Training for Ice Hockey
 

I am a hardcore recreational ice hockey player (translation: I suck balls but I take shinny more seriously than some NHL'ers take the pro game). I am in pretty lousy shape, 5'8" 153 (its not muscle). What can I do to improve my skating and my overall upper body and wrist/forearm strength? Also, aside from powerskating, what are good ways to improve my technique? I am a slow and ugly skater with poor balance.

jmp - There are lots of things you can do to help improve your technique. The best thing to do to help your skating is to practice every chance you can get. Rollerblading is an OK substitute for the real thing, just remember when you get back on the ice that you don't have a stopper any more. :)

As far as increasing your strength, you can do things like curls to help with your forearm strength. I also like to use weighted pucks that you can buy at most hockey pro shops. You can practice stickhandling with them, just don't try shooting them. That's a great way to break a stick or your goaltender's hand. I also like to put one or two weights for baseball bats on my stick to help improve strength. For overall training, I think working on your core strength helps the most. Most of your skating stride derives it's power from your quads and abs. I think squats, leg presses for the legs, crunches and using that twisty abdominal machine has helped me the most.

Squats are GREAT for skating, when you skate your power comes from your gleutes, hamstrings, and quads... squats hit all three (and stabilizer muscles in your back and abs). I'm down here in Texas atm but used to live in Canada. Weighted Lunges (lunges with the squatbar and weight) are great too but are borderline dangerous (as in dont go over 135 for safety's sake). Do lots of crunches, but do as many cross-crunches (elbow to knee) as you can. These help you take and give hits, and are muscles that are hard to work out any other way. All the standard workouts help, bench-press, pullups, triscep extention, etc.

Replace your car and bike with a pair of heavy Bauer street hockey skates. Live on them. Now start on a general weight traning regiment. If you want a good example of a regiment, PM me.

Check out this site http://www.playyourgame.com/miehm-01102003.html I only gave it a quick glance but looks good.

I played hockey all my life, the OHL, QMJHL, UHL for forearm strength take a maybe 12 inch piece of wood and hang a 2 pound weight from it, with the weight touching the ground. Hold your arms straight out in front of you at shoulder height and DON'T bend your elbows. Now simply rotate your wrists keeping your arms straight till the weight reaches the piece of wood. Then unravel the weight in the same fashion that you brought the weight up in.

The key to this exercise is to keep your arms straight, any bend and it totally defeats the purpose of the exercise.

As for skating, just keep trying rolerblades work great but don't really give you the same range of motion as regular skates. Just keep an eye on your stride when you skate and make sure you are getting the most out of all your strides.

Good luck, I hope you enjoy playing the game, keep us up to date with you progress.

Silent Jay - that looks like a great site. I'm glad you shared it with us.

not a problem, if anyone needs any help with a training program or anything else feel free to PM me. I always like seeing people enjoying the greatest game in the world.

You played the OHL and the QMJHL? With what teams?

London and Hull

power skating? schma. play goalie for a real treat! Still recovering from last night's game. 45 shots on goal, saw pucks in my sleep.

For balance find some exercises that use balance ball or bosu balls. There is lots of good info out there.

Do hockey players ever use the harnesses that track runners use to "tow" someone behind for added resistance? I would imagine that it would make someone more explosive, but perhaps if the "towed" person was on skates it wouldn't be enough resistance.

We used to turn the nets around and push them up and down the ice, great workout

silent_jay, have you heard of the CHL? I found out that my local team (The Laredo Bucks) have open tryouts every year and my goal has been to try and get good enough to try out. i was just looking at different posts and ran across this one. lots of great info here. thanks

The Central Hockey League, I think. Open tryouts are a great shot for players who other wise wouldn't have a chance. Thats how I got a shot with the Flint Generals in the UHL a few years back.

Just go out and make yourself noticed, make sure that every shift you give everything you have. If the coaches and the scouts notice you all the better. If you have a bad shift, have an even better shift the next to make up for it, coaches notice these things.

Its not always the most talented players that make the team, its the players who give the most in training camps and practices. I imagine there will be tons of off ice training in camp, at least there used to be so be ready for that. This is a decent program I found on the net, it seems to cover all the bases that you should touch on.

http://www.gonanooks.com/artman/publish/training.pdf

If that link doesn't work just scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the pdf link

http://www.gonanooks.com/artman/publ...ckeytrain.html

Good luck with the training, if you run into any problems or have any questions feel free to PM me.

I'll keep searching for some programs that mige be good and post them here, again good luck and stay positive.