With the end of summer approaching fast, players and parents are getting ready to enter another year of hockey. Players will invest money into fast skates, more accurate sticks and lighter gear in order to improve their performance. While there is a need for adequate equipment to keep players safe, players can find huge dividends by investing time and hard work into their bodies.
When considering the daily routines of parents and players, it can seem hard to add training sessions into the already busy schedule. Make sure a plan is in place before you start. If there is no plan, your training is turned into random workouts with little guidance. To start, schedule two training sessions a week. The objective of these training sessions is not to accumulate a large volume of work, yet provide the proper stimulus to maintain your bio-motor qualities that were built during the offseason. The majority of in-season training is to fill the gaps for the qualities that might not be trained during practice. For most hockey players, movement variability and strength should be prioritized through in-season training.
A good area to diversify movement qualities is before practice during the warm-up. Create a movement prep that includes components that you might not be getting on the ice. With minimal equipment you can create a solid warm-up that fills the gaps in your training stimulus. Warm-ups should include running, jumping and skipping. A warm-up provides your body with movement variability and presents an opportunity to maintain general joint health and athleticism.
Another area of focus can be strength training. Strength training can take as little as 20-40 minutes twice a week, in-season. The purpose of strength training is for individuals to become more resilient and help a player’s performance on the ice. Strength qualities can diminish within weeks. That means that over a course of the season, a team could be getting weaker than when it started. Strength training should include primarily compound movements that target all of the large muscle groups. Examples of these include split squats, hex-bar deadlifts and chin-ups. For strength training, 2-4 major compound movements should be performed once or twice a week for 2-4 sets of 3-6 reps to maintain strength qualities for most athletes.
Athlete safety is always a priority when it comes to training, but especially in-season. The exercises selected are ideally low risk and provide just enough stimuli to the athlete that they can maintain the desired qualities without fatiguing the athlete to the point where their performance on-ice suffers. In-season training must also minimize risk and stress to areas such as wrists, groin and hip flexors, which are common injury sites for hockey players. Exercises should be supervised at all times as well as done in an appropriate location.
Being efficient with your time is extremely important. In-season programs should be made to get the best results in the least possible time. With the demand of school and other activities, training often gets forgotten in-season. But taking the time to prioritize smart in-season training can help reduce the risk of injury, and maximize performance on-ice.
