In 2006, the Tampa Bay Lightning
traded goalie Fredrik Norrena and left winger Fredrik Modin
to the Columbus Blue Jackets for goalie Marc Denis, a 29-year
old Montreal native who was drafted into the National Hockey
League (NHL) by the Colorado Avalanche in 1995. The Lightning
signed Denis to a three-year $8.6 million deal. With a career
.906 save percentage, Denis is one of the most talented
goalies in the game. Now with the Lightning, he is prepared
to lead them into the playoffs with hopes of bringing the
Stanley Cup back to the Bay area.
Denis sat down with Wendy
Friedman of Lifestyle Magazine to discuss how he prepares
his body for the hockey season and how he stays in game
form each night despite the battering he takes as goalie.
LM: What is your offseason training regimen like?
MD: The off season program
is rigorous. The main part of our offseason workout is about
three hours each day. It is a mix of cardio and free weight
lifting, as a goalie the emphasis is on the lower body and
core exercises. You do have to maintain upper body strength
as well but a lot of the emphasis is lower body. I do a
lot of Olympic lifts, hang clean squats, dynamic exercises,
plyomterics, cardio, and a little bit of aerobics and sprinting
as well.
LM: During the offseason, how many days per week do you
work out?
MD: It’s about five days per
week for three hours each day. I work with a personal trainer
that I hire in our off season in my home back in Canada.
We also have a yearly off season program that the team and
strength coach Eric Lawson produces us. It’s a mix of what
the team prepares for us and the personal touch of my experience,
as I’ve been doing this for a few years now.
LM: Goalies are some of the most flexible athletes
in professional sports. How do you maintain flexibility?
MD: My warm up includes a lot of stretching. It’s a dynamic
warm up, staying away from the static stuff we do for the
cool down period. You have to emphasize the hips and groin,
which are the two areas that are most injured when you are
a goalie. You want to try to prevent that as much as you
can by doing as much moterics and free weights for the lower
body and you have to put the emphasis on the flexibility
of the lower extremities. |
LM: What are some specific exercises that you do to increase
the strength of your lower body?
MD: My main focus is on core
exercises – that focus on balance and soliciting the stabilizing
muscles in the core area which include the groin, hip flexors
and inductors. It can be as simple as including a medicine
ball squeeze between the knees when you are doing swiss
ball crunches, or when doing obliques, making sure that
your whole core from your knees to just under your pecs
is solicited. Apart from that, we do a lot of knee balancing
on swiss balls, or tossing tennis or medicine balls around
for reflexes and hand eye coordination.
LM: So the core is your major focus when you are working
out?
MD: Our training is used to
get ready, to get better and to have that edge over the
next guy, and it is also used to prevent injury. The key
to success in the NHL is longevity. To acquire longevity,
you have to remain healthy. If you look at the history of
goalie injuries, most of it is sports hernias, hips, and
groins and that is why we stabilize the core muscles.
LM: How do you fight fatigue and keep in great shape
during the season?
MD: If you take into consideration
the 82 games, traveling and practice, you have to listen
to your body. Sometimes, a day of rest is just as useful
as a good workout. The main focus for enduring the season
is the recovery. The word that’s used a lot is a “flush.”
This gets rid of a lot of the lactic acid in your legs.
I also try to get my hang clean squats in. It’s an easy
way to spend a little time in the gym but get a lot done.
LM: Do you have a certain meal you eat before each game?
MD: Usually I have pasta for
carbs and salmon or chicken to get protein.
LM: Goalies are known to have interesting rituals that they practice before
a game to get focused. How do you focus before a game?
MD: I can’t give away my superstitions
because if I do, they won’t work anymore. I definitely have
a game day routine. I try to reproduce the same thing as
a successful one in the past. It’s hard to do that for 82
games, but there are things such as timing of your meals,
when you get rest, what time you get to the rink and I try
to replicate that. |
LM: After a game how do you recover?
MD: The main focus is rehydration.
During a hockey game, I can lose anywhere from five to eight
pounds, the bulk of that being water. The first thing is
rehydration and getting a mix of carbs and protein as soon
as the game is over. Also, you might mix into it a 12 to
20 minute bike ride to get rid of lactic acid and a meal
before bed.
LM: What made you want to become a goalie?
MD: I was a seven year old
in training camp and we had no goalie. The coach showed
up with a couple of beat up brown pads and asked us who
wanted to be goalie. I got a pair of pads and have been
wearing them ever since.
LM: Who is your hockey hero?
MD: Patrick Roy was a childhood
hero of mine. He is currently the winningist goalie of all
time in the NHL, regular season and playoffs. I grew up
in Montreal and he was the Canadiens goalie. I was fortunate
enough to be drafted in 1995 by the Colorado Avalanche and
he was traded there in 1996, so I got to play with him.
LM: What did he teach you?
MD: I can’t put my finger
on one thing I learned, but I’d say overall, it is the way
he handled himself through the highs and lows of the emotional
rollercoaster that the NHL season is and the pressure of
taking his team through the playoffs.
LM: It’s your first season playing in Tampa – how are
you adjusting to the new city?
MD: It’s not hard to adjust
to the weather. There is a small period of adjustment when
you come to a new team, it’s a different situation from
where I was for the past six years, but it is a nice change.
I am definitely looking forward to the challenge of taking
the team as deep into the April season as possible. |