January 3, 2011
Q&A with ... Maine's Paul Culina
by /
Paul Culina
Paul Culina came to Maine in 1995 as an assistant athletic trainer and the head men's hockey athletic trainer. In 2001, he was promoted to head athletic trainer and continues to oversee training for the men’s hockey team, which reached the Hockey East championship game last year.
A 1991 graduate of Norwich (Vt.) University, where he earned his B.S. in physical education, Culina received his master’s degree two years later. He is a certified athletic trainer through the National Athletic Trainers’ Association.
Prior to his time at Maine, he spent one year at Bowdoin College, three years at Norwich, and three summers at physical therapy clinics in Maine and Vermont.
A native of Auburn, Maine, Culina now makes his home in Orono, Maine, with his wife, Krista; his daughter, Madison; and his sons, Benjamin and Nathan.
What are the first things you tell players who are new to Maine hockey?
I tell them to make sure they are eating right and getting their rest. The returning guys always come in excited for the year to start and have a ton of enthusiasm, which inspires the first-year guys to step up their workouts. Without proper rest and nutrition, all of that work is for not.
What are the biggest differences in their training regimens players see when they arrive?
Most of our guys train in the summer with their local “guru,” or some guys train with former teammates from all over the place. We currently have players from all throughout the U.S., Canada -- and now some European players as well -- so they come here with different philosophies and ways of preparing for the hockey season.
The first step is to get everyone on the same page, and our entire coaching staff does an excellent job with this. Then it’s a matter of convincing them that everything we do off the ice has an on-ice application.
Finally, I think that the biggest difference is the ramped-up intensity level. As I said before, (players) really feed off of each other and push themselves harder when they arrive on campus.
If you had a list of a few top exercises to help young players improve their conditioning and injury prevention, what would they be?
Our strength and conditioning coach handles most of the preseason conditioning, but I really like to emphasize skating to get ready for the hockey season. Running is important, but the game is played on skates, so they really need to be ready to meet the demands placed on them on the ice.
As far as injury prevention, I like to see a lot of core strength and hip and pelvic exercises incorporated. When players are physical, the core absorbs a lot of the force from contact, so the better off they are in that area, the more likely they are to resist injury.
What’s an often overlooked part of an offseason strength and conditioning regimen?
I think that the most underrated portion of any conditioning program is rest and recovery. Without the rest and down time, bone and soft tissue cannot remodel, repair itself and grow.
What are the biggest dangers conditioning-wise to players preparing to begin a new hockey season?
A lot of players like to get after it too hard right off the bat. Some players haven’t skated much all summer and they try to do too much too soon. They need to ease into it, increase their workload as their conditioning increases, and remember the recovery aspect.
What’s the biggest change you’ve seen in your field over the last five years?
In collegiate athletic training as a whole, the biggest difference has got to be the lack of down time for athletes in all sports. Kids are being asked to stay on campus 10 to 11 months out of the year to train and play “pick-up” or whatever the case may be. There is no chance for letting the little injuries clear up because there is no time for the remodeling phase to occur.
Our hockey coaching staff does an excellent job with this, because they understand the importance for rest and recovery. Most our players go home for a period of time in the summer. The players are asked to work hard in the offseason, which is paramount to their success, but I would say we have a few built-in time periods throughout the season and the offseason calendar that allow for appropriate rest.
Nutritionally speaking, what are your biggest do’s and don’ts?
We bring in Dave Ellis every fall to talk to our guys about nutrition. He is a nationally recognized expert in the field of sports nutrition and I have learned a lot from him myself.
The biggest do’s are to eat according to your training schedule. We push a lot of protein to repair muscle on lifting and intense exercise days. Carbohydrates are important to fuel for exercise. We also try to convince players that they shouldn’t eat quite as much if they aren’t working as hard due to a tapering phase in their training or due to injury.
In terms of don’ts, we always remind players that too much junk food doesn’t do any good for the body and, since a lot of our players are 21 or older, we have to warn of the dangers of drinking too much alcohol as well.
What do you work on with players to increase their recovery time between games?
We use a lot of stretching and foam rolling. In addition, we are very lucky at Maine to have a Hydroworx therapy pool in our hockey facility along with a cold tub. The Hydroworx has an underwater treadmill as well as a number of massage hoses.
The treadmill is used both in the warm-up as well as the cool-down phases. The massage jets, along with the hydrostatic pressure in the pool, are great for working out lactic acid buildup. Our cold tub gets a lot of use as well, since the cold water helps to reduce inflammation. It also has the hydrostatic properties that I really believe in.
If you could recommend one thing – nutritionally or physically – to work on that a player should see immediate results once the new season starts, what would it be?
I think it depends on the individual. Some guys come in with great conditioning, but terrible nutritional knowledge, and some come in eating all the right things but they really need proper guidance in the weight room and in regards to conditioning.
You have to treat each player as an individual, look at the whole picture and then make modifications as you see fit.
