players train in the off-season and so on…

At this rate I’ll soon be like a modern day Alexander with no worlds left to conquer.

The one thing that kept me sane (and healthy) between long flights and train rides, nights of subpar sleep and countless BLT’s was training.

Bodyweight training.

Since I had no time and intention to find a passable gym in every new city I visited, the only thing I could count on was utilizing a chin-up bar easily findable in most outdoor parks, and a pair of gymnastic rings I carried in my luggage eveywhere I went for short, intense training sessions.

During my trip in the US I stumbled upon a great book – Rough Strength Files: 42 Ideas on Low-Tech Strength Training – on minimalist training by a Ukrainian fella named Alex Zinchenko.

Strength & Conditioning World Tour 2014 – Part 5: Darien, CT

After hopping through Providence and Boston, I landed in a small town called Darien – about an hour away from New York near Stamford, Connecticut.

If I told you that for many NHL players Darien, CT – a tiny community of 20 000 people – is THE PLACE to be during the summer months, what would you say? I wouldn’t be surprised if you called bullshit on that statement.

But the reason NHL’ers flock to Darien in droves lies in the fact that it’s home to Prentiss Hockey Performance – a 2000 square foot training facility run by strength coach Ben Prentiss, situated inside a former gas station just off I-95 that Prentiss converted into a gym some 15 years ago.

Ben is a relatively unknown guy (at least in the Internetland of strength & conditioning) because unlike many other trainers more concerned with building a huge internet presence, he actually prefers working with his athletes in the gym day in, day out.

Ben’s client list includes such names as two-time Art Ross winner Martin St. Louis, Stanley Cup winners Brad Richards and Jonathan Quick, 30-goal scorers Max Pacioretty, James van Riemsdyk and Matt Moulson, and a whole bunch of other pro hockey players in the NHL and in Europe.

Needless to say, there are not many people in the business who can match that roster.

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