endurance training for hockey

[stuie7 6]

I'm sure this has been asked before, but with theories and ideas changing constantly i'd like to know what is currently concidered the best way to train off-ice to improve endurance on the ice.

I wouldn't go as far as to say im an accomplished weight lifter, but after 3 years of going to the gym and taking it seriously for probably 2 of those I certainly concider myself to know what I'm doing.

Due to the nature of the sport I would presume that practicing HIIT (High-intensity interval training) on the different cardio machines in the gym whilst building up the legs and core would be a good way forward. Although I dont believe there is any such cardio machine that replicates a stride on the ice, is there any machine that would be anywhere close to being beneficial?

Would appreciate some guidance on the subject!

Thanks!

[Kevin 5]

A combination of slide board, bike, and interval sprints on land (treadmills are two slow) would do the trick well. If no slide board, use rollerblades.

[Goonsquad 209]

A combination of slide board, bike, and interval sprints on land (treadmills are two slow) would do the trick well. If no slide board, use rollerblades.

I've hear a Russian Box is good

plyometrics suck but you benefit with more explosive strides..

[Aussie Joe 0]

Basiclly you need to activate and gain fitness in your Aerobic and Anaerobic sectors. Aerobic fitness will give you the ability to skate out a full game (endurance) whilst your Anaerobic fitness will give you quick bursts of speed and high power in your shoots for eg.

Core work will help settle everything into place. You should be performing different training to maximise your abilities and make sure your body is always challendged.

Plyometrics, sprinting intervals, core work, some machine work and small amounts of weights are whats best. If you have bulked up hard and high (ie upper body) you may need to lose some of it upstairs to maintain a more solid centre of balance on the ice. Depends on your situation but.

All in all the best way to acheive all yours hockey goals is to speak to a Personal Trainer, maybe even buy some sessions. Tell them your goals and if they know hockey they'll know what to set you. My PT is a former national team player and knows his stuff, we go through allot different exercises every 3-4 weeks and try to change it up as much as possible.

Its worth all the hassle to get the right results.

[vectoranalysisgo 3]

when you say endurance, do you mean long-term endurance as in being able to play an entire game and still have energy left in the last five minutes of the third period, or do you mean endurance to be powerful for a full minute of high-intensity play instead of being winded after each 30-second shift?

the advice above is good- you should be working on everything.. but if you have a particular weakness you want to target or a specific goal in mind, you can work on the corresponding aspects of aerobic conditioning or anaerobic recovery or etc..

[gxc999 7]

Being able to play long shifts and be fresh in the 3rd period are synonymous IMO. I highly recommend swimming, jogging and exercise bikes. Another critical shortcut is to have as low body fat% as possible.

[Aussie Joe 0]

From the info I've been given from my PT and read about in Peter Twist's book your body uses two fuel sources in hockey...

Aerobic: Endurance fuel set, this enables you to skate out a full game and keep your reactions tight and shoots on target for example.

Anaerobic: The ability to make short bursts of speed with power and precision, you also use this aspect for examples sake in the corners fighting off an opponent.

Both are important and once highly developed make you a very strong player as skating is the primary skill set that everything else is built on.

[vectoranalysisgo 3]

Being able to play long shifts and be fresh in the 3rd period are synonymous IMO.

I don't know- I'd agree that the are both critical, but they come from two different places physiologically, as Aussie Joe explains pretty straightforwardly above.. if a player has a real weakness in one area, it helps to focus on that part of training as part of an overall, balanced routine. Someone with great anaerobic strength who can play with incredible bursts of energy but simply has no fuel left in the tank by the end of the game will want to work out a little differently than a person with better aerobic strength who can skate continuously for an hour or two or more but is winded after 30 seconds of super-hard work in a corner or skating end to end...

Anyway it seems I keep (unintentionally) repeating everything Aussie Joe has said- I just chimed in to point out that they really are two critically different components to athletic development, and figuring out how to train all aspects of the game instead of just lifting weights to "get stronger" and doing long sessions of cardio to "develop endurance" helped me improve quite a bit.

