Instagram Is Full Of Trainers Who Spew False Information... The Truth About Why Your Legs Are Sore During The Hockey Season

If you want to waste 3 minutes and 31 seconds of your life watch this insta coach give a shitty explanation of lower cross syndrome and tell you how you can “solve all of your problems" with 3 simple exercises…

So if you just listened to this kid regurgitate a day of lecture from his intro kinesiology class, I’m sorry that both of us can’t get the 3 minutes of our lives back. However, I will not waste your time and will instead explain why what he’s saying is wrong and present you with factual information. I don’t mean this as hate towards this kid, I just want to educate him and those reading.

So first, I can’t skip this part. I would've just kept scrolling as a normally do but the "qualifications" he lists irked me. He lists his qualifications as having trained most of his life, never been injured in college so far, and being an accounting major and a strength and conditioning minor which is absolutely hilarious. First let’s start by explaining why this person is a goof for listing these as qualifications. 

#1 Trained Most of His Life: I showed up to math class most of my life. Does that mean I’m qualified to start teaching calculus class???

#2 Never Injured: Do I even need to say it. Survivorship bias 101. All that means is you are lucky. You can’t prevent injury, there are some things you can do to potentially reduce the risk, but the only day to prevent injuries is to lay in bed all day and don’t move. We literally saw a guy in the Super Bowl tear his Achilles jogging onto the field, but this kid is going to imply that him never being hurt means he knows how to prevent injuries.

#3 Strength and Conditioning Minor: This one actually made me chuckle. As someone with an exercise science degree I know you barely learn valuable information when strength and conditioning, exercise science, or a related field is your actual major. Most education comes from internships, experiences, and self education. Continuing education classes, seminars, research, courses, books, articles, etc., as well as actually coaching people for years is what gives you knowledge in sports performance. From the looks of it I don’t think this kid has trained anybody else in person for an extended period.

So we move on to the actual content of this. So I know this kid just learned about this in lecture because it looks like he drew this shit on his literal lecture notes. 

So he says that we’re using our hip flexors to push off when we skate… that’s biomechanically impossible. To push on a skating stride involves knee extension and lateral hip extension. Hip flexion is only involved in a stride on the recovery aka when you bring your foot back to the midline after extending your stride.

Then he goes and basically explains anterior pelvic tilt, otherwise known as lower cross syndrome, which is bullshit. Basically he is saying because your hip flexors get used so much (they don’t) they pull the front of the pelvis down (anterior pelvic tilt) and it makes your back tight. This happens because your glutes are weak and your core is weak. And the pelvis being forward pulls your hamstrings making them stretched which is why they feel tight. I know that a clusterf*** of a paragraph, but I just summarized his video right there. 

Basically, this isn’t a thing. First of all, if you look at any athlete, almost all have anterior pelvic tilt. Just google image search your favorite athlete and you’ll see. Also, something like 80 percent of humans on the planet have anterior pelvic tilt.

To add on, lower cross syndrome, which is what he described, has never been validated in 44 years of it existing. Not one study that I know of has found correlation between pelvic tilt and weak abs or weak glutes or tight hip flexors or any of it. If you want citations, you can read: Walker et al 1987, Youdas et all 2000, Herrera et al 2021, Heino e

t all 1990. Also, there is this idea that the hip flexors are tight because they’re bent while skating (there is the same thought with sitting). How often is your elbow bent throughout the day… How many of you have tight biceps or bicep soreness? Also, next NHL game you watch, focus on a player for a whole shift and you’ll notice that time they spend bent in a skating stance is minimal. Usually 10-15 seconds a shift give or take.

Erik Haula's Posterior

Then he says you just have to strengthen your core and glutes like it’s some magical epiphany that will make your problems go away. Show me hockey players that are lacking in glute strength. Hockey players are literally known for strong glutes. It’s one of the primary muscles involved in skating. Then he lists planks, bird dogs, and glute bridges because his dweeb professor probably read a Stuart McGill or Gray Cook article to them or something. 

So I’ll give you the real answer on why your hamstrings “feel tight” sore and why your legs feel like shit throughout the season. 

The simple answer? Because it's normal for your legs to be sore from hockey. Doing ANY activity almost every day for 9 or more months out of the year will obviously cause wear and tear to accumulate, let alone an activity like skating that the human body isn't particularly built for. This can be magnified if you don't properly ramp up your skating leading to the season and if your training in the off-season and in-season isn't up to par. Also, conditioning plays a part. A stronger cardiovascular system will allow metabolic waste to be cycled out of the muscle and nutrients to be cycled in to the muscle more efficiently which will help with both short term recovery between shifts and longer term recovery between practices and games. These are just a few of the factors. How much you skate, do you warm up correctly, your diet, hydration, sleep, recovery, anything else you do through the day, and so many other details need to be take into account.

Most hockey players tend to be lacking when it comes to hamstring development because unlike sports played on land, the hamstrings aren’t as involved in as many actions that take place in hockey. They have a minimal contribution to hip extension taking place during skating and then of course help stabilize, as does every other lower body muscle when standing on ¼ inch of steel. Thats about it. If they are sore you should try to include hamstring dominant exercises in your off-season and in-season training program to help build their strength and resiliency. Make sure your training in the offseason and during the season has you prepared for the rigors of the season.

Hockey seasons are long and it’s a grueling, physical sport. You are going to be feeling sore as the wear and tear of the season progresses. Prioritizing the things listed earlier can help with that, but don’t expect to be fresh as a daisy for playoffs like you were for the first game. It just won’t happen and if someone tells you otherwise, they are either delusional, naive, uneducated and unexperienced in human performance, or lying. Again, no hate to this kid. This is a fairly harmless topic compared to some of the stupid stuff I see fake trainers say on Instagram. But the main takeaway should be to try to actually learn and do research on something before you make a video on it acting like an expert. People and kids will watch it and not know any better that you are giving them shit information. For the rest of you, it should be a notice to take information from people who actually do know what they are talking about, have experience doing it, and have actual qualifications.