Power and Speed Training: How-to incorporate plyometrics into your summer training.

Welcome to Part 5 of our Off-Season Training guide: Incorporating plyometrics training to develop power and speed.

Plyometric training for the sport of ice hockey can have a great impact on the athlete’s on- ice performance. Why train for explosive power and speed?

• Explosive power allows you to start, stop and react quickly to elude a defender or to stay with your check
• Fast accelerations allow you to capture or move to space on offense
• Fast accelerations and speed allow you to establish position and reduce space for better defense
• Fast accelerations and high speed give you a better transition game
• Higher speed gives you more momentum and an advantage in collisions
• Higher speeds can be transferred into greater shot velocity

Plyometrics bridge the gap between strength and speed. If you want to improve your athletic performance, the transition from strength training to power training will play an integral part in your success. Here’s why…Maximum strength takes 0.5 to 0.7 seconds to produce. Yet most explosive, athletic movements occur much more rapidly. Whether your objective is to accelerate faster, shoot the puck harder, move around the ice more quickly, jump higher or throw further… The key to improving your power and performance lies in generating the highest possible force in the shortest possible time… Plyometrics play a primary role in this training objective. Ideally you would first develop a high level of maximal strength before starting a plyometrics program. This gives you the greatest potential for peak power. The underlying principle of plyometric training is the stretch-shortening cycle. Very simply, as a muscle stretches and contracts eccentrically (lengthens) it produces storable elastic energy. If the muscle then contracts concentrically (shortens) this elastic energy can be used to increase the force of the contraction.

A good example is jumping…If an athlete jumps vertically they will invariably dip down just before takeoff. Quickly lowering their centre of gravity stretches the working muscle groups allowing them to contract more forcefully for the jump. In essence a muscle stretched before it contracts will contract much more forcefully. What role does plyometrics play in all of this? Plyometric training places increased stretch loads on the working muscles. As the muscles become more tolerant to the increase loads the stretch-shortening cycle becomes  more efficient. The muscle stores more elastic energy. It can transfer from the eccentric or stretching phase to the concentric or lengthening phase more rapidly. This is the key to generating peak power. Lower body based plyometrics should be the dominant part of your training program as more of the power needed in the sport of hockey comes from the lower body. The hips, gluteals, quadriceps and hamstring areas must be strong and flexible to maximize performance and implement a hockey plyometric program. It is these muscle groups that are key to developing a strong powerful skating stride. In summary, plyometrics are exercises that enable muscles to reach maximum strength in as short a time as possible. In other words, these exercises develop power.

Principle of Overload: Are you training progressively?

Welcome to Part 4 of our Off-Season Training guide:  The Principle of  Overload

The overload principle states that in order to keep making gains from an exercise program, you must find some way to make it more difficult. This is because bodies adapt to exercise. The problem is that once your body adapts to a given workload, it will not continue to adapt unless the workload is increased somehow. If you do not continue to adapt, then eventually you will plateau and regress. Having stated that it is necessary to make conditioning programs more difficult, one caution should be kept in mind: you must observe specificity when applying the overload principle. Performing a set of  twenty might be a way of making the workout more difficult, but if you need to enhance the phosphagen energy system then you are violating specificity. There are a number of ways to apply the  overload principle to a strength and conditioning program:

• increase the weight lifted
• increase the volume of work
• change the exercises employed
• modify the order of the exercises
• alter the rest periods

Increasing the weight that is lifted will make the workout more difficult. Heavier weights will force your muscles, connective tissue, bone and nervous system to adapt. Lifting heavier weights will also cause you to initially perform fewer repetitions with the weight.

Increasing the volume of work—either number of sets, number of repetitions, or some combination thereof—will result in your body having to adapt to it. This is one of the main ways to elicit larger muscles and connective tissue adaptation from strength training. One should be careful with this method of applying overload; a volume that is too great will train the wrong energy system.

Changing the exercises employed is a way to increase overload that many individuals are reluctant to use. Many people feel that the exercises they are performing are the only ones that can elicit certain gains. This is not so. Changing the exercises has a number of benefits, including keeping the workouts interesting and requiring your body and nervous system to adapt to resistance imposed in a totally different way. There are many exercises that train the same movement and the same muscle groups, this means that you do not have to rely on one exercise to train a given area.