Another thing to consider is whether you are naturally more attuned to endurance or short-term energy bursts- a lot of people divide themselves into one of two categories: fast-twitch or slow-twitch muscle fiber.. (even though everyone has both types of muscle fibers, many people have predominantly one type that is stronger than the other, except those gifted athletes with perfect genes..) the day I realized why I always HATED the mile run in gym class but could spend hours doing powerlifting or working on explosive speed with olympic lifts was a turning point for me.

anyway, to the original poster: if you do wind up wanting to find ways to improve aerobic conditioning/endurance, I've actually found doing intervals with a jump rope have been a real shot in the arm for my work outs.. (plus the added bonus of working your forearms = better wrist shot).

[Kevin 5]

Hockey is not an aerobic sport. Steady state cardio is of little use for a hockey player. Here's a good article by Mike Boyle.

http://www.planethockey.com/media/PH%20Ins...robic%20(2).pdf

[biff44 0]

Go find a big mountain with a hiking trail and climb up it!

[turc91 0]

If you just into getting your in durance up, try to focus on 40 secs- 1:30 mins runs with repetition

couple of runs i use are:

run 1.2k(over then 3 minutes) rest for about 1:30

then run 800 m with a min 1:30 rest

then 400m timed lap around 75 secs then rest

put this running circuit along side a pretty tough workout you'll be exhausted

Another one

Run a 400m with a 1:30 min rest

Repeat it one more time

Then run 200m with a 1 min rest

repeat one more time ,

Then run about 4 100m dashes with 45 secs in between(also exhausting)

or just do bike sprints

about ten 45 secs to a minute sprints with easy pedaling in between 1 min rest

at first you'll be exhausted but you'll start to fell comfortable with these cardio workouts after a while start to time yourself

[Jarick 5]

That PDF link was fascinating. I'm definitely one of those slow twitch muscle fiber guys and I'm definitely out of breath all the time on the bench (sports asthma).

My "plan" this summer was to do a mixture of cardio and core training, then work into HIIT and plyometrics. But now I'm thinking doing sprints on a field and/or up hills might be better, especially since this is for recreation and general fitness/health and not competitive sports. And I'm not really in great conditioning shape.

Thoughts?

[vectoranalysisgo 3]

Hockey is not an aerobic sport. Steady state cardio is of little use for a hockey player. Here's a good article by Mike Boyle.

http://www.planethockey.com/media/PH%20Ins...robic%20(2).pdf

that's an awesome article, thanks for the link. I know I have found that since I've started incorporating olympic style lifting into my routine (with a focus on the explosive aspects of the movements), I've improved my game more than I did when I was focusing more on a strength-only based powerlifting routine.

I still do steady state cardio as part of my weekly workouts, because the times when I have let it lapse, I've felt more winded on the bench. while that article suggests that the old-fashioned belief that aerobic conditioning helps recovery on the bench in between shifts might be obsolete, my body still suggests otherwise.. so I'm definitely intrigued by everything else the author had to say.

good stuff.

[Aussie Joe 0]

Hockey is not an aerobic sport. Steady state cardio is of little use for a hockey player. Here's a good article by Mike Boyle.

Completely incorrect, Hockey IS BOTH. The info I've received on this is from qualified personal trainers. Peter Twist also refers to both sectors (Aerobic and Anaerobic) as "two seperate engines" for hockey. Twist, was the Fitness Trainer for the Canucks for many years and helped Bure get back to his best after his 1st major knee injury. They guy also has a PHD in the area of fitness and human movement I beleive.

Personally I've done the workouts perscribed for both setors and have seen the results. Coupling things like interval training and squats, I noticed a massive change in my acceleration and top in speed after just 4 weeks.

[Kevin 5]

Did you read the article? Do you know who Mike Boyle is?

[Aussie Joe 0]

No I didn't, as I was disagreeing that "Hockey is not an Aerobic sport".

