| Determining how to condition properly for hockey is a | | | | |
| controversial subject that is debated by coaches from | | | | Do You Want to Be "Fit" or "Fast"? |
| the atom ranks all the way up to the pros. When it | | | | Ultimately, on the issue of proper conditioning for |
| comes to designing an off-season training program, | | | | hockey, it comes down to choosing between being |
| most experts agree on how to best develop strength, | | | | aerobically ‘fit’ or being strong, fast and |
| speed and power in young hockey players, but there is | | | | powerful. Players must make a trade-off when it |
| always disagreement on how to best develop | | | | comes to conditioning. They can either possess a |
| conditioning. | | | | high level of endurance or game-breaking speed and |
| | | | | quickness. It is physiologically impossible to develop |
| Slow & Steady Does NOT Win the Race | | | | both of these qualities to their highest extent in athletes. |
| The game of hockey is characterized by short, | | | | |
| explosive, high-intensity efforts interspersed with | | | | Elite hockey players are speed and power athletes |
| periods of complete rest. The best hockey players in | | | | and must train to enhance those qualities. Players |
| the world are the ones who are strong, fast, agile and | | | | must develop their ability to perform repeated |
| powerful - not those who can run at 10 miles in the | | | | high-intensity intervals and maintain their ‘jump’ |
| fastest time. Hockey is simply not an endurance | | | | and explosiveness throughout an entire game, instead |
| sport. In fact, the best players on the ice tend to be | | | | of focusing on their ability to go for long distances at a |
| the ones who perform poorly on off-ice tests of | | | | moderate pace. |
| endurance. | | | | In the majority of cases, young players are simply |
| The challenge is that players feel as though they are | | | | unaware that the endurance training they are devoting |
| becoming more fit for hockey by focusing on | | | | so much time and energy to is actually detrimental to |
| increasing their endurance in the off-season. Players | | | | their overall performance on the ice. |
| who go for long slow distance runs over the summer | | | | Bottom line: When young players focus on doing long |
| will definitely develop their endurance, but this | | | | slow distance training instead of high-intensity |
| enhancement will come at the expense of their ability | | | | interval-based training, they are quite often training |
| to perform at the highest intensity level consistently | | | | themselves OUT of hockey shape and are making |
| throughout the game. | | | | themselves SLOW. |