{"id":82768,"date":"2025-08-20T15:47:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82768\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T15:47:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T15:47:06","slug":"werenskis-success-starts-with-summer-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82768\/","title":{"rendered":"Werenski’s success starts with summer training"},"content":{"rendered":"

A season ago, as Zach Werenski rewrote the CBJ record books, he truly went the distance.<\/p>\n

According to NHL Edge statistics<\/a>, the Blue Jackets defenseman skated 320.25 miles \u2013 the equivalent of more than 12 marathons \u2013 over the course of the 2024-25 season, covering that ground in 2,166 minutes and 22 seconds. He led the league in both categories, outpacing Colorado\u2019s Cale Makar by more than 16 miles and 100 minutes of ice time.<\/p>\n

Yet throughout the season, when the Norris Trophy runner-up was asked, the answer was simple \u2013 no, he wasn\u2019t tired.<\/p>\n

Part of it is a mental battle \u2013 fatigue is just as much a state of mind as a physical condition, and if a professional athlete allows himself to believe he\u2019s tired, it\u2019s an excuse that can corrode their play in an instant.<\/p>\n

But another reason why Werenski insisted he wasn\u2019t tired is that, simply, he felt his legs had a lot more juice in his ninth NHL season than ever before. Sure, there were days \u2013 the second of a back-to-back in a different time zone, when a bug inevitably wound its way through the dressing room \u2013 where he was less than 100 percent, but those situations paled in comparison to what Werenski had felt in previous seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think for a full year, it was by far the best I felt consistently night in and night out,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cI felt like even days I was a little bit tired, I felt like I had extra juice in the tank to push through and play my game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a credit to this summer training. We do a lot in here, whether it\u2019s weightlifting, bike rides, long skates. We\u2019re here for five or six hours a day. I think I could always dig deep and find some energy, and I think it starts right here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Right here is the USA Hockey Arena in Plymouth, Mich. Nestled in suburban Detroit off a highway, the home of evening drive-in movies in its expansive parking lot, the venue is not just the where the national junior teams play but also a summer destination for one of the best collections of hockey talent in the world.<\/p>\n

Players with ties to the area, USA Hockey and the University of Michigan \u2013 Werenski can check off all three boxes \u2013 call southeastern Michigan their summer base, pushing each other to get ready for the upcoming season. When BlueJackets.com visited earlier this month, Werenski was in the midst of tuning up his workouts to prepare him for the start of CBJ training camp in mid-September and the start of the season in October.<\/p>\n

A group of players ranging from Werenski and teammate Adam Fantilli<\/a> to the Hughes brothers to Michigan products Kyle Connor and Dylan Larkin to former Team USA standouts Trevor Zegras and Cole Caufield push each other through the summer months.<\/p>\n

As iron sharpened iron an offseason ago, Werenski built the stamina and physical base that allowed him to become just the ninth NHL blueliner since 1996-97 to top the 80-point barrier while setting CBJ defenseman records in just about every statistical category.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it starts with summer training, the group we have,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cI think you guys saw today how hard we work here all summer. I think also when you have guys as good as we have do here, you just push each other to be better. I think the skates, the intensity gets ramped up automatically.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no place I\u2019d rather be in the summer to get better as a hockey player than here. I think it\u2019s arguably the best group in the world and a big reason why I had the success that I had last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as Werenski has gotten older (he turned 28 in July), he\u2019s also dialed in what it means to get in shape during an offseason. He\u2019s no longer a 19-year-old getting ready for his first NHL season, one in which he burst onto the scene in 2016-17 to become a finalist for the Calder Trophy and make the league\u2019s all-rookie team.<\/p>\n

As time has gone on, routines and training partners have changed, but Werenski feels like he\u2019s learned what specifically to work on to be ready to carry a heavy load during the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I know exactly what I need right now,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cI definitely think I grind harder in the gym earlier in the summer to build a base. I think (as) I\u2019ve built my program, it\u2019s like I put my body under the perfect amount of stress early in the summer. Then as the summer goes on, it\u2019s more about maintaining, getting ready for the ice, feeling good, getting my hips, my groins, hamstrings (ready) so I have no soft tissue injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some things you can\u2019t avoid injury-wise \u2013 I know a lot about that \u2013 but there\u2019s certain things you can avoid and that\u2019s the soft tissue stuff \u2013 the hip flexors, the groins. August is a lot of maintenance. You\u2019re still obviously lifting weights, but I feel like it\u2019s the perfect program to when training camp starts, when the season starts, I am where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

If he ever needs motivation to keep the work going, he doesn\u2019t have to look far to find it. Every time he steps on the ice in Plymouth, he\u2019s competing against some of the best players in the world, and an off day means you\u2019re likely going to end up looking silly \u2013 just like in an NHL contest.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go into three-on-three in the battle drills, if you\u2019re not focused and you\u2019re not dialed in, you\u2019re going to be embarrassed by these guys,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to be embarrassed by Jack and by Cole. You automatically get pushed to be better. Even if you\u2019re not feeling it and you\u2019re tired, it teaches you to play when you\u2019re not feeling your best.\u201d<\/p>\n

In many ways, that\u2019s what separates the good players from the great, and there\u2019s little arguing that Werenski was consistently great a season ago. He skated at least 25 minutes in 61 of the 81 games he played, notched at least a point in 52 contests and had multipoint games in 22 games.<\/p>\n

In addition to cementing himself as a key part of the U.S. National Team \u2013 with whom he won the country\u2019s first gold medal at the World Championships since 1933 this summer \u2013 he helped vault the Blue Jackets into the playoff conversation a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an exciting year for me,\u201d Werenski said. \u201cThe best part of the year was getting married. That\u2019s a day I\u2019ll always remember. But along the way, you play at the World Championships, you play the 4 Nations, we had a great season with Columbus. We fell just short of the playoffs, but we grew there. Everything, you can take positives away from and learn from them and be a better player and a better person.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a year I\u2019ll always remember and try to build on. It definitely gives me a lot of confidence moving forward here, and I want to continue to be that player and just continue to get better.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what can he do for an encore? If the work he put in this summer is any indication, the sky is the limit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A season ago, as Zach Werenski rewrote the CBJ record books, he truly went the distance. According to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-82768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}