05:54 AM
04/20/24
04/20/24
October 18, 2003
An Interview with Toronto Maple Leafs Strength Coach: Matt Nichol: . From training the Leafs, to the strains of hockey, to Gaborik's squats, to general training tips. An interesting read. [via hockeypundits].
As someone who played hockey through college and has just started training more for powerlifting than size, I think this is a great article. I find it somewhat odd that Gaborik is the strongest with a squat of 500. I knew some guys at Cornell on the team there that could do that, and figured the NHL guys could probably outdo it. Maybe that's just the strongest by weight. The guys who were doing 500 were the bigger defensemen, who were all over 200lbs. (Another reference I have is that the strongest player on the Cortland St. D3 football team, a lineman, squats 550x3. but that's probably at 300lbs+.) In any case, I do 405x2 at 190, and have always wondered how that stacked up to NHL guys (haven't ever gotten the chance to ask my friend since he got into the league). Now if I had been able to do that much when I was actually playing, maybe that would have made a huge difference... damn. This really makes me wish I was still out on the ice.