Finally, someone that knows hockey and can back me up.
Texas is taking over the boards!!
Isn’t it funny that the majority of those posting about hockey live in Texas?
Running(sprinting) improves the firing rate of your CNS. This improves power and the speed at which movements are performed. Sprints will improve the overall power of the person.
There is no point in doing high intensity training work for 45-60 seconds. To improve speed, you need to shorten the drills and lengthen the recovery.
Sprinting and high intensity lifting will do little to improve cardio. Cardio improvements and lactic acid tolerance will be improved through tempo runs.
If your goal is to train the nervous system, then why would you train the body using firing patterns that are different than those used in your sport. Yes, there will be some transference of power, but as I have said before the force vectors are different and the moments of torque are vastly different.
As Jake had said, a shift in hockey lasts 45-60 seconds. This not only becomes a matter of speed and power, but you must also factor in the speed-strength endurance aspect. It is crucial to be able to perform explosive actions for the full shift, so why would you not use these timeframes within your off-ice training? This is not to say that EVERY aspect of training should last for 45-60 seconds.
Are tempo runs your solution for every sport? These comments are rediculous. From the previous thread about rugby training, you obviously don’t fully understand energy systems and their role in cardiovascular training.
Fire,
Yes tempo runs can be used for lots of sports. Its GPP that helps develop the Aerobic system. Like football, hockey is Alactic-Aerobic. Yes a line last 45 seconds but that does not mean the athletes is going all out for 45 sec. There are bursts of all out effort followed by low intensity effort. Charlie says, watch the athletes not the game. See the vancouver series dvd from charlie he explains this very clearly and has charts to show you.
But you could always just throw the athlete on a hockey treadmill and have him skate in a straight line for 45 seconds until he pukes dangling in the air from a rope!!!
I guess my post needs some clarification.
When I said 45 sec to a minute, I was making reference to Work Time and Rest time. I did not mean the intervals should last a whole minute. I also made reference to POSITION, and yes there are shifts that a Center will be going all out for a full 45 seconds. During this 45 seconds, he may coast for seconds at time but his legs are moving the whole time.
I expected that everybody understood the basics of this, so I did not go into detail about rest/work ratios.
As far as power development for the Skating stride, can you suggest something better than doing short intervals on a treadmill (hockey) uphill. If you say anything about towing, resisted skating, parachutes, etc… You cannot perfect the stride as they are performing these activities. What you do get is what hockey players refer to as leaners.
So yes get them on a hockey treadmill. If they puke, I guess your pushing their lactic acid tolerance as well.
I understand that a player may not be going full out the whole time they are on the ice. The comment about tempo runs was not meant to downplay the benifits of tempo runs. I was merely pointing out that every thread about training for a specific sport that Blinky posts on, his advice is tempo runs. As I said, not EVERY activity should be carried out for 45-60 seconds. Blinky said the there is no point in 45-60 second duration training, and I was refuting his claims.
As far as the Frappier system goes, I find it quite funny that those who are least educated about the system are the biggest opponents of it. The only skating bouts that last anywhere near 45-60 seconds are the SLOW warmups and cooldowns. One aspect of the system is to train their energy systems so recovery time is crucial and they should NOT puke.
I was only joking about the treadmill, as I know you use it your training. But trust me I am educated about it. I have a close connection to both treadmills. I feel they have there place in training just not to extent that many of the proponents advocate. There are bouts on it that go in upwards of 25 seconds, too long in my opinion. Also you have to choose your poison in each session. When you are beat down tired from training the anerobic-glycolitic stystem, how can you work on technique? Also training in that time frame is not for speed/power work.
Ok, fair enough. You’re right, this is why the protocol is set up the way it is. Each workout is designed to provide a specific training effect dependant on the placement within each training phase.
I appreciate your strong stance on your views of training for hockey. I think it would be of benefit to you to look at some of the older posts by Charlie Francis on the subject to further enhance your knowledge.
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=857
Pay particular attention to NumberTwo’s comment.
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=1103
http://www.charliefrancis.com/community/showthread.php?t=2891
Pitchers, baseball players, shot putters and many other athletes use sprints to train their CNS to fire at a faster rate. This doesn’t mean that there is alot of sprinting in their sport.
Because you will not maximize improvements in speed if you train without full recovery.
Yes.
From a different thread,
Skating very similarly replicates sprinting in the first 10m of a sprint on the track! The hockey players are pushing from side to side, sprinters due the same in the first 10m on the track.
Different Force Vectors? Well duh! Nothing is going to have the same qualites of a sport other than the sport itself! So does this mean that I should no longer squat bc the force vectors are different in sprinting? “ITS CALLED TRIPLE EXT” and that is one reason why the squat is good exercise for the first 10m of a sprint for a sprinter! You also develop better neuromuscler coordination in the squat which carries over to hockey and track as well. Finally the WL improves the force-velocity curve and shifts the entire curve upwards except at the velocity end where it might have very minor improvement; furthermore, the velocity end of the force-velocity curve doesn’t matter bc hockey players don’t ever reach their top speed in hockey (unless they do like 2 laps around the ice uninterrupted and I am not sure even then if they will reach their top speed! The only way to compare this is to have someone skate for a 100m on a frozen river and then compare the results)
Acceleration is the key component in Hockey for all those fast players. Hockey is a very low friction component so that some of the time they can glide to their destination. This very similar to outer space where you send something in motion with an intial thrust of fuel and it can go forever until it hits something. Hockey is different than sprinting bc in sprinting you are always acclerating/decelerating; whereas, in hockey you can be accelerating/decelerating or neither (this isn’t entirely true bc there is some friction component). In the case when someone is gliding then they hardly expend any excess energy!
