How Many Drills Should Be Used in a Skating Clinic Session?
Just the other night, Professor B was asked by a site visitor, “How many power skating drills are needed to fill an hour?”
And in reply he said, “For a one-hour power skating session, you typically want to include about 6 to 8 well-structured drills. This allows enough variety to cover different skating skills — like starts, stops, edges, crossovers, and transitions — while giving players enough reps to improve without getting fatigued or bored.”
He then added, “Here’s a rough breakdown:
- Warm-up and basic edge work: 10 minutes
- Drills focusing on acceleration and starts: 10 minutes
- Crossovers and turns drills: 10-15 minutes
- Stops and transitions: 10 minutes
- Cool down or fun relay-type drill: 5-10 minutes”
Then, he wound down by adding, “Coach Chic always emphasizes quality over quantity — better to do fewer drills with good technique than to rush through a bunch. And remember, keep the drills engaging and progressive!”
Thankfully, because he’s basically run by “AI”, the old Professor is hardly ever wrong in scanning through all my past posts to get what he needs. At the same time, however, my thinking changes from time to time, and I can say that’s happened at least a little in reference to the current topic.
That said, let me just add to what the Professor has already mentioned, and suggest that there are two different ways to pace a given hour of practice — in what’s considered either the “Mass” or “Distributed” way:
- At times, we might hope to cure a given problem by spending a considerable amount of time on that problem (Mass);
- At yet other times, we might want to enhance player skills over the long run, by running quite a few drills in a given practice (Distributed).
Personally, I almost always ran my skating or skills-related sessions in the latter way, in hopes of gradually enhancing my players’ abilities over the long haul. However, it was during private lessons when I’d have to dwell on a single skill for a considerable length of time.
Any questions in reference to the above? If so, you can “ask me anything”, as well.
