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Fitness for Hockey Players

The Development of Anaerobic (Speed) Edurance

Performance Guide

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Georgia State Uni Fitness 

Fitness is important for hockey players to succeed at any level.  

This section deals with some of the elements of fitness, benchmark measurements and some exercises to help with your own fitness.

Please note these notes apply to adults and are for guidance only. Junior players should consult their coaches for guidelines.

The elements of fitness are generally recognized as:

• Stamina

• Speed

• Strength 

• Flexibility

It is important to hockey training that all of these are worked on equally. No one element is more important than the other.  

If you are in any doubt about your ability to train due to illness or injury, always consult a doctor.  If you have not exercised for a while, build up slowly, particularly if you are overweight.

Health Benefits of Exercise and Physical Activity:

• Reduce the risk of premature death
• Reduce the risk of developing and/or dying from heart disease
• Reduce high blood pressure or the risk of developing high blood pressure
• Reduce high cholesterol or the risk of developing high cholesterol
• Reduce the risk of developing colon cancer and breast cancer
• Reduce the risk of developing diabetes
• Reduce or maintain body weight or body fat
• Build and maintain healthy muscles, bones, and joints
• Reduce depression and anxiety
• Improve psychological well-being
• Enhanced work, recreation, and sport performance

Stamina

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This is known more technically as aerobic endurance.  Keeping going for 70 minutes and being able to perform skills when you are tired is critical for all players - particularly in midfield. Stamina is the basic component of fitness required to play hockey and a base to work from.

To improve your stamina you should go on steady runs for 20 to 40 minutes as part of your programme. These runs can be more usefully combined with speed endurance work to help with change of pace.

As a base level, you should be able to run at a steady pace for 70 minutes.  If you can't, build up slowly from however long you can run. Never try to push yourself more than this.

If you can measure your pulse, as a rule of thumb, your heart rate should never exceed 220 beats per minute minus your age. For example, if you are 30, you should not let your heart rate go above 190. If you don't happen to be wired to a heart monitor, another guide is that you should be able to talk comfortably to someone you are running with.  

Finally, after a steady run, measure your heart rate immediately after the run and then at five minute intervals thereafter.  The quicker your recovery rate (compared to your normal resting pulse) then the better your stamina.

Speed

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The ability to run at pace over short distances is crucial to the game of hockey. Change of pace can be used to beat a player in attack, to win the ball in midfield and for defenders to close and channel.  The bad news is that speed is essentially an inherited ability. However, by using fartlek running and speed endurance, your basic speed can be improved.

Strength

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Benefits of Strength Training:

• Increased muscular strength
• Increased strength of tendons and ligaments
• Potentially improves flexibility (range of motion of joints)
• Reduced body fat and increased lean body mass (muscle mass)
• Potentially decreases resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure
• Positive changes in blood cholesterol
• Improved glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity
• Improved strength, balance, and functional ability in older adults

Strength Training Principles:

1. Overload: To see gains in strength you must always stimulate the muscle more than it is accustomed to.
2. Progression: The active muscle must continue to work against a gradually increasing resistance in order to meet overload.
3. Specificity: Gains you receive are dependent on the muscle group used, and movement pattern performed. 
   • Strength (maximal force): If you are interested in strength gains you want to train with higher weights and closer to your 1 RM.
   • Endurance (submaximal force that is repeated): If you are interested in gains in endurance, you should concentrate on lifting lower weights and higher repetitions.
4. Arrangement:
   • Warm-up - the warm-up should be "sport specific". In other words, if you are performing the bench press, begin your warm-up with a light intensity and perform 8-10 reps.
   • Stretch - it is important to stretch to promote increased blood flow to the muscles, and to increase flexibility, range of motion and decrease the risk of injury.
   • Workout - work larger muscle groups first, then smaller muscle groups.
   • Cool-down - keeps the body active and prevents pooling of blood in the extremities. The cool-down is done at a lower intensity.
5. Breathing: When lifting weight or working muscles against resistance, exhale through the mouth as you are performing the work. Caution: Failure to breathe correctly during heavy weight lifting may cause drastic increases in blood pressure that may be harmful.

Flexibility

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Stretching is often one of the most neglected components of many players' fitness. Yet it is one of the most important and can be particularly well developed while players are young. Because of this you should be devoting additional time to stretching at this stage. 

Improved flexibility will help to reduce the risk of injury, improve your execution of skills and reduce the likelihood of muscle soreness. 

When to stretch ? 
1) Stretching can be done after a warm up prior to a training session or game in order to prepare the muscles for the exercise that is to follow. This usually requires about 10 minutes. 
2) Stretching should be done after a training session or game since it helps to initiate the recovery process. This may take a little longer, anything up to half an hour. 
3) Additional stretching should be done 3-5 times a week if you are serious about improving your flexibility. The time devoted to stretching before and after exercise is usually insufficient for improvement to be achieved. Goalkeepers and other specialist players may require more flexibility work than others, while players with poor flexibility in key areas may need to devote additional attention to this component of their fitness. A flexibility- specific training session usually requires about half an hour. It should be done either after a good warm up, or in the evening after a bath or shower. 

Stretching is not something that is done only in the minutes before a game or training session, simply to fill the time available. 

How to stretch ? 
There are a number of principles that should be adhered to whenever you do any stretching: 

1) You must be warm before you do it. 
2) You must stretch all of the major muscle groups, as well as smaller ones relevant to your game. 
3) You must do your stretching in a logical order e.g. from your neck down or feet up. 
4) You must stretch each muscle group slowly and under control. The stretch should be 'held' for 10-20 seconds at the point at which you can feel tension, but NO pain. As this feeling wears off, you should attempt to increase the stretch again until the same feeling develops. This too should be held for 10- 20 seconds. The muscle group should then be relaxed and the stretch repeated twice more. At no time should any pain he experienced.