Acceleration and Special Endurance are the keys! So I don’t see where a 400 let alone a 200m would help a hockey player. I see repeated 30-60m with a low RI the key to training a hockey player.
Good call Brotha.
Also good find on the older posts Blinky.
This week I started with a group of half a dozen Bantam AAA hockey players. I find it kind of nice that I’ll be able to mold them into athletes with all the tools needed to play almost any sport.
I’m going to emphasize on technique for a handful of exercises namely the squat. I’ll also teach them how to warm up and when to do what kind of stretches. I’ll also give them some nutritional advise. Yesterday I asked what they ate for their day and 1 actually was proud of the fact he had Froot Loops for breakfast.
My point is that I’ll be focusing on sprints as their main objective for the dryland. I won’t worry about all that agility crap, since someone else just before hockey starts with over do all of that. I’ll also work on their standing jumps, up and forwards.
I have a real responsibility with these kids and one of them is to give them the best opportunity to accel in sports and because their sport is hockey, one of their main weight training exercises will be the squat and their dryland exercises will be sprints.
You texans can train your guys how you want and I actually encourage it because the last thing we need are better hockey players coming from the US. 
I suppose you sprint to improve your verticle also? 
I agree sprinting will help hockey. If you don’t have access to ice or other devices you can SKATE on its a great training tool. Like I said earlier, only thing running does for hockey is build endurance, lactic acid tolerance (which by the way is very important in hockey), and helps develop quick feet (CNS). You guys are so scientific and stuff. :rolleyes:
Short duration sprints, 400m sprints, backward sprints, lateral spints, they all help. First and foremost it has to be tailored to player, position, and level. All I have to say is Bobby Orr. Those who know what I am talking about can eloborate for the others that shouldn’t even be on a hockey discussion board.
okay thats a little harsh, but?
Dudes, one thing I liked when I played was fartlek running, I felt this had a good carryover effect (Implemented with weights and plyos)…I liked fartlek cause it mimiced the type of action you would see on the ice more than just running…in a game you often sprint then float or coast, then sprint, ect, when I just ran distance I often felt I lost the ability to change speeds as efficiently…I would do fartlek on the bike and running , as well as on the ice, I really think this helped mimic the energy systems used in a real game, just a thought???..I am not sure if this book is a good read anymore but the Over-speed skills training for hockey by Blatherwick was a good read back when I was playing juniors, it talked about a lot of soviet training and talks about how hockey players should train like sprinters. If you want specifics let me know I will be glad to post some!
I appreciate the links to past threads, but the main topics discussed on these threads were using sprints to train the energy systems for hockey. I agree completely that sprinting can benifit hockey players. My only problem with most of the previous posts is that the original topic was asking how to make the hockey stride more POWERFUL using off-ice methods. Granted, sprint work will transfer power to the stride (as I have said many times), but it is not the best way to do it. A HIT style routine can make you stronger, but there are better ways to reach higher results.
“A HIT style routine can make you stronger, but there are better ways to reach higher results.”
GREAT POINT!!! Sorry if I posted on the wrong topic.
Ok did you put that in as a joke or are you being serious?
plook,
personally I would not use hit to train for hockey but what the hell do I know…I copied the whole quote I meant to just copy the there are better ways to reach higher results, I am an fool don’t take any of my posts too seriously!
Plook did you see CF/Ian King’s seminar video, they talked a bit about hockey training when some dude posted up a sample week program…one thing that was interesting to me was that the guy who was writing the example said that he has no control over what they do on the ice ( I think he was the teams S&C coach). That being said the teams I played on, the practices were pretty much every day and although forwards, defense, and goalies had seperate drills, I rarely remeber (if ever) during the season if coaches designed specific drills based on individual players weaknesses during the season, most weaknesses such as skating, shooting, stickhandling had to be done in the summer or on your own time depending on the ice time access. Most practices were full of bag skates and systems work (ie breakout, forechecking, traps). I think practices need to address more skill work even as players are still in the juniors and pros.
An interesting point also was that you do not want to take too much time away from skating work as you will lose that feel that is needed to perform skills, if you have ever taken a week or two off and then went back to the ice I will bet your stickhandling was a bit off! Sorry for getting off topic again 
Try taking 4 years off then step into some high tempo skating drills with the younger kids. Your body knows what it wants to do but it doesn’t seem to do it.
As far as the sarcasm, that’s one of the downfalls of reading text, you can’t hear how thick the sarcasm is being laid.
I too believe that most coaches don’t have a friggin clue as to put together a practice to actually help the players improve. Bag skates are pretty much the worst thing you can give them. Also coaches can’t seem to comprehend the whole CNS fatigue thing too well either.
But as far as the opening topic goes, if you want to become a better skater, practice skating. If you want to improve your skating and power without being on the ice, sprint.