Acceleration Indiana

The Season’s Over!

Hopefully you have had a rewarding year and learned how to play better hockey. Now is the time to do some honest assessment of your performance and identify areas you need to work on and then set your goals for next season. First, get input from your coaches as to what things you need to work on to become a better hockey player. Also ask your parents and teammates for input. If you want to make next season’s travel team or move up to a higher level, now is the time to develop your spring and summer activity plan based on those assessments. Each of you has different capabilities and skills, all of which can be improved with dedication and proper training. So sit down and honestly assess your strengths and weaknesses as a hockey player and resolve to make them better. This should include your skating skills (acceleration, speed, crossover, backward, stops, change of direction), conditioning and stamina, shooting, puck handling, passing, receiving and game sense.

Develop your plan for tryouts and for next season. Don’t wait until summer. It takes six to eight weeks, training two or three times / week to make significant improvements in your performance. The good news is, if you start early and spread your training over many weeks, you will be rewarded with major improvements when next season begins. The keys are a high quality off -ice conditioning and training program, like one offered by Acceleration Indiana, combined with a high quality on ice program that emphasizes game speed drills and skill development with adequate recovery time between drills. Obviously there are many parameters that make a good hockey player. For this article we will cover only two important measures. One measure is your conditioning and stamina, and the second is your skating stride.

Conditioning and Stamina – Can you play at high intensity all three periods of the game? Did you find yourself slowing down in the third period? Did you run out of gas during the penalty kill? How would you rate yourself at the start of the season versus now at the end of the season? Did it take you half way thru the season before you could play intensely all three periods? Your criteria should be the ability to play with high speed and quickness for your entire shift, all three periods, every game. If you can, then you are in excellent hockey condition! That means you provide your team and coach with a tremendous advantage.

Table I shows the kind of results that can be achieved in a 6 week program training on the hockey treadmill. These results are the average improvements of all players on each team. Test conditions get more difficult at each level and represent the stamina necessary to go all out for a 50 sec. shift on the ice for a squirt or a pro. Notice that at each level average improvements are around 50%. That is huge and gives the player the potential to stand out during tryouts and to have a competitive advantage next season.

Table I :  Anaerobic Stamina Improvement (Hockey Treadmill)

Time in Seconds to reach fatigue when an athlete can no longer maintain position on the treadmill and/or skating form has deteriorated to an unacceptable level.

 

 These kinds of improvements also produce a reduction in recovery time by a factor of 2.0. That means with a 3 shift rotation you will recover during your time on the bench and maintain your speed and quickness in the third period because your body has adapted in ways to prevent the buildup of lactic acid in your leg muscles. The hockey treadmill training protocols ensure the appropriate intensity, recovery and load progression to achieve these results.

These kinds of conditioning and stamina improvements are harder to achieve on ice. Two reasons: One, the intensity of on ice (flat ice) sprinting is not nearly as great as sprinting uphill on the Hockey Treadmill. Two, your trainer has control over your skating conditions and can clearly see if you’re not giving 100%.

Leg and Hip Strength / Skating Stride – By doing high quality sprint repetitions when skating uphill, the athlete is also strengthening and developing more power in their lower extremity muscles that ultimately results in more force delivered to the ice and therefore greater acceleration, quickness and speed on the ice.

Table II shows the benefits to the skater of improved form and power resulting in fewer skating strides to cover a given distance. A strong powerful stride means you cover more ice with fewer strides. The test data shows stride count at Pretest and stride count at Post test, including how many fewer strides the player makes to cover a fixed distance and the percent improvements. An improved stride means more acceleration and more speed.

Table II :  Improvement in Skating Stride

Measured by the reduction in stride count to cover a fixed distance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* Pro test condition requires 60% higher elevation plus higher speeds resulting in more strides vs. high school players

As you can see from the data, hockey players at all levels can substantially improve their condition and performance by participating in a high quality, science based, off-ice training program this spring and summer. When combined with on ice skill camps, the potential for improvement over spring and summer is, in a word, Lots!

   By Gary Nelson, President of Acceleration Indiana