Need to improve speed this summer - any tips?

[nikkatnight 4]

Hey guys. I've been playing in a few novice women's leagues the past year and a half. This summer I really want to focus on improving my skating speed; I have a nice wrist shot and good stickhandling skills but all my teammates say I need to be a little bit faster.

What are some off-ice ways I could improve my speed? Would biking help?

Thanks

[Chadd 916]

There are two ways to do it; more power per stride or faster strides. Focus on building a bit more leg strength and improving footspeed. A powerskating lesson or camp would probably help more than anything.

Biking could help, but it's not near the top of the list of things that will make a difference.

[nikkatnight 4]

There are two ways to do it; more power per stride or faster strides. Focus on building a bit more leg strength and improving footspeed. A powerskating lesson or camp would probably help more than anything.

Biking could help, but it's not near the top of the list of things that will make a difference.

Thanks Chadd. I took a powerskating clinic last year and it definitely helped, I just don't think my legs are strong enough.

[x-axis 44]

There are 3 important things to look at:

1. I would suggest booking time on a skating treadmill if there is one near you.

It is helpful in that the sessions are normally filmed and you have a coach telling you what you are doing wrong and you can actually feel and see it.

If there is no treadmill, it would be beneficial to go to a public skate and film yourself at full speed to see what you look like and if you reach full extension and recovery in your stride.

2. You should make edgework, power stroking, or power skating or whatever you'd like to call it a weekly part of your focus. There are too many facets to skating well.

3. People are faster without the puck then they are with it. I wouldn't make off-ice conditioning your main focus because from your description, you have been in novice leagues mainly and your stride technique, hand and body position are way more important than developing leg strength, which will come in time. Recognizing how these things work in conjunction with how you control the puck at that speed is more important.

[jazzyjoey 2]

At your level the best thing to increase skating speed is more ice time, but if you want to increase leg strength and force development there are a few things you can do.

Interval sprints: 10 sec on, 30 sec rest 7-10 sets. 30 sec on, 90 sec rest 4-6 sets. (Do one or the other depending on what you want to improve).

In place heidens 4-10 reps per leg. Concentrate on exploding.

Pick one of the below and do for 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps.

Barbell squats

Dumbbell or barbell lunges

Dumbbell or barbell bulgarian split squats

[osicks 6]

I found two simple things helped me increase my own speed:

1) Power Skating instruction (hopefully with instructors who are able to give one-on-one attention to their skaters - incredibly valuable)

2) a regular off-ice workout routine of exercises that have bee described above.

[SydNap 25]

At your level the best thing to increase skating speed is more ice time, but if you want to increase leg strength and force development there are a few things you can do.

Interval sprints: 10 sec on, 30 sec rest 7-10 sets. 30 sec on, 90 sec rest 4-6 sets. (Do one or the other depending on what you want to improve).

In place heidens 4-10 reps per leg. Concentrate on exploding.

Pick one of the below and do for 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps.

Barbell squats

Dumbbell or barbell lunges

Dumbbell or barbell bulgarian split squats

I agree. Interval training and lunges and squats. I would add in a bunch of core work, and a little upper body weights to prevent injury.

[sickwilly 37]

Lots of good suggestions already. Jumping rope and plyometrics helped me back in the day. I also think that improving overall conditioning would help most people (unless you're already in killer shape).

[ktang 34]

Take a look into "Starting Strength". It's a squat-centric program.

Make sure that your ligaments and tendons are strong enough before doing plyometrics.

[donkers 31]

tape a cheetah to your skates

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

Always something simple that is greatly overlooked.

Skate Skate fit and profile! Even more so with some women!

All the other things such as treadmill skating instructor working out is just more common sense stuff.

But very very valid and a must do!

[BucksAway 16]

squats

[gxc999 7]

Plyometrics, twice a week. Half hour per session approx.

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

Actually just looked and saw the skate model you are wearing. I think it might be time for an upgrade and maybe try and find a better model sale skate? Just a suggestion.

[RadioGaGa 162]

Take a look at some of the exercises on the Habs "Train Like A Pro" section (Apr 16/13). Gallagher and Desharnais both do some speed/agility and power leg stuff.

http://video.canadiens.nhl.com/videocenter/console?catid=66〈=en

[SirJW 207]

Sprints.

[TBR 11]

Explosiveness--that's what stands out most among the better skaters. If you want to improve on your explosiveness, you'll have to do explosive leg exercises.

One I've always been a fan of, and is easy to do, is jumping from a squatting position.

Start as low to the ground as possible (like playing leapfrog) and jump as high as you can. Focus on getting those knees to come up chest-height.

