Great Hockey Conditioning Ideas – Part 1

Yes, I’m an old(er) coach.  Still, I’ve hardly ever been stuck in the dark ages.  In fact, while I never want to abandon any training ideas that are working well, you can almost be sure that I’ll make some changes to my teaching approach, even if they are only subtle (or hardly noticeable)

Such was the case as I readied my High School Prep guys for their season a few years back.  For, although conditioning has always been a priority when working with them — so they can enter their tryouts skating rings around everyone else, I decided to pick it up a notch (or two or three) as we approached their coming season.

As a PS: I need to remind folks that the purpose of my HS Prep Team was to use the spring, summer and fall months to ready each player for his respective high school team. My young guys came from all over, and they were ultimately reporting back to schools from all over Southeastern Massachusetts and even down into Rhode Island. So, everything we did together was pointed towards them absolutely flying when they left me.

Now, before getting into this subject too deeply, I want to suggest that there are almost always some other lessons to be shared within a given area of training, without these having to necessarily be connected to that training.

Three great “teaching moments”, as I like to call them, arose during the taping of the following video, two of them coincidentally happening when a player faltered with his jump rope. But, let me explain…

1. At one point I sensed that a kid was getting kind of frustrated as he got tangled in his rope.  So, wanting to encourage him, I stopped things and took the time to comfort him and the other kids with, “It’s not your fault.” And I went on to explain that, “Your fine motor skills will be the first to abandon you as you tire — things like your eyesight, your stickhandling, your shooting and passing accuracy…  And, yes, even your ability to deal with that rope.”  Of course, I also encouraged that player and the others with the thought that everything will be easier as our training takes hold.
2. At yet another time, a different young guy tripped on his rope and paused for awhile.  Hmmmmmm…  So, what better time to address that issue?  I mean, habits are being formed every second of our training, and it was important to convey that to my players.  And, that goes for the way they respond to adversity.  So, I suggested that they wouldn’t want to teach themselves to stop and sulk — even for an instant — should they encounter a difficulty in their games.  No, we’re talking critical mini-seconds here, as in a player recovering quickly enough to help his (or her) mates on the attack or on defense.
3. Then, yet another slight problem arose on a very different drill done at our off-ice training facility in Lakeville, MA. I’ll show you that drill in Part 2, but I’ll explain now how it became another great teaching moment…  You see, my kids were executing repetitive forward rolls, and by the end of each string of tumbles, each player was staggering pretty good (not unlike being spun around numerous times).  Actually, having asked one kid if he felt dizzy, my reply to his nod was, “Good!”    Of course, I explained to him and the group that they actually experience similar conditions in a game.  Oh, maybe not quite so severely, but they do get tangled or spun or tripped-up or stung during their games, and my feeling is that they’ll recover quicker if they can endure even tougher challenges in our practices.

Now, the following video shows a couple of my high school kids skipping rope.  A little differently from normal, I’ve asked them to do these things:

• only go for 15-seconds (at which time another player will jump-in for his 15-seconds of work, and so on);
• jump laterally, rather than the customary rope skipping in-place way;
• during your 15-seconds, alternate the intensity, from a slow pace to a really frantic one.

Okay, so take a look at the video, and I’ll then I’ll at some point toss a few questions your way…

Not bad, huh?  And, as you might guess, it’s a heck of a workout.

Oh, if you can take a look at that footage again, you might notice that each boy — maybe one more than the other — is having difficulty changing his pace — I mean, from slow to helter-skelter.  And you might want to know that I find too many players having the same difficulty when they’re on the attack and trying to disrupt a defender’s timing of the rush.

Now, I want this particular topic to be at least a two-parter. So, I’m going to leave off here for now. At the same time, I’m going to ask you to please think as much as you can about all the above, and especially about the three things at the end that I asked of my players. (Sorry, but Part 2 — which will include those questions — will be for members-only.)