Despite the endless hours San Diego Gulls head strength and conditioning coach Justin Roethlingshoefer puts in over the long haul of the American Hockey League season, his work doesn’t stop once the games are over.
For Roethlingshoefer, keeping players in peak physical shape remains a year-long endeavor – especially for those who perform at the highest levels. His players are keenly aware that conditioning and injury prevention play major roles in keeping them on the ice, field or court as long as possible.
At a time when players, coaches and team executives alike remain committed year round to staying in championship contention, the job of conditioning coaches and trainers like Roethlingshoefer becomes even more critical.
So while he has come to rely on Polar Team Pro to keep players at the top of their game during the season, Roethlingshoefer has also made the most of all Polar technology has to offer long after his players have returned home.
Not only does he train and monitor the Gulls all season long, but he also trains other professional hockey players in the summer at The Hockey Summit in Florida. As he shifts his focus from the AHL to The Hockey Summit, Roethlingshoefer puts on an all-inclusive training program for players to follow while they’re there as well as when then go back to camp. This 360-degree view allows him to better understand player conditioning and stress over time to adjust his own coaching strategy.
Just as Polar Team Pro allows Roethlingshoefer to monitor how players react and respond to the rigors of in-season conditioning drills, Polar’s wrist devices, like the Polar M430 also keep Roethlingshoefer in touch with what his athletes are doing regardless of how many miles away they may be.
The pinpointed, accurate results that come out of this advanced technology, regardless of the distance between coach and player, remain the same.
“I’m seeing the way they’re developing,” Roethlingshoefer said. “Guys start to buy in and trust it because it gives them a better look into what they’re doing.”
Just like Roethlingshoefer has a prescribed conditioning method during the season, his time-tested practices that allow players to maximize their training also translate to success away from the ice.
Many players work with their own personal trainers during the off-season, far away from their team’s training facilities. However, these athletes utilize the Polar M430 to continue to work with Roethlingshoefer on a remote basis, as it provides him access to the performance data he would be seeing if players were right in front of him.
Because the Polar technology operates in the cloud, players are able to upload the results of their workouts, which Roethlingshoefer is able to view and analyze to understand stress on the body and determine how to handle it to remain in top physical shape.
Polar’s GPS wrist units such as the M430, M200, V800 and A370 can be linked to Polar Team Solutions software to allow players to track individual offseason workouts to better and more thoroughly understand their overall physical condition as they strive to maximize their off-season training.
For Roethlingshoefer, the year-round access to how his players are not only responding to workouts, but how they recover from training sessions has proven to be a game changer.
That’s true even with some of his athletes who have been reluctant to turn to technology as part of their training regimen.
“You’ve got a lot old school people who think that the harder you work, the better you are and that you just need to grind it out because at the end of the day, that mental toughness is going to get you through,” Roethlingshoefer said. “That’s true to a certain extent, but at a certain point, you’re going to peak and start to go down the opposite side of the hill.”
By correctly analyzing the data he receives through the Polar Team Pro system, Roethlingshoefer can accurately determine how his training methods need to be adjusted based on the longitudinal reports that come through.
Even though his daily interactions with players may not be face-to-face, the performance-tracking analytics inform Roethlingshoefer if he can afford to push players harder or if he needs to perhaps hold back as he continues to monitor their off-season conditioning.
The proof, Roethlingshoefer said, comes when players return to AHL season and he once again begins to put his athletes through the rigors of the long season that lies ahead.
Ultimately, Roethlingshoefer has found that the secret to success for a well-planned off season is the athletes remaining keenly aware of how they are feeling and having the data to back up what their body is telling them.
“Athletes are smart and if anyone is in-tune with their body — especially when you get to the higher levels — they know how they’re feeling,” Roethlingshoefer said. “But they want justification for it and if you’re able to give them that, their buy-in is a lot greater.”