Do just three sets of 10-20 jumps a day (start with 10 and work your way to 20), and in a matter of no time you'll start showing bursts of speed you haven't shown before.

[Hooah4 12]

Run the steps at a local stadium if possible. Sprint up and walk down. Do this until you vomit, rinse and repeat.

[Trooper 8]

Get strong then get fast. Without relative strength speed work won't produce optimal results. Speed and explosiveness is only the application of force (more strength equals more force) over the shortest amount of time possible.

[Iceraider53 1]

Improving overall speed requires improvement in maximal strength, force production, and muscular endurance. Maximal strength is a pretty straightforward concept in that you're increasing the muscles' ability to move heavy loads. Ideally training for maximal strength would involved 4-6 sets of no more than 8 reps. Longer rest times to allow full muscular recovery so that each set is met with maximum strength. I'm not a big fan of actually timing rest when training for maximal strength. It's important for an athlete to fell that their full strength has returned before hitting the next set. In other words letting your muscles tell your mind they're good to do, as opposed to reaching some arbitrary time and your mind telling your muscles it's time to go again. Exercises like squats and dead lifts are very important, and indeed I don't think a good program can exist without including them. However, the body is a single kinetic chain and training lower body almost exclusively while ignoring your upper body is a mistake that will leave you slower and create muscle imbalances. Muscle imbalances that over can can lead to chronic altered movement patterns and injuries. You'd be surprised how much your arms, lats, chest, and core are involved in your speed capabilities.

Force production deals with the ability of the muscles to produce maximum force in minimal time. You have two basic types of muscle fibers in skeletal muscle, type I and II (or slow and fast twitch) muscle fibers. Slow twitch fibers cannot produce force as quickly, but take much longer to reach exhaustion, enabling activity over longer periods. Fast twitch fibers produce force more quickly and tire more quickly. The primary focus of force production training is the fast twitch fiber and it is best trained with lighter weight loads at a movement speed that is as fast as possible while maintaining control of the load. Exercises involving throwing medicine balls and those that use kettle bells are the most ideal for force production training. This is also the part of your training where plyometric exercises would come into play.

Muscular endurance is also fairly straight forward and deals primarily with training lower weight loads over very high rep ranges, German volume training is an example of muscular endurance training. This aspect of training tends to get ignored somewhat when it comes to training for hockey. Even with the rest times between shifts by the time the third period rolls around if you have no muscular endurance your speed is going to be in the toilet regardless of how good it was when the puck dropped.

[ktang 34]

I think skaters need a certain amount of skating-specific core and leg strength before they can exert power in the proper skating positions.

So, this might seem backwards, but to tie in all the previous bits of information:

- get adequate strength first;

- then technique;

- then power (explosiveness); and

- then endurance.

[Powerfibers 8]

My son has always had a choppy stride. A few treadmill sessions did more for him than any other coaching or power skating ever did. His speed has increased unbelievably. My wife watches him at a game and says, "What got into him? I've never seen him skate that fast!" Not to downplay the need for skate fit, power skating, or any of the other great suggestions. But somehow between the skating coach and the treadmill, he improved farther in two months than any other place we have gone to for help.

[nikkatnight 4]

Actually just looked and saw the skate model you are wearing. I think it might be time for an upgrade and maybe try and find a better model sale skate? Just a suggestion.

Believe it or not the 4Ks ARE an upgrade from what I was wearing previously (heavy CCM Rapide Fires that I got brand new from thrift store). I really like the 4Ks. I think my problem is more of a lack of strength and perhaps a flawed stride issue.

Great suggestions, thanks everybody!! I'm going to practice like crazy this summer and utilize all these tips. Hopefully I'll be crazy good by fall.

[gxc999 7]

The VERY best thing to do is practice better technique over and over, e.g. explosive starts where you start on your toes. Force yourself to super bend your knees on them. Honestly, that's been a weird area for me and only practicing helped it.

[flip12 715]

I'd throw my support behind your initial thoughts--running and biking (I'm a bit of a hipster too, yes, so go fixed gear (with brakes) if possible because it really gets your body to feel the rhythm). The regimens suggested by others are great and they remind me of things we did once in a while in running and hockey in high school, but now that I bike regularly (about an hour a day, round trip to work) I feel more explosive and as though I could actually go and do those programs now. There's just a night and day difference between where I feel a foundation for strength training now and I didn't really at all before: whenever I'd do strength training, it felt as though I wasn't getting it, I wasn't feeling it and I'd get bored. Once you have that foundation and you get a feeling for movement, and coordinating firing of various muscles in a smooth cycle, then those other, more detailed training programs will do much more...just my two cents.

That and definitely practice, practice, practice your technique, and obsess over your skate fit.