Offseason Training: Conditioning Guide

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2 Offseason Training: Conditioning Guide A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be. Wayne Gretzky, NHL Superstar That s says it all right there doesn t it? A great player plays where the puck is going to be. The only possible way you can do that is with superb conditioning. If you re one of these guys whose legs are burning or just have nothing left, you will never be able to keep up with the game. Especially in those later periods. It s conditioning that is going to make you that player that is able to break away from the pack and have a run at the net late in the 3 rd period. Now any coach who is worth the money you are paying them should be able to tell you that conditioning is completely dependent on the activity you are involved in. Meaning, there is no such thing as saying That guy is conditioned or I want to be fit The question always is: Conditioned for what? Fit for what? The termed Conditioned means nothing without context. For example, it s very easy to say that a tri-athlete is more conditioned than your average powerlifter. Is a powerlifter conditioned to run, swim and bike those distances? No.

3 On the other side, a tri-athlete is in no way conditioned to do what a powerlifter does either. Completely different definitions and more importantly, completely different dominate energy systems and muscle fiber use. Think about it, there s a reason the fastest 100m sprinters aren t also the 200m, 400m and 800m gold medalists. You can only maximize the energy system you want to focus on most in your training. So when training for athletic performance, matching up the appropriate energy systems conducive to your sport is of the utmost performance. This is why things like jogging, cycling or skating tons of laps around the ice has very little crossover into the game of hockey. Conditioning is both sport and energy system specific. Runners, football players, hockey players, fighters, weightlifters and cyclists may all be well conditioned but being conditioned means something different to each one of them. Understanding the demands of your activity and preparing yourself accordingly for them will have an immeasurable positive effect on your performance. The game of hockey is an alactic-aerobic sport, meaning it has short bursts of intense physical activity interspersed by periods of lower intensity activity. From a physiological perspective, it makes no sense for a coach to have his team do long duration low intensity activity. You would be primarily building up your aerobic capacity while neglecting the much more important aspect of conditioning your high intensity movements. It is in the high intensity movement where the important parts of the game are played. For example, skating fast, shooting, break a ways, body checks and even goalie saves are all examples of the lactic components of the game.

4 This is why so many hockey players still get totally gassed going into the 3 rd period even though they run 3x a week, their running has no crossover into the hockey game. You re simply conditioning yourself to be a better runner and not be a better hockey player. Not to mention the distance running is much more stressful on your joints. To have maximum crossover into the hockey arena, you need to train like a hockey player. It is also very important to understand that you re body adapts to what it is exposed to most. So if you re training the lactic components of your conditioning, but you re also training a ton of aerobic components, your body is going to find a middle ground between the two to settle in on because it doesn t know what to adapt to most. This is the main reason why one runner cannot dominate all running sports, you cannot develop competing energy systems at maximal levels. You have to choose. For hockey, since it is a mixed sport with different demands we focus on the fundamentals of alactic-aerobic performance. I also want to throw in here that doing 100 laps around the ice over and over again to build mental toughness is so stupid that it hurts me. You re either tough enough to play hockey or you re not. It is a tough man s sport and hockey players are born into it, you don t develop toughness by doing a bunch of laps. All you re doing is being a moron and training inefficiently. If your team s strength and conditioning coach has you do this, I d look for a new strength and conditioning coach. To maximally condition yourself for the sport of hockey you need to be able to output high levels of power output with incomplete rest periods. Examples of this could be made with any high power output

5 exercise, such as a medicine ball throws or broad jumps, performed for a high number of sets and 10-30sec rest periods. Performing one these exercises in a single bout is simply a test of alactic power. Hockey players need to be able to develop alactic capacity, which is the ability to repeat the high intensity effort for a given amount of time. This most accurately represents a hockey player s average shift on the ice and has the highest percentage crossover to the sport. Having said this, it is extremely important that you actually build power through strength training and power movements first because it won t matter how many times you are conditioned to repeat the effort if you re not a powerful person to begin with. If this is the case, you will be watching the game from the couch anyway. How to train alactic capacity is much simpler than the explanations of it all. For example, if you performed a given alactic workout in 30mins, there are two major ways to improve your capacity: #1. Shorten your rest periods and performing the exact same amount of workout in less time. #2. Increasing the workload. An example of this could be performing 10x4 box jumps at 34 in a given time period. From here, you would simply perform 10x4 box jumps at 36 in the exact same time period.

6 These are two examples of improving your conditioning in the alactic department. Throughout the Offseason training system you will find 4 phases of conditioning templates that vary in their difficulty and frequency as we get closer to tryouts and camps. I chose the #1 option seen above to improve the conditioning of the athletes joining this program because it is the most simple and safest approach to guarantee improved conditioning over the long term while minimizing any injury risk.