The new NHL CBA removes mandatory fitness testing during training camp and the regular season. For strength coaches, that raises a real question: how do you keep getting reliable performance numbers to base programming on, without a formal test event on the calendar?
A few of our NHL clients have found their answer in how they already build programs inside Bridge.
Good programming depends on knowing where an athlete actually is, not where they were three months ago. A 1RM or 3RM number tells you how to load a squat at 75% intensity. Without current numbers, coaches are either guessing at loads or working off data that's gone stale.
That's the real cost of losing a formal test day. It's not the event itself, it's the data the event used to produce.
Step 1: Choose your key lifts.
Most coaches already know which lifts matter most for tracking strength, things like Back Squat, Bench Press, or Trap Bar Deadlift. Bridge doesn't require a separate testing protocol for these, just identify the indicator lifts you already care about.
Step 2: Build them into normal programming.
Instead of a standalone test day, those key lifts get programmed as Tracked or Required sets inside an athlete's regular training. Tracked sets quietly log results from sets athletes are already doing. Required sets ask for a specific result, like a 3-rep max, which automatically updates that athlete's 1RM.
Step 3: Bridge tracks it automatically from there.
Every result feeds the Analytics module, where coaches can see prescribed versus actual load, watch 1RME trend over time, and compare it against an athlete's benchmark on a graph. As a player's strength changes, future workouts prescribed off %1RM adjust automatically, no manual recalculating, no separate spreadsheet to maintain.
For a deep dive into how tracked vs required sets work in Bridge, check out our help article here.
Teams handling this well aren't trying to recreate the old test day. They're building the same insight into programming they're already running, so coaches keep the precision they need without a mandatory, roster-wide event.
We've got more coming on this soon, including a closer look at how a few NHL strength staffs are approaching it day to day.