Have you ever wondered what makes the good ones great? Think of your favorite NHL player and visualize them gliding down the ice to make that perfect shot into the net. The ease, the flow, the elegance of their movements. It's an awe-inspiring site to see the great ones playing the game.
But, what makes them that way? How do they get to that advanced level? The obvious answer is that they have put in a lot of practice and hard work through the years. And, of course that is the right answer. Let's stop for a moment and dig a bit deeper into that answer. Let's look at what practice and hard work really entail. What exactly are they practicing?
At the deepest level, what they are really practicing is getting their brain online in exactly the right way. They are practicing perfect movement patterns...again, and again, and again. They are practicing speed, because we all know that games are won in the millisecond. They are practicing their visual and balance skills. They are practicing mastery of their emotions. They are practicing razor-sharp focus on the RIGHT things.
The best players practice the right things consistently and over time build up tremendous skill level which then translates into advantages on the ice. Everything that great players do right can be distilled down to the powerhouse of performance...the brain. Great players practice to get their brain functioning in the most optimal way possible to support superior performance on the ice.
A great deal of research has gone into the best ways to train your brain to achieve elite performance. We set out 7 pillars in our training methods, based on this research, with the main goal of helping our athlete's brain to function at the highest level possible to support their performance.
The pillars of elite performance are:
1. Visual skills
2. Balance skills
3. Movement skills
4. Mental skills
5. Leadership skills
6. Prehab/Rehab skills
7. Integration skills
Stay tuned for more blogs to learn more about how to enhance these skills.