Hey Matty how many calories are you eating a day?

I would really recommend tracking just for a few days. To do so buy a food scale, and use Cronometer to track. This is what I do and I was very surprised how little calories I was actually eating and why I was not putting on weight. Try and aim for 50 percent of calories from carbs, 30 percent from protein and 20 percent from fat. That is kind of the classic, for me I actually do 30 percent fat 20 percent protein, but I am still hitting 200 grams of protein a day. So try this out and see if this helps!

You always want to be working on your core muscles. That will really benefit you! Upper body strength is always important, work on push movements (Such as DB bench press, arnold press and triceps pushdowns) and just as important, if not more important, pull exercises (Such as pull ups, DB rows and supermans) I found for me personally forearm strength has got stronger as I lifted heavier weight. Trap bar deadlift is a great way to lift heavy but safely. Great exercise to work on lower body strength which is also crucial for a better shot and of course build some forearm strength!

I have a teammate that struggles to eat in the morning. He blends his oats up, puts in scoop of protein and creatine and then some berries. I think this would be great to add to get little more carbs and calories in. Lunch and pre game it depends. I have tried no lunch and just a pre game meal, but that was not enough food. I have tried a big lunch and then pre game and always felt bloated. For me what has worked well is just a small plate of pasta and chicken with sweet potatoes for lunch. Then for pre game meal same thing just bigger serving. Try and stay away from fatty creams on pasta like alfredo. I stick to tomato sauce. I can not do rice because it upset my stomach so pasta has worked well for me. But experiment try rice, pasta or any other complex carb. Try different portion sizes until you find what works for you! After the game try and eat a good meal but need to eat lots of calories. I am not recommending to eat junk, but now and then my team after a long weekend will eat pizza. Really just try and get protein and good calories!

Great answer @Luke Croucher, I just wanted to add that really focus on some strength training. Luke has some great exercises. You can do some full body workouts to try and build some muscle. Get really focused and get rid of this skinny fat! Good luck!

Awesome keep it up!

My trainer for the team I play on in the CHL, he has trained many NHL players, he gives us full body workouts. Depending on what day of the week he will give us different number of sets. So on Thursdays if we play on Friday we will just do 8 exercises for 1 set. Compared to a Monday where we would have 10 exercises for 3 sets (5 upper, 5 lower) However if I do any extra workouts I add upper body because we are always on the ice so the legs get more fatigued. I am also on the ice 6 days a week so some players may be able to add more lower body exercises then I do. So start with just some full body workouts, make them easier as you approach game day. If you need a certain area of improvement add a set of that (example do 2 sets of the lower and 3 sets of upper). Figure out how sore your body is and work from there. Let me know if this works or you have any concerns!

Does anyone else have a different outlook on this?