A great example is when I 1st started coaching, there was a kid that could skate all game long and recover on the bench with 1/4 of the time as the other kids. He could skate, skate and skate every shift and not drop his pace. I found out shortly after that he was a cross country runner for his high school and would cover about 5-6Km in training each week. He was only 14 but you could easily see the effect that his Aerobic training had on his hockey. Since coaching him, he has gone on to represent state and was drafted a few yrs ago in the local inline pro league, an adult competition.

[gee2626 0]

Roller hockey is different though. In roller, there is always a smaller roster, with longer shifts than ice hockey. Which leads me to wonder if Mike Boyle's theories still applies to roller hockey players?

[Jarick 5]

Yeah that is confusing, why would it be anaerobic if I'm huffing and puffing on the bench?

Either way, I'm going to try running sprints a couple times a week and see what happens.

[nni 0]

anerobic is strenght training, hockey is competition, not strength training. it is indeed an aerobic sport, however it does employ your fast twitch fibers, just like sprinting does, and noone will argue that sprinting is anerobic. that theory is simply a bad one, you could have easily said that hockey employs both slow and fast twitch fibers, but it clearly just trying to make hockey look different.

that little rant aside, hill sprints are a great way of training for hockey endurance. so is hiit on either a treadmill or bike. both will help immensely as will strength training.

[Kevin 5]

Here's an article by Peter Twist, the trainer mentioned by "Aussie Joe."

http://www.ontariohockey.com/story.aspx?c=22&id=637

[Aussie Joe 0]

Roller hockey is different though. In roller, there is always a smaller roster, with longer shifts than ice hockey. Which leads me to wonder if Mike Boyle's theories still applies to roller hockey players?

I've personally applied the theories to both Roller and Ice teams. The differences in the games are there, but at the higher levels I've generally limted my players to 30-40 sec shifts in line with the theories I've been taught at the Ice level. Given Roller is still such a "new sport" its hard at this stage to give different programs and see specific differences on and off rink.

I guess its moreso a good example of the old addage of "if it aint broke, don't fix it" as the ice dry land training seems to work at the same acceptable level for Roller teams at any level.

[biff44 0]

Hockey is a sport that unfortunately requires all sorts of training.

When you take a hip check and go flying head over heals into the boards, on the way you are thanking yourself for strengthening you muscles, tendons, and bones with serious weight lifting.

When you fall on the ice and land in a weird way, you thank yourself for working hard at maintaining your flexibility.

When a forward dekes you out and tries to blow by you, you thank yourself for all that acceleration/agility training you did to be able to catch up to him.

When you have 6 guys in the box, and you are out there for a 5 on 3 penalty kill for 3 minutes, you thank your stars for that aeorbics/endurance training you did.

When you are put out there, down by 2, with 90 seconds to go, and you pull together your mental toughness to get a goal and an assist to tie the game, you thank yourself for all your mental training.

When you get off the bus for the 3rd road game on a cold wintery night, you thank yourself for eating/sleeping/training/living right right so you can still perform like a pro.

Why single any one thing out?

[JR97 2]

Inadvertently, commuting to work and back on my bike has done wonders for my endurance and strength. 30 miles rt with seem hills at the end. I carry quite the load on some days and that inadvertently is resistance training. Especially on those damn hills.

I'll also ride the bike in the morning on game days and my body is charged for later on. It's pretty weird how that works compared to doing nothing all day and then playing.

[gxc999 7]

Biff nailed it dead on the money. The two most important elements are aerobic training and leg/core strength but in what rank? And aren't flexibility, toughness and offensive skills important too? Yeah, but in which order? The truth is you have to do a hell of a lot of things to improve at hockey and that's why so few people play it.

[Aussie Joe 0]

"Legs feed the wolf"

Once you are assessed by a personal trainer, he/she will be able to work out your limits and the areas you should be working in. A 30 min workout in the Gym, weights or even cardio/weights mix is all most people need to boost their fitness considerably.

It's funny, because I used to think you need to be in the Gym hrs in a session, and at least multiple sessions per week to really see any difference. It now turns out if you are evaluated and given a specific plan based on your goals, you can accomplish more then enough from 1x one hour session per week! Efficiency isn't just a word for selling cars these days.