Become More Explosive On The Ice
When my athletes come back from their season and they are ready to start training again for the summer I ask a bunch of questions to get an idea of where we need to place our focus. One question I always ask my guys is “What did the coach say you needed to work on for the upcoming season?” And 9/10 times the answer I hear is “The coach asked me to work on improving my first few steps on the ice”.
With the direction the game is going nowadays, it is very important to work on speed and explosive training during the summer. The game is becoming too fast and if you can’t keep up, then you won’t be playing at high levels very long.
One of the greatest ways to improve our explosive stride is to incorporate plyometrics (plyos) into our off-season training program. (Plyometrics can be described as exercises that help increase the rate at which fast twitch muscle fibers fire and any exercise that involve: hoping, jumping, bounding, etc.) Plyos develop the stretch-shortening cycle ability and the better this system is developed the more force we can produce. Maximizing the ability of the stretch-shortening cycle depends on how we train plyos.
Plyometrics are not conditioning drills!
Like everything we do, we need to start with the basics and this couldn’t be truer with plyos. In order to get the most benefit from plyos, we need to make sure we have the strength in our legs first.
Let’s break down the movement of a jump into 3 parts.
First is the eccentric movement or the stretching of the muscle. This is when we lower down into our squat.
Second is the part of us holding the bottom position of the squat.
Third is the concentric movement or the actual jump itself.
To help with injury prevention we need to focus on the first part of the plyo and build strength in the eccentric movement.
This can be accomplished by simply performing body weight squats. To make the exercise more difficult, slowly lower down into the bottom position of the squat on a 5-second count. Make sure the knees aren’t falling inwards when performing this exercise. Slowly lowering down into the bottom position of the squat will help increase the eccentric strength needed to perform safe plyos.
Once we can perform a body weight squat properly without having the knees collapse in we can add some speed to the exercise. We do this by trying to get into the bottom position of the squat as fast as possible. Adding speed to the squat will make it harder to prevent the knees from collapsing inward when dropping down into the bottom part of our squat. (Make sure to pay attention so this doesn’t happen.) Once we drop down into the bottom position we’ll want to hold it for about 2 seconds then stand up to the starting position and repeat for 5 repetitions.
Now that we have the strength and the speed to get into the bottom position of the squat we can finally add the jump and complete the entire plyometric movement. For kids under the age of 14, it is recommended that they perform single sets of plyos at 6-10 repetitions and progress up to 2-3 sets over multiple weeks. And for any given plyo session young hockey players shouldn’t perform more than 100-foot contacts for that day. (Foot contacts refers to every time your feet touch the ground. For example, if you did 2 sets of 5 jumps you would have completed 10-foot contacts) Limiting a number of foot contacts for each session will help prevent non-contact injuries, reduce fatigue, and increase performance. As the athlete matures it is acceptable for them to perform upwards of 140-foot contacts per session.
Before you start your next plyometric session remember the following:
- Build eccentric strength first
- Prevent the knees from collapsing inward
- Plyometrics are NOT conditioning drills
- Hockey players under the age of 14 should limit their foot contacts to below 100
- Older and more advanced hockey players can perform up to 140-foot contacts per session