Hockey is a sport for an all-around athlete. For starters, you are balancing on a less than 3mm piece of steel going at top speed. The game of hockey is physical, as well as high intensity, all while thinking about what your next move with the puck is. So as you could imagine, being a hockey player you need to train your body with both strength and conditioning. Hockey players have nearly every muscle to focus on when training.
When going into the corner battling against the opposing player, being strong on your skates and stick is essential. Hockey is a physical game regardless of if there is hitting allowed or not; you are constantly going shoulder to shoulder against the other players. Essentially, the bigger and stronger person will win the battles. Strength also comes in handy when shooting the puck. The stronger you are the harder your shot will be and harder to save. Just like a sprinter, hockey players must have powerful legs. The proper skating stance is sitting at 90 degrees the entire shift, needless to say that burns the quads and makes strong legs necessary.
Now, there is a fine line between getting big and strong and being light and fast. Strength is absolutely necessary for hockey players, however, it is also important to be quick on the ice and being too bulky can slow you down. As you start training more and know your strengths and weaknesses, you can adjust accordingly and eventually your body will find where it needs to be to perform the best it can on the ice.
Hockey is a game played in high interval shifts. The perfect shift being 45 seconds at full speed making interval training an essential part of conditioning for hockey. Incorporating short and long sprints into your training regime is just as important as lifting weights, if not more important. Since hockey is unpredictable and a game of stop and starts and changing directions quickly, focusing on agility should make you faster on your skates.
When looking for ways to train for hockey there really isn’t a wrong way because you need it all. Hockey is a unique sport that requires complete athleticism and therefore strength, conditioning, speed work, and agility are all necessary to prep yourself for the hockey season.
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