Hockey players wear the wrong clothes to show off a buff physique.
While a basketball player who spends the summer encamped in a weight room can emerge to the world looking like Charles Atlas, any muscle a hockey player adds stays buried under huge amounts of loose fabric.
Avalanche players will gladly sacrifice the “nice pecs” comments for any added benefits their new muscles might give them this season, especially when it comes to injury prevention.
“You can’t prevent an injury. But if a player does get an injury, the strength and conditioning that we’ve done can minimize it,” said Paul Goldberg, the Avalanche’s strength coach. “If we can lessen the severity of it, that’s when we’re doing our job.”
The Avalanche put a renewed emphasis on overall strength and conditioning this summer in the hope that it might help its players spend more time on the ice and less time on the injured list. The Avs lost 325 man-games to injury last season, the seventh- highest total in the NHL.
Of the 10 teams with the most injuries, the Avs were one of only three to make the playoffs. Only one on that list, the Pittsburgh Penguins, made it past the second round.
While most of the Avs’ injuries would have happened no matter how fit players were — Ryan Smyth’s broken foot from blocking a shot, Paul Stastny’s appendix removal and Joe Sakic’s hernia surgery, for example — management strongly urged players to adhere to individualized offseason conditioning programs drawn up by Goldberg.
Included was a plan for players to come to Denver as early as possible in the summer, to work out more as a team and work out under Goldberg’s supervision. Because they do not receive paychecks during the summer, players are not technically obligated to do anything. But most got the hint.
“I don’t think it was more of an emphasis (on conditioning), I think we had more of an excitement from the guys to stay here in the summer,” said Goldberg, who is beginning his 10th year with the team. “We believe in our program and what we do, and we like the guys to be here, where it’s more hands-on. We can see exactly how they’re doing and take care of any things that we need to tweak.”
Smyth was one of about 50 Avs players and prospects who came to Denver several weeks before the official start of training camp.
The veteran left winger missed 27 regular-season games during his first year with the Avs, and two more in the playoffs. Smyth has always taken pride in his conditioning, but said he might have worked out harder this summer than at any point in his career.
“My injuries were kind of unlucky, fluke things,” said Smyth, 32, “but I’m a little older now and the body naturally doesn’t bounce back quite as quick as it used to. So I got here earlier to be with the guys and work out hard and, hopefully, it’ll pay off.”
The work in the gym produced noticeable results to several players. Defenseman Kyle Cumiskey added about 15 pounds of muscle. Defenseman Scott Hannan seems to have better muscle tone, as do John-Michael Liles and Marek Svatos.
“I don’t think we as hockey players lift weights for what it makes you look like in the mirror. It’s all about strength and power,” Liles said.
Goldberg places most of his weight-training emphasis on Olympic-style techniques, such as dead lifts, snatches, clean-and-jerk and squats.
“It’s a hip-generated sport, so areas around the hip — legs, butt, groin, abs — are the core areas you want to always be working on,” said Goldberg, a former strength coach at Colorado State.
As with other sports, weight training was once discouraged for hockey players. The conventional wisdom was that players would become too muscular.
“If you did do any lifting, when I first started, you did it all on your own,” Avs coach Tony Granato said. “They gave you a little bit of a guideline, but it was pretty generic. Now, it’s more personalized. There’s more one-on-one and it’s way more sophisticated as to the actual workouts.
“It’s a year-round sport now. There are no guys coming in here thinking, ‘OK, I’ll get into shape in training camp.’ They’re in game shape when camp opens, and that’s a big difference from when I played. I think our guys decided this was the best place to train and they kind of rallied together. I think it shows their commitment to this season.”
Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com
