Anthony Donskov on Elite Hockey Development and Performance

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Anthony Donskov is the founder and head performance coach at Donskov Strength and Conditioning. He’s also the author of the amazing book, Physical Preparation for Hockey: Biological Principles and Practical solutions.

But more importantly, Anthony is a guy who I deeply respect. He’s constantly searching for better answers, and putting in the work to help his athletes get the absolute most out of their bodies.

In this show, Anthony and I discuss why his first rule of training is “Do No Harm,” why all coaches should aspire to be generalists, and a start-to-finish overview of how he programs for and coaches his hockey players.

Anthony is a passionate guy, and I think there’s a ton of gold in this show.

Show Outline

Here’s a brief overview of what we covered in this week’s show:

  • MR Monologue: The “You Can’t” vs. the “I Can” Mentality
  • How Anthony got started in the world of physical prep.
  • His overarching training philosophy, and why his first rule is “Do No Harm.”
  • The biggest issues he sees with hockey players, and how he works to address them.
  • Anthony’s assessment process, and why he doesn’t do performance testing with his elites.
  • How he takes the information from his assessment to build those early training programs.
  • The exact template and structure he uses with both his elite and developmental hockey players for off-season training.
  • How he manipulates the program in that final training block leading up to camp.
  • The BIG Question.
  • A really fun lightning round where we talk about his book, his biggest wins as a coach, what it’s like to work with the USWNT hockey team, the plethora of books he’s currently reading, and much more!

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