Acceleration Indiana

Speed! How to get it and Keep it! 

Playoffs are mostly over, so now is the time to assess what each hockey player needs to work on to get ready for next season. In addition, for most players the next challenge is trying out for a team this spring or early summer. Are you ready for tryouts? Will you be one of the first players to finish when everyone does line sprints? Can you demonstrate quickness, acceleration, speed and stamina during your tryouts? I think one thing we can all agree on is speed wins. So, how do you get faster? The simple answer is you have to dedicate training time to develop leg power so your skate generates more force against the ice to propel you forward. But that is only half of the equation. Speed is stride length (ft/stride) times stride frequency (strides/sec). So you also have to develop hip and leg power in the muscles that accelerate your leg forward for the next stride. In addition you need quickness and powerful acceleration to get up to speed in the shortest time possible. That requires powerful muscles of the legs, hips, inner thigh, combined with proper skating mechanics and the stamina to keep those legs moving each and every shift. To accomplish all of those things and more, the most effective and quickest training method is the Hockey Treadmill. Why? Because, one hour on the hockey treadmill is equivalent to one hour on ice with a skating coach, one hour in the weight room working on leg and hip muscles and one hour on the ice doing intense hockey drills. Quite simply it’s three workouts in one.

First, you have your trainer by your side the whole time giving you input on how to improve your skating mechanics. In addition, you are skating in front of a mirror so you can see your skating form. I’ve worked with hundreds of kids on ice and telling them how to improve their mechanics and that can be an exercise in frustration because they cannot see if they are making the changes, you the coach, have asked them to make. Visual feedback is an extremely powerful tool. On the hockey treadmill the athlete gets immediate visual feedback about his body’s motion and skating mechanics so he can make the changes the coach is asking him to make.

Second, a session on the hockey treadmill is a strength workout to develop more hip and leg power to generate greater force to the ice at skate push off. The beauty of the hockey treadmill as a training tool is that the machine elevates up to 30% grade. Skating uphill develops powerful leg muscles that you need for quickness, acceleration, and top speed. The elevation is infinitely adjustable along with the speed so that the conditions are tailored precisely for each level of player (from a beginning mite to a top NHL player). Most of you Indiana hockey players know of John Michael Liles who plays for the Colorado Avalanche and was on the US Olympic Team. John Michael started training on our hockey treadmill as a youth hockey player and did many sessions up through college. Check out one of his jerseys in our training facility.

Third, training on the hockey treadmill develops awesome stamina. Besides being able to skate, the most important conditioning element for a hockey player is anaerobic stamina. That’s the ability to skate all out, each shift, of each period, up to and including the last fifty seconds of the game. Quickness, acceleration and speed all must be maintained for all three periods of the game. Training on the hockey treadmill will not only make you faster but you will keep that quickness, acceleration and speed right thru the third period. I have watched numerous games where the team we have trained on the hockey treadmill has been tied with their opponents after two periods. Five minutes into the third period you can see the Acceleration trained team begin to dominate play. Their quickness and acceleration hasn’t deteriorated and that means they get to the puck first and begin to dominate their opponents. What started out as a close game becomes a clear win for the Acceleration trained team due to their stamina. The science behind our training program provides this advantage by training the hockey players’ leg muscles to not only develop more power but condition the muscle cells to tolerate the acids and enzymes produced by the intense skating and stopping required in a hockey game. This anaerobic conditioning also results in drastic reductions (up to two times) in the time required for your legs to recover so that your time on the bench during a three line rotation is more than adequate for a full recovery.

In summary, plan now to incorporate hockey treadmill training with your on ice activities this spring and summer. You will see major improvements in quickness, acceleration, speed and stamina that will impress your coach at tryout time and make you a better player next season. Get faster and stay faster.

Acceleration Indiana offers programs from three weeks to several weeks in duration with each program being tailored to the age and ability of the athlete.

Gary Nelson is the owner of Acceleration Indiana where he has trained athletes for all sports for over 15 years. He has coached, played, and organized hockey in Indiana for over thirty years.