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Hockey does not necessarily qualify as a healthy sport.
A player lives on millimeters-wide blades in stiff boots, drives into ice that does not give and skates in motions that punish hips, all while trying to evade angry opponents.
These are unforgiving restrictions on athletes who, had they selected alternative sports, could be bending ankles, rotating hips and running on grass.
In that way, a hockey performance coachs job is to solve problems that lack ideal answers.
Advertisement On every stride, their hip is going into deep abduction, external rotation and extension, Bill DeLongis, head strength coach at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.
Every stride, if theyre taking a deep and long stride, then their adductors are on stretch.
Then bringing their foot back in, theyre going through the complete opposite.
Theyre going into adduction, flexion and internal rotation at the hip.
Its a lot of different muscles getting put into a lot of different precarious positions throughout.
As a college coach, DeLongis works with players in their teens and early 20s.
Even players of this age range arrive on campus with hips showing the strain of constant internal and external rotation.
The desire to ease the complications of training hockey players and keep them healthy is why DeLongis assembled a team of pro, college and independent performance coaches for Strength on Ice, a virtual summit.
This years summit, the second DeLongis has convened, produced approximately 11.5 hours of material from nine presenters.
It focused on strength, conditioning, cognitive training, performance optimization and injury prevention.
Participants included: - Vicki Bendus, Montreal Victoire - Cameron Dietz, University of Cincinnati - Anthony Donskov, Columbus Blue Jackets - Jackson Frey, GVN Performance - Paul Gagne, PG Performance - Tim Lebbossiere, Boston Bruins - Will Morlock, Michigan State - Matt Price, formerly of the Los Angeles Kings - Emma Schmid, Seattle Torrent Here is some of the intel they shared that hockey players can follow.
Nine hockey performance tips 1.
After a game, Bendus wants her Victoire players to calm down as quickly as possible to initiate recovery.
Bendus encourages use of essential oils, such as lavender, on pillows to promote relaxation.
2.
Some strength coaches program around five foundational patterns: squat, hinge, push, pull and carry.
Dietz, who works primarily with Bearcats baseball players at Cincinnati, emphasizes rotational movements too.
This all applies to hockey.
Consider how a player creates power by rotating their body on a one-timer.
Explosive and dynamic movements with bands, cables and medicine balls will make a shot more powerful.
Advertisement Youve got to treat training rotation like you would train a squat.
It should be a priority, said DeLongis.
It should be a main focus and one of your big rocks that youre progressing.
Treat it just like you would treat one of those other exercises of training for volume, training it heavy and training it explosively.
3.
To load for their next strides, good skaters must quickly get their skates back under their hips.
Off the ice, the Blue Jackets Donskov has his players crouch like they are in a tunnel, enter an athletic stance, jump with their feet aimed outward like theyre doing jumping jacks, and then land with their feet back under their hips.
These are hockey-specific jumps to train explosive leg abduction and adduction.
Donskov calls them skater jacks.
4.
Some of Freys clients in the independent sports performance space are high school- and college-aged.
Frey likes to multiply a players height in inches by 2.5 to set a minimum target weight.
(For example, a 6-foot-2 high schoolers target would be 185 pounds.) If they fall short, Freys program emphasizes weight gain to promote safety in contact situations.
Once the player reaches the minimum weight, Frey tests them on force plates.
Frey prefers the player to produce at least 64 newtons per kilogram in a squat.
If they fall short, Frey adjusts the program to emphasize strength.
Then, to measure a players braking and propulsive power, Frey puts them back on force plates.
The target here is 210 to 220 percent of a players weight in force.
Exercises to help a player reach that threshold include trap bar deadlifts, eccentric flywheel squats, step-ups and pin squats.
5.
Lebbossiere encourages Bruins players to follow a 4-2-1 pregame nutrition formula: a meal with carbohydrates, fat and protein four hours before game time; a carbohydrate-based snack (toast or fruit, for example) two hours before puck drop; and a sports drink or gel one hour beforehand.
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Lebbossiere recommends 60 grams of carbohydrates per 60 minutes once a game starts, between shifts or during intermissions.
6.
Lebbossiere emphasizes aerobic development during Bostons initial offseason segment.
He likes his players to ride the bike, for example, at 70 to 80 percent of maximum heart rate for at least 30 minutes.
The objective is to expand the size and strength of the hearts left ventricle, which pumps oxygenated blood to the aorta.
Lebbossiere also prescribes one- to two-minute bursts at approximately 90 percent of maximum heart rate.
Players should perform four to 12 repetitions with two to five minutes of rest between each rep.
The purpose is to strengthen heart contractions to make pumping blood more efficient.
Weight lifting in this segment should also promote cardiovascular improvement.
A sample lift would be a goblet squat in which players take two to three seconds in both directions of the movement.
The players should do three to five sets of eight to 10 reps with 40 to 60 seconds of rest in between.
This increases the amount of force produced by slow-twitch fibers while also training the aerobic system.
Later in the NHL offseason, after players have built an aerobic foundation, Lebbossiere emphasizes explosive movements.
The program includes steep hill sprints, bike sprints at high resistance and heavy sled sprints: 10 seconds on, 50 seconds off.
Before the start of training camp, Lebbossiere wants Bruins players to prepare for a typical shift by riding all-out on an assault bike for 40 to 60 seconds with three minutes of rest between reps.
7.
Michigan States Morlock likes an on-ice test that measures a players speed coming out of crossovers, both to the left and right.
A player usually produces the most speed off crossovers.
Testing post-crossover speed can help a skating coach measure whether a player can improve technique or power in one direction.
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During acceleration, feet should spend more time under players torsos than during a full-speed glide phase.
To correct overstriding, the Kings Price sets up a line of bags parallel to the boards and has players skate through the lane without making contact on either side.
This teaches players to shorten strides, increase their rate of skate turnover and improve acceleration.
9.
Schmid is big on mobility.
She prefers her Torrent players hips to have between 35 to 45 degrees of internal rotation and between 45 to 55 degrees of external rotation.
She aims for players to have 45 to 50 degrees of thoracic spine rotation in each direction, preferably with equal symmetry.
Conclusion For DeLongis, who has worked for USA Hockeys under-18 womens national team in addition to his current role as Trinitys head strength and conditioning coach, the essence of hockey poses unique challenges in the field of sports performance.
Humans were not meant to be with a blade on their foot on a sheet of ice.
Its very unnatural, DeLongis said.
Despite how long theyve been doing it, its still unnatural and its very stressful on the body.
Pretty rare to hear of a hockey player playing 12 months of the year most days of the week.
My basketball players I work with, they play all year round.
Precise training, however, can keep players healthy and performing at their peak.