- \n
- Hockey: ~0.4% or 1 in 250 high school athletes get drafted by an NHL team.<\/li>\n
- Baseball: ~0.5% or 1 in 200 high school athletes get drafted by an MLB team.<\/li>\n
- Football: ~0.1% or 1 in 1,000 high school athletes get drafted by a NFL\/CFL team.<\/li>\n
- Basketball: ~0.03% or 1 in 4,000 high school athletes get drafted by a NBA team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Now think about that for a minute. Let it sink in.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m talking about 250,000+ kids for each of those sports.<\/p>\n
With all of those athletes, each sports federation must create a template to gather all of these kids… put them through the same training, same testing, and the same regiment to find that needle-in-a-haystack athlete that will become a professional athlete.<\/p>\n
![\"Vytal](\"https:\/\/lpsathletic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/vytal-cote-squat.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNow be honest with yourself\u2026<\/p>\n
Are you or your kids the most talented and\/or physically gifted?<\/h2>\n
Chances are, probably not.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s how the sport farming, scouting, and system is designed.<\/p>\n
If you run people through the same factory, only the most talented and\/or physically gifted athletes will succeed and be a\u00a0professional athlete.<\/p>\n
In most sports today, you have over 80% talented and\/or physically gifted athletes drafted by professional sports federations.<\/p>\n
That means the remaining 20% (out of the average 0.5%), get drafted by outworking the rest of the pack, outside of the templated system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you do the same thing everyone is doing, you\u2019ll get the same results or worse.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
You also need to consider that athletes participate in sports for a wide variety of reasons. Some play to get paid. Some play because it’s fun. And some must play just to put food on the table.<\/p>\n
What are you playing for?<\/p>\n
Karl Subban said to me one day,<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know Clance, I took a look at what most kids in the hockey world are doing in the summer and most are going to hockey camps, playing a lot of games or training at these <\/em>so called gimmicky hockey specific gyms. So I took a real deep look and said to myself, why run with the pack? Why let my boys do what every other kid is doing? I only want my boys to focus on two things, training to get stronger and faster and private skill work <\/em>one the ice. To <\/em>me this is the definition of getting off the hamster wheel! Taking a look at the lay of the land and plan out what you can do <\/em>different.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
P.K., Jordan, and Malcolm trained hard summer after summer. No camps, no going away on vacation, no going away to any hockey-specific school.<\/p>\n
Those boys simply did not miss<\/span> training sessions.<\/p>\n
Karl Subban decided to run the opposite way from the pack. The ONLY camp those boys went to was rookie camp after they got drafted! That\u2019s it!<\/p>\n
![\"PK](\"https:\/\/lpsathletic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/subban_pk_1280.jpg\")
Photo by Sportsnet<\/p><\/div>\n
P.K. Subban<\/a> finally took a vacation<\/strong> when he got his 72-million dollar contract.<\/p>\n
This made me look at the correlation between athletes who accomplished their goals of making the pros, getting scholarships, or simply making that team they so desired.<\/p>\n
The common denominator was they were committed to the process, and did not go away to camps that meant nothing!<\/p>\n
If you are part of an organization that holds regular camps, 99.9% of the time you are wasting your time. Do you really think these multi-million dollar professional organizations won\u2019t find you if you know how to play your sport?<\/p>\n
They know. They pour millions of dollars into scouting kids to becoming professional athletes.<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The trick is to work hard and keep working<\/a>. You have to do what nobody else wants to do and work on the qualities that will enhance your strengths and improve your weaknesses.<\/p>\n
Then maybe you\u2019ll be ready to make that highlight tape when the lights are shining.<\/p>\n
A few years back, I had a hockey dad walk into my gym without an appointment and introduced himself to me. I was busy coaching and I told him I would be available in the next two hours, I expected him to come back another day, but he waited patiently.<\/p>\n
His son was a high-level hockey player in the OHL looking to become a professional athlete, and his father figured there must have been something missing in his training. He needed to get faster, stronger, and more explosive. He explained to me,<\/p>\n
\u201cMy boy needs more jump, he needs to be quicker and stronger on the puck. Also, from what I\u2019ve heard, the training environment your gym provides will build his confidence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I like what I heard, and it was apparent he did his research, but the problem was we did not have enough time as the summer season had started. He also built a relationship with his current strength coach and didn’t want to cut those ties.<\/p>\n
What blew my mind was that this young man has been training with this strength coach, and had never, ever done a squat! The mobility in his ankle, knees, hips, and shoulders were just horrible.<\/p>\n
We immediately worked on these issues every session before we could even think of getting him stronger and more explosive.<\/p>\n
This kid has such bad fundamentals because he had been consistently exposed to what I call \u201cEntertainment Training\u201d. Basically, Entertainment Training is a bunch of circuits thrown together that fatigue the athletes and tricks them into believing the workouts are amazing because they are so exhausted afterward.<\/p>\n
This resonates with most athletes because most are fatigue-seekers, especially hockey players<\/span>.<\/p>\n
I see this over and over again in this industry.<\/p>\n
Let me be clear, and I mean crystal clear:<\/p>\n
ONE CANNOT BUILD TRUE POWER, SPEED, AND STRENGTH IN A FATIGUED STATE!<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Not to mention the mobility and dexterity needed for injury prevention<\/a>. These types of nonsensical programs are just hurting our competitive and professional athlete(s), and they definitely do not address their individual needs.<\/p>\n
Here is the other kicker\u2026<\/p>\n
A few weeks into this training, the same athletes\u2019 mother told me he was going to a 2-3 day concert, and that he would be missing those training sessions.<\/p>\n
One.<\/strong> Understand we already have limited time because he started the program late.<\/p>\n
Two.<\/strong> We uncovered a bunch of issues that are critical and needed to be addressed before we could sink our teeth into strength, power, and speed development.<\/p>\n
The athlete was about to go to the camp of his life to try to make the team.<\/p>\n
I was annoyed, but I had to let it go.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t give a shit about the money.<\/p>\n
Nothing fulfills me more than seeing those who work hard and succeed whether that is becoming a professional athlete, or a career worth pursuing.<\/strong><\/p>\n
So one morning, I received a text from the mother again saying that her son won\u2019t be in that morning because his shoulder was sore.<\/p>\n
I almost lost my shit!!! No, I did lose it.<\/p>\n
I took a deep breath and called the mother and let her know that if he can breathe I expect him to be at the gym by 10:00am that morning. He arrived, started training, and when he got warmed up, he was looking good.<\/p>\n
I asked him, \u201cHow\u2019s the shoulder?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cFine,\u201d he responded.<\/p>\n
No pain and the kid was actually lifting heavier weights than normal, and looking smooth with good technique!<\/p>\n
I told P.K. to come over and I asked him in front of the kid, \u201cHave you ever, ever taken any time off training before receiving your big contract?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Gordon](\"https:\/\/lpsathletic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/gordon-whyte-sacrifice.jpg\")
<\/p>\n