Inline Hockey Performance

Author: Dustin Roux

I really dislike the word Tone. I had a conversation with a kid at the rink yesterday and he told me he wants to get more tone. He’s about 18 and a little overweight, no big deal at his age because if kids do the right work they can lose a lot of weigh really quickly. I told him he doesn’t need to be tone, he needs to lose body fat. I’ve heard this word “tone” from hundreds of people in my major(Kinesiology) at Penn State. These are all girls who want to go into the fitness industry, and every once in a while a guy uses it too. “toned” is a made up word that fitness people use to make money, and there’s nothing wrong with making money. It’s just a pet-peeve, similar to the theory that 1000 crunches will give you abs. Well… we’re all born with abs, so we all must have abs, but therein lies the same problem again. Most people simply have too much body fat for the much envied “6 pack” to be visible.

Muscles already have tone. If you are alive right now (and, i’ll go ahead an assume you are)… your muscles already have tone, or what we can call “muscle tonus”. The only way for your muscles to look “more tone” as a fitness person would put it, is to lose a lot of body (so, essentially toned = lean? Yes). Now, you can hypertrophy a muscle. That just simply means adding volume, or size to the muscle via increase in muscle fibers size.

So, after this little rant I feel like writing out an entire article.. Your intro to weight lifting words.

Before I move on let’s talk about muscle. Skeletal muscle has a few characteristics you all should know about. First, most likely, you were born with all the muscle fibers you will ever have. What does this mean, well.. it means you can change the one’s you currently have, but your body can’t really make new ones (at least science says so right now). Second, your muscles are made of 2 basic fiber types. Fast twitch (think sprinters) and Slow twitch (think cross country). Every muscle has a mix of those 2 fibers, though genetically some people have a 90% fast twitch fiber make up, and others have a 90% slow twitch make up. That simple fact right there can determine whether or not your good at a certain sport. A person with 80% slow twitch fibers simply cannot be a sprinter. There body won’t allow them to be fast enough.

So.. on to the terms of the day..

Hypertrophy: This means an increase in the size of the muscle fibers we already have. Look at a bodybuilder, and you’ll see plenty of hypertrophy. Hypertrophy is double edged sword though. Too much bulk, and you won’t be flexible or mobile, and you’ll weigh too much to get work done on the field.

Strength: Let’s define muscular strength as being able to exert a large force against an object, or in our world it usually consists of doing heavy lifts with 1-5 reps. A 15 rep exercise displays no signs of strength, just muscular endurance really.. Strength, too, is a double edged sword. Hockey players need strength for sure, but coming from my Russian professor Vladimir Zatsiorsky at Penn State.. “too much strength without enough power will make the athlete slower”. So, that leads into the next one.

Power: This word can be replaced by explosiveness, or speed, but they all mean the same thing.. To train for power, athletes can use a multitude of exercises. I stick to lifting weights (bench, squat, deadlift) with about 55% of 1RM, throwing medicine balls, jumping on  anything, and sprinting.

Here’s a few more terms we might use:

RM: stands for Repetition Maximum. So 1RM means a weight you can lift once, so it’s like maxing out.

ROM: Range of motion of a joint. When we say work the full ROM that means when you squat don’t stop at 90 degress, go all the way down.. or ass to grass as my powerlifting buddies put it.

I’ve got some work to do, so check back tomorrow for the Strength Training Roundtable #2, it’s awesome.

Dustin Roux is a strength coach and a student at Penn State University majoring in Kinesiology. To contact him email dcr5044@psu.edu or inlinehockeyperformance.com

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