The Athletes Podcast

From Hockey Gyms To Life Skills: Building Athletes Who Endure with Mike Pickles

• David Stark • Season 1 • Episode 275

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Join David Stark & Mike Pickles as we share how smart, simple training builds confidence and keeps athletes healthy while cutting through the noise of gimmicks and hype. Mike reflects on lessons from coaching hundreds of kids and why life skills matter more than making the pros.

• origins in strength and conditioning and early mentors
• confidence as the biggest gain from youth training
• injury prevention as the first priority
• translating gym work to on-ice performance
• in-season maintenance versus off-season progress
• mindset, recovery, and screen discipline
• rejecting gimmicks and “sport-specific” myths
• the power of basics: squat, hinge, push, pull, carry


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SPEAKER_00:

What's going on, guys? Coming to BP8 Fitness here in London, Ontario for the 275th episode of the Athletes Podcast. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01:

And then you don't have any athletes.

SPEAKER_00:

Brand new facility here in London, Ontario. We got Mike Pickles, my first ever strength and conditioning coach, who I was taught by 10 years ago, who I have the pleasure with to talk in today. Come on. Look at this facility. You guys get over this? We got screens. We got tons of studio fitness. Jim's how was that? Okay, rock and roll? Dude.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep, let's go.

SPEAKER_00:

We're here with Mike Pickles, though, the man who introduced me to strength and conditioning 10 years ago in White Rock, South Surrey for the 275th episode. Today we're here in London. BP8 Fitness. BP8, Brandon Prust. Fortunately, today it's just you and I. Next time we'll get Brandon here. Absolutely. We'll get after it. Maybe get out on the ice, have Seth film some stuff there. But for now, we get to talk with you, learn a bit more about how the heck you introduced me to strength and conditioning 10 years ago, how you got into strength and conditioning. You were involved with Delta Hockey, you're back out here in London. But first off, how the heck's the back doing? It's getting better.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's getting better. Probably eight, nine months has been the longest I have been inactive. So yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm dying to get back into the gym and get back in shape, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

One of the first lessons that you taught me 10 years ago, you told me you were pulling four or five hundred pounds off the floor, and you said there's something to be said about knowing your limits and not going too far. Yeah. Risking injury. Yep. And I've taken that amongst other lessons with me over the past six years on the Athletes Podcast. But more than anything, if it wasn't for you, I don't know whether I'd be doing this podcast. We talked, we talked about that briefly online, and it was for me. I uncovered strength and conditioning, what it meant to train properly, what it meant to put in work in the gym so that you could transfer that to the ice, to the golf course, which you're now doing here. I think sport is the best example of life without actually going through real life. I mean, what got you into strength and conditioning?

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. My dad first introduced me to the gym probably when I was in high school, and I fell in love with it and eventually went to college for fitness and health, and then started personal training. I wanted to always wanted to work with athletes, hockey specifically. I did some work with some golfers when I first moved to uh Vancouver, but the whole the hockey thing kind of just took on a life of its own. Yeah. When I was introduced to a young player, his dad brought him in and wanted me to start working with him. And I had no idea what I was doing. So I had to start doing some research and learn and taking different courses, certifications, learn from some other people on how to train hockey players specifically. And I fell in love with it, especially when you get the feedback from the players, but when the parents actually say, I can't believe the difference in my kid. And I think number one overall was the confidence that I saw these kids build. And that's that's where I think I took things to another level as far as understanding long-term development for these kids and and yeah, just build building life skills for these kids. And and you know, once some of these kids finished hockey, they watching them continue to just want to embrace fitness and and lifting, you know, was was number one.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm a prime example for that, okay? Like I I went through, I was introduced to your gym going through as a player. Yeah, and then the year after, I'm like, hey, let's help out those younger kids. I'll try and find a way to make a couple extra bucks.

SPEAKER_01:

I think you did come in and you helped me uh train some of the teams. That's it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was coming in helping those Adam Pee-wee teams after I had gone through as a midget player. That's right. Trying to train to get to that next level, but here we are on the back side. Either way, I think what really stood out to me is that exact thing is like, hey, you don't need to make the NHL to still have fitness, to still have your health as a priority, and to still be able to be a lifelong learner. Absolutely. Right? Like what you just said there, the confidence that comes from going, lifting weights, doing the hardest thing possible early in the morning gets rid of all that extra stress throughout the day. I mean, for you, it must have been pretty cool to be able to share that with your dad, have him introduce you to it. I think, well, no kidding, you know what?

SPEAKER_01:

Because if if he didn't bring me to the gym, I wouldn't be where I am today. And to be able to have that impact on hundreds and hundreds of kids that I've, you know, been fortunate enough to train over the years. And I mean, you're your prime example, you know, 10 years later, here we are, and you're pursuing your passion in that same type of industry doing what you're doing. So, I mean, if you didn't end up at my gym, I mean you never know, right? Like it's it's who you meet, the right time, what have you.

