Tag: breakaway hockey speed

11 Speed Training Tips

A couple weeks ago Endeavor held its first ever “Social Media Takeover” that specifically dove into the topic of speed training. Today I wanted to share 11 of the speed training tips we shared on that day. Check out the Endeavor Sports Performance Instagram page for more training tips and exercise videos.

If you train athletes, I’d strongly encourage you to check out Lee Taft’s Certified Speed and Agility Coach program. In it, he lays out a comprehensive speed development system, outstanding movement progressions, and HIGHLY effective coaching cues. Since reviewing Lee’s material, we’ve made several changes to the way we teach, progress, and coach speed development in our athletes. Well worth the investment!

1) Speed development in youth athletes starts by understanding their stage of development. Kids respond better to certain training stimuli at different ages and maximizing the work they’re most receptive to will lead to more significant progress.

2) Profiling the specific movement demands of a sport is important to identify limiting factors to speed development and to design more sport-specific transitional speed exercises.

Movement analysis helps identify functional limitations to more optimal patterns and should drive programming for a more sport-specific transfer

3) The top pictures show a sprint initiation with a back foot push emphasis, which leads to an incomplete drive off the front foot and a low foot position on the swing through (see how close right foot is to ground). Bottom pictures show a teaching progression we use to emphasize front foot push-off. Note the more complete extension on the left leg and how much higher the right foot is after it swings through, leading to a more powerful second stride.

Emphasizing a strong front leg push is crucial for a quick start

4) Quick feet training is NOT speed training. Michael Flatley has the quickest feet in the world. Usain Bolt is the fastest in the world. One moves feet fast, but doesn’t move the body at all. The other produces extreme amounts of force with each stride to propel his body forward. Very different training implications.

5) One of the keys to a quick start is an aggressive arm action. Throwing the front hand back will reflexively drive a stronger first push coming out of the gate.

6)Not all speed training needs to look like speed training. This med ball throw variation is great for teaching a powerful front foot drive, full hip extension and a counter-rotation through the shoulders.

7) Optimizing movement efficiency increases speed and endurance by minimizing internal resistance to movement. It uses more effort and energy to run/skate with bad technique.

Slide taken from my presentation at the 2015 NHL Strength and Conditioning Coaches Conference

8) One of the most common mistakes while performing butt kickers is swinging the foot back behind the butt instead of pulling the heel up directly under the hip, which more directly mimics the pull through action of sprinting.

Pull the heel under the hip, not around the back.

9) Assessing the primary barriers to an INDIVIDUAL’S speed development should create the foundation for a more specific training program. These are the primary considerations for speed training.

Slide taken from my presentation at the 2015 NSCA Training for Hockey Clinic

10) A lot of athletes will actually run faster when told to run at 95% than they will at 100%. Simply, the desire to run at max effort causes the athlete to hold more tension in their muscles which slows down their movement. One of the best cues to help an athlete let go of excessive tension is to “relax your face”.

11) Sprinting posture can be taught with a Wall March, reinforced with a Sled March and integrated with a 2-point sprint start. Learn slow before you add speed to a movement.

Feel free to post any questions/comments you have below. If you’re interested in more hockey-specific speed training drills and information, check out Breakaway Hockey Speed.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

NO XPLODE Exposed

Today’s Thursday Throwback takes us back to 2011 and provides an inside look at what used to be a very popular supplement. Aside from the specific supplement referenced here, there are two big takeaways from this post that you should apply to ALL supplement choices:

1) It’s important to familiarize yourself with the brand. Because the supplement is completely unregulated by the FDA, companies can put whatever they want into their bottles. Simply, there’s no guarantee that what they claim the supplement contains (e.g. creatine) actually has that ingredient in the quantities they’re advertising. Some brands have gone through the process of becoming “NSF Certified for Sport” or have been certified by “Informed Choice”, which should give you a higher level of confidence that the supplement contains what it’s supposed to. I strongly discourage our athletes from going to supplement/grocery stores to by supplements. It’s unlikely a high quality brand is even carried at the store and a lot of the sales people at the more popular stores are dangerously under-informed.

2) A lot of times less is more. There are TONS of supplements, and supplement ingredients, out there, but the overwhelming majority have no scientific support that they actually work. A lot of times popular supplements contain a few inexpensive ingredients that do work, and a ton of “extra stuff” that doesn’t, and you end up paying a premium for inflated marketing campaigns and colorful wrappers instead of a higher quality ingredient. Knowing which supplements actually work can be tough to stay on top of, which is why I frequently refer back to this: Examine.com Supplement Goals Reference Guide. It’s nice to have an unbiased, comprehensive look at every supplement so you can quickly see if there’s research supporting it’s effectiveness.

The most informative, honest, unbiased look at supplementation, ever.

NO XPLODE Exposed

A couple years ago I wrote a supplement review that we never took to print. There was a considerable conflict of interest because the nature of the article could negatively impact sales of one of the site’s top sellers. To be honest, they handled it really well, apologizing to me and noting that it wouldn’t be good for their reputation with the company. I understood and still do; relationships are everything in business. With that said, I think the wide-spread use of this supplement is ludicrous and potentially dangerous. A deeper look inside:

NO XPLODE-A Look Inside

Assuming you don’t have an NO2 label in front of you (hopefully you don’t), let’s take a look at the nutrition facts and some of the other ingredients to see if we can pick out the ingredients out that are driving their marketing claims.

