Last week was an exciting week for Emily and I as we bought our first home. We’ve bounced around from Baltimore to center city Philadelphia to Collingswood, NJ over the last 6 years, and finally decided to “settle down” and get a place in Cherry Hill. As always, the Endeavor Crew and my friend Shane made the move a breeze (it’s amazing what kind of work you get out of those guys for a few Chipotle burritos!).
A few months ago, I wrote an article outlining exactly how you could use specific training methods on a skating treadmill to elicit different adaptations.
If you missed that, you can check it out here: Skating Treadmill Program
The important take home from that article is that you can use one exercise (or tool) in a variety of ways that all cause the athlete to improve in very different ways. This is really true of any exercise and is one of the reasons why answering questions like “Is squatting good?” or “what’s the best exercise for…” so difficult. Everything always depends on who the athlete is, what he/she needs, how the exercise is performed (movement quality, load, speed, sets, reps, rest, etc.).
Many of our players are in a phase of their off-season program where the focus is on improving alactic power, or their ability to move explosively for short periods of time.
One method we’ll use is short duration slideboarding where the goal is to get as many reps as possible in the allotted time. The intent is to minimize glide time (you aren’t producing power while you glide) and “explode” from board to board as quickly as possible. The players then rest the remainder of the minute (e.g. 8s of work, 52s of rest) before going again. We’ll typically do this in two blocks of 6-10 reps, with 3-5 minutes between blocks.
The video below is of Rob Hennessey, who is headed to Providence as a freshman next year, demonstrating this method.
Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com
P.S. If you want to take the guess work out of your off-season training and start using a program proven to deliver results, be sure to check this out >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation
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Kevin, Are you familiar with a device called power skater?
If yes, what are your thoughts of the device vs. slide board. As a conditioning tool?
Kevin-I know what it is, but I’ve never been on one so I can’t really comment. From the video they have, it looks too slow for it to have real value. When I was growing up, the team I played for had a device with tracks back at 45-degrees similar to the power skater that could be loaded with weights via a pulley system and there was a chest pad to support your upper body. I loved it and would use it a lot if we had one, but I don’t think that company got very far. At the time, I believe there were only a handful throughout the country.
Boy super future hockey player and good slideboard system… 10for 10
What is the spacing on the bumpers ?
I believe 7 feet is the standard. We’ll lengthen them out one for the tall guys (~6’2″+), but in general this distance works. Too close and the guys slip over the edge. Too far and they waste time gliding.