Should Hockey Players Train CrossFit? (Part 2)
Part 2 of Should Hockey Players Train CrossFit?
If you haven’t read Part 1, click here to read it now.
Now let’s jump right into the second point of why hockey players shouldn’t train CrossFit.
POINT TWO: Rewarded for completion
What I’m about to say may make a lot of people angry with me and I’m ok with that (I hope). When you consider an exercise like the “Kipping Pull-up“, which is basically a Pull-up variation allowing you to use momentum by swinging and/or jerking your hips to help get your chin up over the bar and thus perform more repetitions. I consider this “cheating an exercise”. It really doesn’t do much to develop good upper back or shoulder strength. Also, unless you’re coaching technique and stopping athletes when their form isn’t correct, the potential for injury increases. In addition, the benefit and positive response from the exercise decreases. If you’ve ever watched CrossFit, most coaches encourage athletes to continue lifting until the set is complete. They do this instead of making corrections on form and stopping athletes when they notice decreased lifting quality. The greatest improvement happens when the repetitions are performed with proper form and technique. Sloppy movements result in sloppy and weak performance on the ice.
POINT THREE: Specific training = specific results
Let’s look at the golf swing and a slapshot in hockey. They look very similar, the rotation of the body is almost identical and the path of the stick and club closely resembles one another. One of the major differences is the placement of the hands. But it’s safe to say that both these skills look similar. It’s why most hockey players are really good at golf.
Look at this hypothetical situation for a minute. It’s the off-season and you and two friends are wanting to improve your slapshots. You decide to hit the driving range all summer because it’s similar to a slapshot and quite honestly, you don’t feel like carrying your net out each and every day and you think, “whatever, it’s the practically the same thing”. One of your buddies is completely lazy and isn’t planning on doing anything to improve his shot but it doesn’t surprise you as he doesn’t have much drive when it comes to his training. And then there is your one friend who plans on shooting pucks all summer.
By the end of summer, both you and your friend who shot pucks all summer ended up taking the exact same amount of shots. While you were hitting golf balls he was hitting pucks. No one practiced more than the other. Since you practiced the same amount you’d think both of your shots would have improved the exact same because both a golf swing and slapshot are similar, right? But it didn’t happen (weird), your buddy’s shot is way better than yours!
How could have this happened?
It’s because a slapshot is the exact skill you wanted to improve but you decided to hit golf balls all summer and the golf swing is only similar in nature. So it should come as no surprise that your shot didn’t improve as much as your buddy. It’s no different when it comes to training. CrossFit style of training is very general by design and the results will be just that, general. Hockey players, on the other hand, need a very specific style of training to get specific results and their training needs to imitate the demands hockey as much as possible.
I hope this makes sense and if you have any questions regarding this article, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.