SPEAKER_00:

We're we're driving down from Owen Sound. We went to the attack game last night. Okay, we're seeing a bunch of 16, 17, 18-year-olds who are playing the highest level hockey possible. But, you know, the fact of the matter is 75, 80, 90 percent of them won't go on to the NHL, won't go on to make millions of dollars playing hockey. So they need those life skills, they need to be capable of facing adversity and going, hey, I didn't make the next level of hockey, but I am going to still be able to perform my best because I have dealt with a ton of adversity throughout my five, six, ten years as an athlete. Yeah, that's part of what you're introducing, right?

SPEAKER_01:

For sure. And then it's so that begs the question what is it really all about? Yeah, you know, when you see the the crazy coaches and the crazy parents who are trying to live through that lens, their missed opportunities. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, you you're right. What is it all about? And and it's about building life skills for these kids and see where they can take themselves in the future, yeah, when we know that, like you said, a small percentage might go on to be a pro player.

SPEAKER_00:

And it's not for lack of effort, but there's only so many players that play in the NBA, the NHL, the NFL, the MLB. For you, you've trained hundreds, probably thousands of kids at this point, hundreds of. For sure. For sure. I'd love to know if there are specific characteristics that you see in athletes that you either look for when you're training or that you try to instill if they don't have.

SPEAKER_01:

Man, I can tell you one thing. The not always is the best athlete the best hockey player, but when you do see raw natural athleticism in a young kid, they're gonna have a lot more success on the ice. They just have it. There's a a kid, I don't know if you remember a kid named Justin Sortef. Yeah, he was in he got drafted to Florida Panthers. He plays for, I think, the Washington Capitals now. He was an unbelievable athlete. He was super fast on and off the ice. And then there's another kid. I'm trying to think where he plays now. I think anyways, they sometimes I've trained a lot of kids who actually are not the best athlete, but they're amazing on the ice. Yeah, and it's it's hard to believe when you go watch them play on the ice, you're like, wow, and then you see them in the gym, and they they can't even do a box jump. You're just like, how does this not really, you know, how does this not relate?

SPEAKER_00:

But so then how do you take that and say, hey, this is going to improve your game despite the fact that you can't do it now? You got to be able to translate those skills because ultimately you could be seeing so much better performance if you can perform a box jump.

SPEAKER_01:

Big time. So in our industry, you probably know injury prevention is number one. So injuries are gonna happen, but that is rule number one to try not to hurt somebody. And and with that comes, you know, mobility and the flexibility of understanding kind of weak links or imbalances with players. So you can be the best player on the ice and not the best athlete in the gym, but I believe that it's a matter of time when that player will get injured. And it can be something as simple as a pain in the hip, pain in the knee. And then you wonder, well, where's that coming from and why? Yeah. So is it different limitations? Is it lack of mobility? You know, that type of stuff. So I think if we take a player that isn't the best athlete and try to turn him into a better athlete off the ice, he's he's gonna have a lot more longevity playing down the road and eventually develop into an even better player, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and that's why we're at BP8 Fitness, you know. I personally love spending time in the gym for no other reason that I know that I'm building a better body that's gonna be resilient. Yep. Because to your point, we need to be able to take a lot of adverse, a lot of hits when you're playing hockey. Big time. When you're golfing, you're swinging two, three, four hundred times a day. For me, as a hockey goalie, my hips, my knees are getting mangled, right? So I always looked at it as an opportunity for me to build a better body that's going to allow me to perform. To your point, it's injury prevention. A lot of guys think that you're going, you're box jumping, you're squatting so that you can perform better, which is true, but you're also making sure that you can stay alive during those 82 game seasons and the playoffs. We're right in the middle here of December, January, New Year's resolutions. I'd love to hear if you have suggestions for those hockey players that are mid-season and as well for those golfers who are in the off-season, how you treat those two different athletes, what suggestions you would give to them at this point in the season for both of them.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow, in season, I would say back to injury prevention. There's so much that you can do just to what you're trying to do in season is really just maintain what you have. Yeah. You're trying to get proper rest, recovery. You got your things like yoga is incredible for players, golfers.

SPEAKER_00:

Probably wouldn't have thought that 10, 20, 30 years ago, hey.

SPEAKER_01:

No, no. I mean, go see, go see your massage guy, see your physio guy. I mean, you know, that just take care of your body. It's not the time to be trying to add on 20 pounds of muscle. Yeah, exactly. Actually, and you know what? Just rest, rest recovery, nutrition. We need to even get into stuff like mindset, you know, like what can you do when you're all those high pressures, distress from coaches, parents, just you know, trying to win, I think that can weigh heavily on kids. So even if kids can start getting themselves into learning how to just calm their mind, right? Relax, rest, get away from the screen, get away from your phone. They might feel that that's an outlet for to kind of shut the brain off, but it's completely not. Totally.