Calories: 25
Fat: 0 g
Carbohydrate: 6 g
Sugar: 0 g
Protein: 0 g
Vitamin B6: 25 mg
Vitamin B9: 400 mcg
Vitamin B12: 120 mcg
Calcium: 75 mg
Phosphorous: 535 mg
Magnesium: 360 mg
Sodium: 235 mg
Potassium: 75mg

Ingredients (get ready!):

In addition to the components listed above, N.O.-XPLODE contains N.O.-Xplode™’s Proprietary Blend, which consists of: L-Arginine AKG, L-Citrulline Malate, RC-NOS™ (Rutacarpine 95%), L-Citrulline AKG, L-Histidine AKG, NAD (Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide), Gynostemma Pentaphyllum (Leaves & Stem) (Gypenosides 95%), Modified Glucose Polymers (Maltodextrin), Di-Creatine Malate, Trimethylglycine, Creatine Ethyl Ester -Beta-Alanine Dual Action Composite (CarnoSyn®), Sodium Bicarbonate, Sodium Creatine Phosphate Matrix, Creatinol-O-Phosphate-Malic Acid Interfusion, Glycocyamine, Guanidino Proplonic Acid, Cinnulin PF® (Aqueous Cinnamon Extract) (Bark), Ketoisocaproate Potassium, Creatine ABB (Creatine Alpha-Amino-N-Butyrate), L-Tyrosine, Taurine, Glucuronolactone, Methylxanthine (Caffeine), L-Tyrosine AKG, MCT’s (Medium Chain Triglycerides)[Coconut], Common Periwinkle Vinpocetine 99%, Vincamine 99%, Vinburnine 99% (Whole Plant), Di-Calcium Phosphate, Di-Potassium Phosphate, Di-Sodium Phosphate, Potassium Glycerophosphate, Magnesium Glycerophosphate, Glycerol Stearate.

Other ingredients include: Citric Acid, Natural & Artificial Flavors, Calcium Silicate, Potassium Citrate, Sucralose(Splenda®), Acesulfame-K, FD&C Red #40, And FD&C Blue #1 (These are mostly just preservatives, sweeteners, and colors).

I’ll be honest. I’m far from a nutrition and supplement scientist. There are some people that could quote strengths and weaknesses of research on most of the above ingredients-I’m not one of them. I do, however, stay current on research demonstrating consistent effectiveness of specific supplements. In that light, there are a few things that really stand out to me when looking at the excessive laundry list of ingredients in NO XPLODE.

If you scan through the ingredients you’ll see creatine, beta-alanine, and caffeine. All of these have been shown to be safe and effective compared to a placebo in eliciting greater increases in muscular size and strength (creatine), and work capacity and endurance (beta-alanine and caffeine), and there is some more recent work suggesting that caffeine taken in pretty high doses may be effective in increasing maximal strength via an increased neural drive mechanism.

The “get a big pump” claim of NO supplements insinuates greater increases in muscle mass and strength as a result of the NO2 precursor l-arginine (an amino acid), which is largely unsupported. Arginine MAY have some benefits in patients with heart problems, but only in higher doses (in the realm of 10-15 g) known to cause almost inevitable gastrointestinal distress. In short, there is no research-supported reason to think that NO2 will increase the size and strength of your muscles. Furthermore, it’d be fair to say that the overwhelming majority of the long list of ingredients in these supplements are worthless for the purposes of improving training outcomes in athletes.

Why All The Hype?

So why all the positive reports and borderline evangelical support for NO2 supplements? There are a couple reasons. For starters, this supplement has received a ton of attention from teenagers. Because it increases your heart rate as a result of the caffeine, those new to training love it. They feel more energized. They also get significantly bigger and stronger. Being logical thinkers, the conclusion is that N.O.-XPLODE gives you the energy you need to train harder to get bigger and stronger. Makes sense, but isn’t necessarily accurate. As I’ve written about before, EVERYTHING works for inexperienced lifters. In fact, I’m fully confident that front planks would increase maximum squat and bench press strength in inexperienced lifters. No matter what teenagers do, they’ll get bigger and stronger. The added rush from a supplement isn’t the cause of these improvements!

“Take NO-XPLODE! I started taking it two weeks ago when I started lifting for the first time ever and it totally worked!” – Typical Well-Intentioned, But Completely Ignorant Teenager

As I’ve mentioned in the past, my stance on supplements is simple. It needs to work (research-supported). It needs to be safe. And, ideally, it should be pretty cheap. NO2 supplements miss the mark on at least the first of my qualifiers, and probably the second. For those that swear by its effectiveness, I won’t disagree that you may get results from it, but it’s not from the nitric oxide components or precursors. Short of duct tape and a soldering iron, they’ve put just about every ingredient known to man inside N.O.-XPLODE. This includes creatine and beta-alanine, which do receive scientific support with regards to increasing muscular size and strength, especially if taken together, and caffeine, which is known to increase energy and focus. With supplements, like food, the less ingredients, the better. Stick with stuff that’s been shown to work and be safe. If there’s a long list of ingredients you don’t understand, don’t take it, regardless of what the high school kid working at GNC tells you.

