Hockey players are warriors – at least the ones that we have had the pleasure of working with. These guys shut up and get right to work every single day. They easily play over 100 games a year, which has engrained a “game-like” outlook towards their training. They’re always ready when it’s time to train.

For a prep hockey player, the goal is to make a junior team. These junior teams have various leagues with varying levels of competition. The right league can accelerate your hockey career and also set you up for a college education and college play.

We had two PSTS athletes drafted in the USHL Draft this past May.

Sam Rennaker who was drafted by the Des Moines Buccaneers. Sam has been training with us for the past year and we’re proud of the work he has put in! He was definitely the experienced veteran of this group and kept the guys working hard every day.

Brent Gates Jr. -who was drafted by the Green Bay Gamblers. Junior trained for over 3-months and improved his overall strength, explosive power, and gained muscle, He said he was skating faster and felt great on the ice – sweet music to my ears! Junior also had the pleasure of playing for Team USA this past summer – you can check it out here http://www.woodtv.com/dpp/sports/grand-rapids-teen-to-play-for-usa-in-hockey-tourney

Cody Antonini, Mitchell Hawes, and Remy Woods will also be playing for teams in varying leagues as well.  All the guys listed above trained 3x/week.

Hockey athletes need to be strong, tough, and have an intense work ethic.  From a training standpoint, they also need to counterbalance and ‘even out’ their bodies from all the side-to-side movement they perform when skating.

So, here are 6 things we emphasized training these hockey players….

1. Proper nutrition to gain weight and when/what to consume. Training, practices, and games make it tough to pack on the pounds in you are undisciplined in this area. These guys all packed on 7-15lbs of bodyweight in 3-months.

2. Emphasize single-leg training. Lunges, split squats, and sled drags were staples in their program. This helps balance out the muscles of the quad, which reduces injuries and pain in their knees and hips. 

3. Proper technique and getting strong with the main lifts. Squat, bench, and deadlifts were hit often and heavy.

4. Power was trained in all planes of motion. Various jumps and reactive drills were implemented to improve athleticism. A hockey player doesn’t have to jump on the ice but by doing so it taps into the fast-twitch muscle fibers to improve explosiveness. They all gained 2+” on their vertical jumps and were much more explosive performing broad jumps and hurdle jumps in all planes of movement.

5. Core work was hit with full body movements as well as special anti-rotation movements. Again, we needed to counteract the side-to-side skating motion so bracing and creating core rigidity was emphasized. Various sprints (weighted and unweighted) were also performed to help with this.

6. Finishers- we would add in some of the most brutal finishers you could imagine with these guys. This was to build toughness but also to make them work for 45-120 seconds, (which is about the timeframe of a shift on the ice), allowing us to tap into a little energy system training without too much detail.

As you can see, hockey athletes must dominate the basics like any other athlete. Having more strength and the overall ability to produce force allows them to transition this to the ice with ease (maximal outputs vs. operational outputs anyone?)

Get big. Get strong. Get tough. Play hockey.

-Mark

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