The order that exercises are performed is another way to provide overload. By changing when exercises are performed, you make some exercises more difficult to perform and others easier. For example, in your current workout your exercise order may look like this: bench press, incline press, dumbbell flies. Now, let’s change the order of exercises so that the new workout looks like this: dumbbell flies, incline press, bench press. The result of this change is that you will be able to lift more weight on the dumbbell flies and incline press, because they are performed while you are fresher. You will lift less weight on the bench press, because it will be performed while you are fatigued. Not only will you become stronger on the first two exercises, but you will also keep your workouts interesting and this will also help your body to adapt in a different manner because you are focusing on the first two exercises instead of the bench press.

A final way to provide overload is to modify the amount of rest. This must be used carefully to ensure that you are observing specificity. By increasing the amount of rest in between sets, you allow your body to recover more completely. This means you will be able to lift heavier weights with a greater number of repetitions. The benefit oft this approach to training is that it allows you to increase your strength on exercises. Conversely, if you shorten the amount of rest in between sets, you do not allow yourself as much recovery. It becomes more difficult to lift a given amount of weight. While this does not do as good a job of increasing strength, it does force the muscles to grow to adapt to the rest period.

Overload is not something that only needs to be applied on a daily basis, it must be applied over a lifetime of training. The final principle deals with the importance of applying overload logically over time.

Principle of Specificity: Are you training right?

Welcome to Part 3 of our Off-Season Training guide:  The Principle of Specificity of Training

The principle of specificity is deceptively simple and it drives all the gains that one makes from a strength training program. Specificity states that the body makes gains from exercise according to how the body exercises. This  principle is important because applying it correctly will allow one to have a focused, efficient, effective program that will lead to the desired gains. Failing to apply it will result in wasted energy and time, and it will result in frustration as gains do not materialize.

When developing a conditioning program, you should consider the following:

• the movements to be trained
• the muscles and joints to be trained
• the energy system(s) to be trained
• the speed of movement

Strength and conditioning programs can be designed to enhance movements that are performed in athletics. This is important because this may improve an athlete’s performance. It may do this by strengthening the movement; it may also accomplish this by allowing the athlete to practice the movement with resistance. It is also important because it can maximize an athlete’s training time and be used to help prevent injuries in the athletic event. A number of  questions should be considered to help with this:

Is the activity performed standing?
What joints perform the activity?
Do the joints work together or sequentially? If sequentially, what is the sequence of movement?
What motions are performed by each joint?

Things like workload, rest, and intensity are driven by the energy system(s) that you want to train. Energy system training is critical to improving athletic performance. Often performance is limited by your energy stores and your ability to replenish them, both of which are trainable. You can design conditioning programs to enhance the energy system(s) that are used in an athletic event. To do this, consider the following:

How long does the event last?
Is the event performed continuously? Or does the athlete get to rest?
If the event is not continuous, how much time does the athlete actually spend moving before he or she gets to rest?

Energy system training is an important consideration because it helps to dictate how much weight to use, how many repetitions to perform, and the amount of recovery time. If you are interested in increasing the stores of ATP, then training will involve heavy weight, low repetitions, and lots of rest. Glycolytic training will involve moderate reps, moderate weight, and little rest. Aerobic training means lighter weights, many repetitions, and no rest.

A final consideration with specificity concerns the velocity of movement. The gains from exercise are specific to the velocities that the exercises are performed at. If exercises are performed at slow speeds, then we become stronger at slow speeds; however, there is little transfer to faster speeds. If exercises are performed at faster speeds, then we become stronger at faster speeds. This is important for athletics because few sports are performed at slow speeds.

If one is designing a conditioning program for a sport that is performed at high speeds, then one will need to include exercises that make athletes stronger at high speeds. These include things like the variations of the Olympic-style lifts (the clean, the snatch, and the jerk), plyometric exercises, and sprints.

The principle of specificity is important because it dictates what gains are made.

Hockey Off-Season Training: Aerobic v. Anaerobic Training

Welcome to Part 2 of our Off-Season Training guide:  Aerobic v. Anaerobic training, which should I focus on?

Your body has different energy systems that work together to fuel your hockey performance. Although hockey is primarily an anaerobic sport, a strong aerobic base allows you to work longer and at a higher intensity by postponing fatigue and allowing a speedy recovery. The aerobic system provides energy for low- and moderate- intensity exercise and helps the body recover from fatigue. For example, a 1-hr bike ride at a comfortable pace is fueled mainly by the aerobic system. Hockey is characterized by repeated bouts of high- intensity action interspersed with periods of moderate activity and rest. The aerobic energy system supplies only a small portion of the energy needed during  moderate activity, but it is critical for efficient recovery between play stoppages and during time on the bench.  Aerobic conditioning can be improved through submaximal continuous exercise and through high- intensity, intermittent exercise. Submaximal continuous exercise at 75-80 % of your maximum heart rate for 30 to 60 minutes will improve your heart’s ability to deliver oxygen to the muscles for energy and will allow the body to recover more quickly from intense efforts. Intermittent aerobic condioning, using a series of 2-3 minutes if higher intensity exercise interspersed with 2 to 3 minutes of rest builds up the aerobic supply system and increases the muscles ability to extract oxygen from the blood.

