By Peter Twist /
With summer conditioning coming to a close, the focus shifts to pre-season practices, games and tournaments. Players who invested in their physical development over the summer months hit the ice as a strong and confident athlete, merge with their teammates and begin to set new personal and team goals for the upcoming season. Well-prepared players arrive with enhanced dynamic balance, speed, agility, quickness, coordination, reaction skills, whole body strength and power along with significant gains in both aerobic and anaerobic energy system capacities. The expectation is that this blend of conditioning ingredients combined with great coaching provides the player with all the necessary tools to start the season off with exceptional on-ice performance.
Within weeks, the full hockey schedule takes over and time is devoted to on-ice performance, demanding repeated high-tempo play day-after-day. Players, coaches and teams must have a transitional conditioning program in place to begin the new season to capitalize on all of the summer improvements and help players stay at their best through the entire hockey season ahead. Coaches should constantly evaluate player fatigue, game demands, individual strengths and weaknesses, previous injury status, positional needs and overall athlete commitment when developing an in-season conditioning plan. Coaches who do not integrate an in-season conditioning program find their players are commonly detrained by playoff time. Hockey, while intense and physical, does not present the right overload to adequately build up each specific physical attribute needed for success in the game.
When developing an in-season conditioning program, coaches need to consider how to maintain a diverse range of physical attributes from movement (speed, agility, fast feet) to strength (whole body, explosive, collision) and balance (dynamic, coordination) when actual off-ice training time is at a premium. To accomplish more results with less time invested, a Smart Muscle™ approach helps athletes be at their best all season long. Skills, drills and exercises that integrate multiple physical attributes together challenge players to produce multi joint explosive force with a dynamic balance challenge. The result is an exceptional mind to muscle connection that improves all aspects of play because when the brain commands a movement, the muscles readily comply.
Upper body strength is the biggest loser over the course of a season. Sprint skating overloads the legs well so prioritize weight room time to upper body and core – ideally through multi-joint lifts which are initiated and fed by the legs. Two to three very short lifts with moderate to heavy weights are needed to maintain upper body strength and mass. Integrating balance and movement into some lifts can chip away at other physical ingredients in the training recipe and help overload muscles for greater results.
Players who work hard in practice and play regular shifts in a game can see improvements in their game specific anaerobic energy demands during the season. Many coaches include high tempo repeated sprint intervals and agility drills in practice to keep players progressing during the season. This approach can also help to maintain aerobic endurance, but the best players invest some extra time each week to challenge this mid tempo energy system to maintain off season gains to ensure adequate recovery occurs between shifts and games. Those players who enter the season with under developed endurance should include at least two 20 minute workouts a week of high tempo running or biking to continually develop their energy reserves. An aerobically fit player can more easily battle in-season fatigue and injury.
Throughout this hockey season, articles will focus on developing in-season hockey specific attributes for players of all ages and abilities. The goal is to provide a common sense approach for coaches, parents and players to develop awareness of the benefits of in-season conditioning along with easy to implement skills and drills to improve all aspects of the game.
Good luck with your season!
Peter Twist, 11-year NHL Conditioning Coach, is President of Twist Sport Conditioning that provides franchised Sport Conditioning Centres, Smart Muscle™ Hockey training products and home study coach education. www.twistconditioning.com
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