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TODAY’S TRAINING INSPIRATION:
JIM KYTE

Today’s Colin Timberlake Training Inspiration is a man who made sports history in the 1980s when he became the first deaf man to play in the NHL.

And not only did this man make it to the NHL, he was a valued member of the regular roster.

Earlier, we applauded mixed martial artist Matt Hamill for making it all the way to the UFC in spite of the same disadvantage. Today, we give a nod of respect to former Winnipeg Jet, Calgary Flame and San Jose Shark Jim Kyte.

Jim Kyte played 13 NHL seasons, during which time he also suited up briefly for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators. His seven-year stint with Winnipeg, however, was where he made his greatest impact on the ice.

Even without the benefit of hearing, Kyte earned a reputation as a reliable and rock-solid defenseman, playing 598 games and compiling 1,342 penalty minutes with his gritty style of play. This places him among the top 200 in league history. He would add 42 games and 94 penalty minutes in his playoff career.

Though he never won the Bill Masterton Trophy awarded to the NHL player that most exemplified perseverance and dedication to hockey, he is often cited as being noticeably absent from the list of venerable winners of that award.

In his junior and minor hockey career, he would also play in 480 games, scoring 160 points and racking up another 1,505 minutes in penalties.

TODAY: LEGS (Fast Tempo, 90 Second Rests)

BARBELL DEADLIFTS (5 sets)
225 x 5
225 x 5
225 x 5
225 x 5
225 x 5

SINGLE LEG SQUATS (per leg) (5 sets)
Body x 10
Body x 10
Body x 10
Body x 10
Body x 10

QUAD EXTENSIONS (5 sets)
150 x 15
240 x 12
240 x 12
240 x 10
240 x 10

SEATED HAMSTRING CURLS (5 sets)
150 x 12
180 x 10
210 x 7
210 x 6
180 x 10

CARDIO
2.5K Run – 10:40

TRAINING NOTES

Total Sets (Legs): 20

I have been aggravating my knee a little bit by stacking the leg press and doing weight that my muscles can handle but my joints are a little slow to catch up with at the moment. I had a couple dicey moments and a bit of snap-crackle-and-pop in the last leg workout, so I decided to take the day off from leg press, add a couple sets of single leg squats, and replace the press with some deadlifts.

Deadlifts are an old nemesis that, like barbell squats, tend to take my always-painful back and “kick it up a notch” Emeril style. But it’s been a while since the last experiment and this seems like a decent opportunity for a test-run.

Another thing to note is that even though I have classified my reps in this leg workout as “fast” reps, that does not mean uncontrolled, especially on the negative – and especially for hamstring curls. With the hamstring curls, perhaps more than any other exercise, even if you are moving quickly it is important to keep the negatives controlled and not simply leave it to gravity and then “catch” the weight at the end of the negative. You’re playing Russian Roulette with a pulled hamstring, and it’s just a matter of time before a bullet ends up in the chamber.

Think about how often people tweak their hammies just running or stretching. Why would you want to jerk the muscle with a hundred or two hundred pounds of weight snapping onto it like a rip cord?

Why am I harping on this? Because I got a little lazy mentally with my focus in the previous workout and ended up with a three-day hammy twinge from being an idiot. Nobody can be perfectly focused 100% of the time, and that’s why I am often referring to role models with stellar focus in my training inspirations. The mental acuity it takes for Tiger Woods to play 72 holes and not flub a drive is a close relative of what it takes for us to control each of 100 reps of hamstring curls over a week of training.

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