If you haven’t yet, pick up a free copy of “Strong Hockey Core Training” on my site.  It details a few dozen equipment-free exercises and appropriate progressions.

After reading that you might be wondering two things:

1) What if I have equipment?

2) What’s next after I follow all those progressions?

My answer is similar for both: Medicine Ball Training!

I love med ball training.  It’s a great way to teach/train core stiffness and reinforce efficient force transfer from the hips to the upper body.

I think the transfer to hockey is huge, but just as importantly (especially in a team setting), it’s a lot of fun.

Three great exercises to start with are:

1) Overhead Floor Slam:

2) Side-standing Shot Put:

3) Underhand Toss:

As a quick side note: those videos were all filmed at Cressey Performance in Hudson, MA.  You can’t tell from the video, but the white brick wall only goes up about 12 feet.  At the end of a training session there last Summer, I mustered above just enough energy to underhand toss a medicine ball as hard as I could…straight over the wall.  For safety purposes, I recommend using a wall that goes very…very high.

The next level of progression for core training is to combine explosive force transfer with reactive stability.  Take a look at these two videos:

1) Overhead Floor Slam:

2) Overhead Perturbation:

Combine these two exercises so that you perform 2-3 slams, then catch the ball and hold it overhead while a partner lightly taps the ball for 5-10s while you resisted all movement.  Then immediately perform 2-3 more slams, and repeat the overhead perturbation, cycling through this process 2-4 times.  Training for periods of alternating explosive force transfer and reactive stability will have the greatest on-ice transfer, but it’s not for beginners.  Follow the progressions outlined in “Strong Hockey Core Training” before moving on to these types of exercises.