Too many young players believe the off-season is the only time to make physical improvements. But as Conor explains below, most amateur athletes have plenty of time during the season to strive toward their true fitness potential.
By Conor Doherty, B.Kin
During the season is one of those times that players are told, it’s all about maintenance. You’re told you can’t improve your speed, you can’t improve your strength, and it’s all about maintaining what you built up over the off-season.
For the most part, it’s tough to really make huge leaps in these areas during the season, but if you’re not a pro travelling all the time, or you don’t have a trainer for your team that’s put you on a specific program, then there’s not many good excuses left. Players on junior teams and younger don’t have the excuse that they have no time to work out. You see, the players that are making improvements next to you are the ones that are making time to work on aspects of their game to get better.
Here’s the truth: You can improve your speed right now if you have the motivation to do so.
Sure, it’ll take time away from your social life, your video game time, or your daily hours of playing on your iPad, but there have to be some sacrifices made if you’re really going to make that next step in your development. If you look at players in the NHL, one of the times that they all get a workout in during the season is right after a game. It doesn’t seem like the time you’d have the most energy to rip of a workout, but if you think about it, working out right after a game or practice is going to leave you with the most time to recover before the next game or practice. If you waited until the next morning and had a practice later that afternoon, you’ve just interrupted what could have been a solid 12 hours of recovery. That’s just one example of how to fit in a workout during the season.
To specifically improve your speed during the season, I’m going to give you a couple things to try:
1. Medicine Ball Speed Drills
Using a medball is a simple, yet effective way to improve your speed by incorporating explosive exercises. And that’s the key word…explosive. In order to really improve your speed, the exercise has to be done in an explosive way. This video demonstrates the drill, but you’ll need to be much more explosive than me to really see yourself improve.
2. Speed Drills in Tight Spaces
Hockey is a game that’s rarely played wide open all the time. You’re constantly changing directions and you need to be able to do that quickly and explosively in order to excel. Again, the video is just a run through of the drill. Make sure you do it as quickly as possible. Start at the middle cone, move to one outside cone, change directions, go all the way to the other outside cone, change directions again, and finish at the middle cone. If you have a stopwatch or someone to time you, make sure to record it so that you have a number to alwaysw try to improve upon.
So there’s just two ways you can improve your speed during the season. All it takes is a little time management and some motivation to go and do it.
For more great hockey training tips, check out Conor’s site at StarFactoryFitness.com. For an independent program to work on during the season, check out his The Insane In-Season Hockey Training System.
To work one-on-one with another hockey-crazed kinesiologist right here in British Columbia, contact Karp Personal Training & Fitness any time for a free consultation!