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| In-Season
Training |
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Keeping up on workouts can
lead to more wins
There are many things that occur when practice finishes during
the hockey season. Young players typically eat, do their
homework, watch TV and go to bed. The more focused players may
treat an injury or work on skills.
Everyone starts the year with the best intentions. You may plan
on eating well everyday, working out four times per week and
sleeping nine hours each night. That sounds good and looks great
on paper. Soon, however, schoolwork begins to pile up, friends
wonder where you’ve been and you don’t go to bed as early.
Finding and achieving the correct balance is difficult for the
young and old. You don’t have to be perfect, and a little effort
goes a long way with in-season training.
Look at your schedule and decide what makes sense. Most people
don’t like training the day before a game physically or
mentally. I would agree that if training can be done at other
points during the week, it is more beneficial that way. But
something is better than nothing in most situations. A
sample-training week early in the first third of the season may
look like this:
Games Friday and Sunday Workouts
Pre-practice on Monday and post-practice on Wednesday
55 minutes on Monday would include warm-up, conditioning, and
lifting.
55 minutes on Wednesday would include lifting, torso, and
stretch.
A sample training week in the second third of the season may
look like this:
Games Monday and Friday Workouts
Pre-practice on Tuesday and post-practice on Saturday
50 minutes on Tuesday would include extended warm-up, torso, and
lifting.
30 minutes on Saturday would include lifting, torso, and an
extended stretch.
A sample training week in the last third of the season may look
like this:
Games Saturday and Wednesday Workouts
Pre- or post-practice Monday and Thursday
30 minutes each day would include a 5-minute warm-up (pre) or
stretch (post)
20 minutes of lifting and 5 minutes of torso
As the season progresses, the time requirement would diminish.
The effort and importance should not. Constant improvement is
the goal at every level and should be emphasized. We often tell
our players they can miss a lift for one of three reasons: high
school/college championship, Stanley Cup Finals or Gold medal
game. If none of those three apply, then we still have work that
needs to be done. This is, of course, an exaggeration, but also
an example of how important in-season training should be. Speed
declines as the legs, hips and torso weaken. Injury rates are
much higher as fatigue becomes a bigger factor.
Player strength levels should improve each year in the
off-season. This is much easier to accomplish when you finish
the year strong instead of back at square one and require twelve
weeks to regain and recover.
Schoolwork, travel, family, friends, relationships, parental
pressure, etc. are all reasons that can derail a normal
schedule. They are all things we deal with every day and
prioritizing your improvement is instrumental in your success.
The constant characteristic of successful people is their
commitment to self-improvement. As the season grows long and
your body is tired, it’s easy to blow it off or go through the
motions. Teammates, coaches and scouts notice when you put in
the extra effort. In hockey, speed is a constant component of
the game, and strong legs equal speed. Late in the year, those
who have continued to train will continue to win. |
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