SPEAKER_00:

It's a real problem now in society. For I'm sure you're seeing it.

SPEAKER_01:

It's awful, man. When kids would come into my gym, the whole team would put their phone away. Actually, we had when I was at Delta, they had this big I don't even know what you call it. It was this big yeah, yeah. It was it was on the wall and it had all these little pockets in it. Yeah, and everybody would just put their phone nice in a pocket and that's it, and just shut it off.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's the way it should be. Absolutely. One of the trainers that you know well, we just featured on the podcast, Mark Fitzgerald, who I go in up to Kelowna every summer, Kelowna Hockey Fest. And again, he mentioned the fact that his main job is to make sure these guys don't get injured, yeah, stay alive during the season. He's training the lacrosse team right now. Yep. But for you, when you see what other coaches are doing, are you pulling pieces from others and adapting to what you do? Or how do you build your routines, your programs?

SPEAKER_01:

Big time. Yeah, from day one. I was learning from a lot of different guys like down in the States and seeing what they were doing, different strength coaches. And speaking of Mark, he was probably the first guy that I had researched on the internet. No way, yeah, when he had his place ETS and or still there in Whitby. And all I could do was watch videos, right? Basically, anything I could find on YouTube. Yeah, Peter Twist was a huge influence for me. He used to be the strength and conditioning coach for the Vancouver Canucks years ago. Okay, and he put out a bunch of books, hockey, strength and conditioning. So I was learning from that type of stuff. But I think at the end of the day, it's you have to learn by doing and getting the feedback from the kids. Roger Takahashi, former strength coach for the Canucks. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a Vancouver guy. Yeah, I was fortunate enough to do a little bit of volunteer work down there. And when I mean volunteer, I mean holding a stopwatch while the Sadines were doing shuttle runs. But I learned a I learned a lot from him. And he he basically said, he goes, listen, you know what? You and I have the same education. Yeah. I just got lucky to get this job. Yeah. And all we're trying to do is just make sure that these players stay fit and stay in shape. I thought that I was gonna learn above and beyond anything that I was doing. And it's it's basics, it's all basic stuff, even at the professional level. Yeah, like nothing is complicated, you know. I feel like most people make it too complicated. Everybody makes it too comp, everybody wants to get noticed, they want attention, so the industry can trend towards a lot of gimmicks, yeah, just to get the clicks and the likes, sports specific training. Yeah, well, there's no such thing as sports specific. Listen, I used to get parents to come to me and say, hey, listen, my player's a defenseman. Do you have a special program for a defensive player? I'm like, no. You know, soccer players are gonna train the same as baseball players, football players, hockey. I mean, there are some specifics, I think, when it comes to conditioning, yeah, and maybe certain lifts, but at the end of the day, it there is no, and I'll tell everybody that right now, there is no special specific type of hockey training exercise or program for any player in any sport. It's uh number 10.

SPEAKER_00:

That's just the way it is. I guarantee you, if you go to Sam Gagne up in Muskoka, if you go to Fitzy's gym in Kelowna, or if you go out east to Dion Finnef in PEI, they're all gonna be squatting. Sure. They're all gonna be deadlifting to some degree, doing some form of hip thrust or a hip hinge, you know, squat, and ultimately you're just building that body to become resilient, right? We all have the same structure to some degree. Ultimately, it just comes putting in the time, effort in the gym, and then the nutrition, which we'll touch on in a second. But I'd love for you to share first, because you've been in the space for decades, what you've seen change over the years. I mentioned yoga, for instance. Like what modalities of training have you seen come and go, and what has maybe changed paradigm shifting moment for you, if there's been any?

SPEAKER_01:

I think things, I think after a while things start to come around in full circle. Yeah. So we're everybody used to focus on just the basics, and then it starts to get a because the basics are boring. So people want to start to look fancy. Yeah, and I think fancy is a good term for not being boring, right? They don't they want the player to think that they're getting something special. They want to most strength coaches want to appeal to the parents, the coaches, that I have this awesome, fancy, cool looking type of program. So you keep they put all these stupid exercises out there that serve no purpose. Like I always say, if if you can't measure something and prove that it translates into the sport, then what are you doing? Yeah, you know, what benefit is it serving? So I again coming around full circle. Um, I don't know if anybody even uses the agility ladders anymore for hockey. Yeah. Parents used to think that that improved first step quickness for hockey players. An agility ladder. Yeah. Nah. Maybe for soccer players, that's it. Yeah. But no dice. Man, if you if you have a good system and a good training format, then you anything outside of that is just variations. Right. So you can plug and play different things, but if you're doing random workouts with all kinds of fancy, cool looking exercises, and you can't prove or measure that it works or that it's translating to the ice, then I think it's just a waste of time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Kind of like trying to do a podcast with this in the background, hey?

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David Stark

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