Michael Boyle's Strengthcoach.com Blog

It’s been a long time since I got a blog post up and this is a long one. How’s is this for a two month stretch. I can’t believe my schedule from April 12^th through June 7^h. This might have been the busiest eight weeks of my career.  The worst part is that the BU Hockey off-season had started and workouts were M-W-F at 6 AM. Thank god for Karen Wood, Anthony Morando and Bob Connors who covered for me when I was away. The best part was that I namged to get some family time worked in around a tough travel schedule.

April 12-15 marked our last mentorship until September 20-23. Well have another week from December 6-9^th.

Although we had a small group it doesn’t change the time commitment. We finished with a two hour session on Thursday at 11 and then at 4 my family and I headed to Phoenix for five days. Because it was school vacation we tacked a few days on in front of and after the Perform Better One Day April 17^th at the Phoenix Convention Center. I was able to meet up with Todd Durkin on Friday and then spend a half day at AP. Mark Verstegen was nice enough to show us around himself which was cool. My family and I stayed at the Arizona Grand Hotel which had awesome food and a full waterpark for the kids complete with a wave pool, a lazy river and a huge scary slide. Yes, my daughter did get me down the slide a few times.

I got back on April 20^th, got two workouts in with the BU guys and then on April 22nd headed to the Andrews Institute Injuries in Football Conference. Pensacola, Florida is a tough place to get to but the chance to meet the legendary Dr. Andrews was a huge draw. To top that off, an invite to present from Mark Verstegen and Kevin Wilk was more than I could pass up. This was an interesting conference as all the talks were only twenty minutes. I presented once on Testing Football Players and once on Developing Flexibility and definitely stirred up some controversy advocating static stretching and single leg strength testing. Kevin Yoxall of Auburn and Mark Verstegen also presented as well as few of the AP guys from the Gulf Breeze facility.

The next weekend it was off to Naples, Fla for the American Hockey Coaches Convention. I have to admit that this is primarily a vacation although you get a chance to interact with the best collegiate hockey coaches in the US. Naples is always a great place to see former players and old friends.

We were back for three days and then spent May 9-15^th in Germany.  My good friend Jim Setters is the National Coaching Director for Germany and invited me over to give two presentations at conferences held in conjunction with the International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships. The conferences were attended by coaches from all over the world. I presented on Training Young Hockey  Players and then did a general presentation similar to our last webinar on hockey training. In fact it was almost the exact presentation from the webinar. This was a family trip and lots of fun.  We got to see three hockey games as well as zoos in Heidelberg and Cologne.

The week of May 17 -23^rd was a big one.  Dwight Daub of the Oklahoma City Thunder invited me out to speak to the NBA Strength Coaches group at the NBA Combine in Chicago on Thursday May 20th. It’s a real honor to get to speak to groups like this. We addressed The Joint by Joint Approach and Single Leg Training options.  On Saturday the 22^nd Art Horne and Dan Boothy had their Boston Sports Medicine Group annual seminar. I actually spoke on Death of Squatting from Functional Strength Coach 3 for two hours on Sunday. Before that I gave an 8 AM talk to the USA Hockey Level 4 Coaches clinic in Framingham, Ma. I basically gave the same talk I did on the webinar again. This is an important group to get to as they are the grass roots youth hockey people.

On May 27^th I got to go to the NHL Combine and present to the NHL strength coaches. Another great honor. John Pallof presented first on Femoracetabular Impingement and I did a talk I have done a few times on Hips and Sports Hernias. On Friday AM I was able to spend some time observing the NHL Combine, another first for me.

We finished up this weekend with the Perform Better Summit on June 4-6  at the Providence Convention Center. This is a great event that I really look forward too. I gave one talk on Warmup and Flexibility from Functional Strength Coach 3.0 , did a one hour practical with about 250 participants and then settled in to being a participant just like everyone else.  What a great event. Anthony Renna and I threw a great party for StrengthCoach.com members on Friday. It was great to hang out with everyone.

My long stretch is almost over. I spent Monday moving equipment into our new facility at 29 Draper St in Woburn, Ma. After a long day of moving I had one more talk to do. I had promised a friend I would speak a group of DPT students at Mass General Hospital School of Physical Therapy so it was Joint by Joint one more time from 5 to 6:30.

Tue is was up to personal train at 4:45, NHL/AHL players at 8:20  and more move in. Lots of fun. Wednesday was more moving. Today Chris Poirier and Rob Milani from Perform Better are bringing up the last of our equipment for the new facility. What did Frost say “and miles to go before I sleep?”

PS- Thanks to all the coaches who stopped by to visit over the past few weeks. I had a chance to chat with Anthony Belza from the Toronto Maple Leafs, Mike Curtis from UVA, Nate Baukol and his staff from UND, Sean Skahan from the Ducks,  Anthony Renna and Dewey Neilsen , as well as groups of coaches from Canada and Switzerland led by former MBSC interns Josh Ford and Pieter Smeets.

This entry was posted on June 10, 2010 at 1:27 am and is filed under MBSC News, Random Thoughts, Seminars, StrengthCoach.com Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.