There are two different types of programs to build aerobic fitness:

1. Continuous, moderate intensity, long duration programs
2. Intervals of high intensity work followed by easy recovery intervals of 1,2, or 3 minutes grouped into various packages of time

For interval programs, the training load can be increased in a number of ways:

• Increasing the duration of work intervals from 1 to 2 to 3 minutes
• Increasing the intensity of each work interval
• Decreasing the time of the recovery interval
• Increasing the intensity of the work interval
• Increasing the number of work/recovery intervals

On the other side of things, the anaerobic systems produce energy very quickly to meet the demands of intense action, such as the slap-shot, sprinting on a breakaway, or stops-and- starts while penalty killing. These systems utilize the ATP-PC (phoshagen) system and the glycolytic system for energy. In hockey, although the game itself lasts for about an hour, the players are usually only on the ice for high- intensity shifts of approximately 30 to 45 seconds (ideally). Most teams have 3 to 4 lines, allowing for a 1:2 or 1:3 work-to-rest ratio. However, depending on the situation (e.g., penalty killing, power plays or missing player), key players often work within a 1:2 or 1:1 work-to-rest ratio. Due to the nature of hockey, it is important to train anaerobically.

The ATP-PC system provides immediate energy, in the form of ATP, for short-term, high- intensity activities for up to 10 seconds. The glycolytic system provides energy for longer high- intensity activities ranging from 10 seconds to 2 minutes. This level of training corresponds directly to the physiological requirements of the game. To develop anaerobic energy systems, we will utilize sprint interval training. These involve full-out, high- intensity, high-speed intervals followed by rest or active recovery. We will use sprints ranging from less than 10 seconds to around 30 seconds, with a 1:2 or 1:3 work-to-rest ratio. [For example, a 1:2 work-to-rest ration involves sprinting all-out for 30 seconds, active recovery for 1 minute, then sprinting full out again.] Towards the end of the training program, you should make an attempt to progress to 1:1 work-to-rest ratios, especially if you are a defenseman or part of the special team units.

Hockey Off-Season Training: Using your time wisely

To understand hockey strength and conditioning you have to be aware of the unique demands placed on an ice hockey player. In order to be successful in hockey, besides having exceptional skills, players should participate in a program that will enhance their strength, power, speed and agility. Ice hockey has a number of unique features. During the game, players must accelerate and decelerate rapidly in shifts that last 30-45 seconds on average. The game is played in shifts and the player rests sitting down. In addition, hockey players must endure extremely high force collisions due to the high speeds attained in skating.

Although many so-called authorities will tell you the energy supply for hockey may be primarily aerobic, the trained observer may draw a different conclusion. Forwards generally play in a rest-to-work ratio in the area of 3:1, while defensemen use a rest-to-work ration of 2:1. Most sports can be classified somewhere between low intensity and high intensity activity. Low intensity activities can continue for long periods of time. However, high intensity activities can proceed only in short spurts interspersed with regular rest intervals to facilitate recovery. Using these definitions, hockey places towards the high intensity end of the scale.

The off-season strength program should focus on preparing both the muscular system and the neuromuscular system. Exercise selection should include explosive weightlifting movements, multi-joint lower body exercises, upper body pulling and pressing movements, and a full range of trunk movements.

The off-season conditioning program should focus on speed development and interval training. We tell our athletes: “train slow, get slow.” Conditioning, speed development, and strength training should be specific to the sport of ice hockey. Speed training on land, using similar intervals to the game, but some conventional aerobic training should also be done.

There are two phases to building fitness for hockey:

1. Improving general fitness or getting “into shape”
2. Hockey-specific conditioning

Getting in shape means improving aerobic power, flexibility, strength and diet while decreasing body fat and increasing muscle mass. The second phase requires conditioning specifically for the demands faced on the ice. Exercises and drills are selected and completed with specific exercise prescriptions so that your physical and physiological development best suits the game of ice hockey. We are going to work on developing a good base of strength and conditioning before moving onto the development of sport-specific attributes.

Over the next couple of weeks, I will continue to add blog posts expanding on the principles of designing an effective summer training program, the benefits of attending specialty hockey clinics and hockey camps, and the things you need to do to become a college hockey player.