NCAA strength and conditioning coach Ken Whittier offers advice for summer training

The offseason is here for just about every league in the world, and for many bantam and junior players, that means they're turning their attention to summer tournaments and new training regimens.

But as Ken Whittier, the associate head strength and conditioning coach at Boston University, will tell you, that's where the real work for next season begins.

At BU, Whittier has not only worked with all the elite talent like Macklin Celebrini and Lane Hutson that has come through the program in his six years there, but also the undrafted players in the program that have moved on to professional hockey from more humble beginnings, as well as many current pros who come back summer after summer to continue their training and development. Before that, Whittier spent several seasons as the assistant strength coach for the Boston Bruins, so he's seen what it takes for players to make it at basically every high level of the sport — and he says there's one common trait that helps to guarantee players find success and dominate whatever league they happen to be in.

"A big piece of it is talent," he told Elite Prospects. "But if you have the talent and you're not reaching your potential, it becomes a character thing, it becomes an integrity thing."

What that means is that players have to have the willingness to show up for whatever training regimen is on the schedule for that day and put in the honest, hard work that will become the foundation of their success in the fall and winter. Great players, he says, obviously have talent and a high-level understanding of the game, but the history of hockey is littered with great players who just didn't want to put in the work, whether that was in the weight room, building conditioning, or putting in the extra reps on the ice that will help them differentiate themselves from their peers. But more important than that? Just like when players are on the bench or in the dressing room, it's about being coachable.

"[Do they] have the humility, or look at themselves in the mirror and hear the difficult feedback? I think that they need to do that consistently over time to stick around," Whittier said. "It becomes a discipline thing. And everybody wants to, but can you wake up every day and identify the little stuff you need to do extra or make what everyone else is doing really well?"

Being disciplined is the hard part, though. In his time with the Bruins, he saw any number of players get called up from the AHL and exhibit inconsistent training habits — not always their fault, just by the nature of the life those guys live when they're going up and down between teams regularly — while NHLers almost uniformly showed the proper dedication to a well-rounded regimen that kept them at the top of their games throughout the season and beyond.

One such player is Evan Rodrigues, an undrafted BU alum who started in the OJHL at age 17 and went from being a little-recognized NCAA freshman to an NHL career that's over a decade long, with two Stanley Cups in his trophy case. Rodrigues spent years returning to the Terriers' summer pro group, and Whittier says he's the model of what all players should strive to match if they want to have success in the sport. What sets him apart is his consistency.

"There's plenty of guys that give you the lip service, like, 'Yeah, I want to do this,' 
But with E-Rod or other guys who actually do it, that's all that's all it is," Whittier said. "Their actions speak louder than words, and you realize that he just keeps showing up day in, day out, and he's just a very consistent individual."

All players are different. Some need to work on building muscle mass in the summer, others on bolstering their top speed or conditioning, and many need to round out aspects of their on-ice game. Whittier says everything in a player's summer schedule should be done in a way that makes it repeatable, and that the most successful players will make their workouts a part of their everyday routine.

"You should [think of it like] brushing your teeth, flossing your teeth, combing your hair, making your bed," he said. "You have these certain hygiene pieces from a physical standpoint. Are you warming up? 
Are you lifting? Are you recovering? If you're not doing those three things when you're at the rink, then all the efforts outside of the rink are really gonna be futile and not productive. At least control what you can while you're at the rink."

How do you do that? It's easier than you might think. He recommends two or three skating sessions per week in the summer, with three to five lifting sessions as well. (Those ratios should flip once the season starts, by the way.) If players have access to great developmental leagues or tournaments in the summer, they should absolutely participate in those, but also make sure they're doing what they can to recover while keeping up the cadence of off-ice training; otherwise, they risk what Whittier calls "de-training," where it's easier to lose progress they've made. But players also have to understand what their bodies are telling them.

"Don't lift through pain. I think a lot of athletes actually stall their progress and maybe can compromise their availability on the ice if they are performing exercises that cause or exacerbate pain," Whittier said. "
So if they have chronic back pain, which a lot of hockey players have, and they're doing back squats, that's not intelligent."

The formula for any player who wants to take the next step in their hockey career is simple: Identify what needs to be worked on, and work on it consistently throughout the summer.

"I like what Marty St. Louis said," Whittier added. "He asked his team, 'How good are you at getting better?' 
And I think that kind of encapsulates it all. Because everybody's working out, everybody's training, everybody's skating. But how good are you at getting better, which requires you to evaluate your own ability?
And then determine a way to print, you know, [to] improve those abilities? And can you do it consistently? 
It makes athletes think about whether they're spending their time correctly and advantageously."

Getting off on the right foot this summer and keeping it up in July and August will lead to incremental gains that pay big dividends, so it's important to make a plan now and follow through each week without excuses or lapses. Every hour players put into training will pay out time and again once the season arrives.

"The one main thing is finding sustainable, consistent habits," Whittier said. "
Not being the yo-yo. where you have a great offseason, and you're really motivated, and then in the dog days of the season, you can't maintain a workout routine."