I think we all need to be more cautious about what we’re allowing teenagers to put into their bodies. It seems that real food has become a minority component of today’s young athlete’s diet. Further, I think we need to take a step back and reanalyze other aspects of their lives if they can’t get a good workout in without loading up on artificial stimulants!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

P.S. Never waste money on ineffective supplements again >> Examine.com Supplement Goals Reference Guide

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“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Analyzing the Skating Stride

A couple weeks ago I got an email from a youth player asking me to analyze his skating stride. He felt, and I agree, that he was leaving some “free speed” on the table by now optimizing his stride pattern.

You can watch the videos of his skating below:

You can also see these here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwGmafySa8xUvxOEdhNaYKPjPy3HzDH_J

Minor Tweaks

At first glance, there are a few minor adjustments I’d recommend to him that are extremely common for young players:

1) Get a slightly deeper skating stance.
He’s not as “upright” of a skater as some players, but I think he may have another inch or so of depth left to achieve his optimal skating position. Moving into a slightly deeper skating position will increase his stride length, and therefore the amount of force he can put into the ice to propel himself forward with each stride

2) Recover the stride leg fully under the body
Again, he does a pretty good job here, but there’s a little room for improvement. Recovering the stride leg completely under the body does two things: It increases the stride length on the next stride by giving it a starting position a little closer to the body (e.g. adding stride length at the initiation of the stride, not at the end as getting a deeper stance would help achieve), and it minimize excessive friction of the skate blade on the ice of the stance leg by moving the skate off of the inside edge a bit. The more players ride their inside edges on their stance leg, the more “drag” there is on the ice, slowing the player down a little with each stride.

3) Pushing “out” instead of “up” on the starts
If you watch a lot of the starts, the player’s body pushes “up” before actually moving anywhere. If the goal is to move horizontally and not vertically (you’re not racing toward the ceiling), he should focus more on leaning in toward the direction he wants to move and pushing the ice back and away from him. In cuing similar movements off the ice, we sometimes use the phrase “low ceiling” to help players visualize that the goal is to move laterally without lifting their hips up excessively.

Making Huge Strides

These are all important things to work on, and I think with a little practice he’ll be able to make significant improvements in these areas. With that said, the two major areas I think he has the room for the most significant improvements are:

1) Adopting a more “diagonal” than “lateral” arm swing
If you look at a lot of the forward skating, the arm swing is more side to side, than front to back. I refer to this as the “Carlton Dance” (See 1:35 below)

The arm swing is meant to counterbalance the skating stride, so it should be in a direction that accommodates that. In other words, if the stride leg is pushing straight to the side, the arm shouldn’t be swinging straight to the side. The stride leg pushes back on roughly a 45-degree angle behind the body so the arm should “reach” on a similar angle toward the body’s midline.

You’ll notice that there is a lot of lateral sway in the players skating stride. There are a lot of reasons why this may be the case, but an excessively lateral arm swing will certainly carry the body’s momentum in more of a side-to-side pattern, wasting energy and slowing the player down.

2) “Pushing under” with the cross-under leg
This may be the most overlooked skating cue in “curvilinear” (e.g. not straight forward or backward) skating. If you look at the cross-over patterns, it looks like the emphasis is on stepping over with the cross-over leg. There’s A LOT of power to be gained by emphasizing the “push under” of the other leg.

In the videos, the cross-under leg doesn’t ever achieve full extension, which is a common sign that it’s not being used as a driver. In training this, sometimes it’s better to slow things down a bit and just focusing on pushing under as forcefully as possible while maintaining a good body position. Once the player has a good understanding of this motion, they can progressively pick up speed.

Wrap Up

As I mentioned, these are all pretty common adjustments that players at every level can benefit from working on. I’d consider everything above “the basics”, meaning they’re the most important things to master. Even the “elite” players can benefit from checking in periodically to make sure they’re still doing these things and haven’t progressively developed poor habits over time.

In a follow-up post, I’ll show you what I look for in my off-ice assessment and how limitations off the ice can help explain a lot of what we see as strides flaws on the ice.

In the meantime, if you’re interested in more information about optimal stride patterns and off-ice training strategies to maximize skating speed, check out Breakaway Hockey Speed.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!

Get Ultimate Hockey Transformation Now!

Year-round age-specific hockey training programs complete with a comprehensive instructional video database!

Get access to your game-changing program now >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation

“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Why your kid is slow!

Speed is one of the most coveted qualities in every sport, but especially hockey. As a result, it’s the most common training goal I hear from athletes, parents, and coaches, both at Endeavor and when I get questions through email.

A couple weeks ago I had a dad drive his 13 year old son down to Endeavor for an assessment. It was great working with the kid because, despite being so young, he was really interested in improving and dialed into the importance of not just training, but training properly.

The main reason they decided to make the trip is because the player was a step slow for the level he was at. Again, this is something I hear A LOT, so I think providing some of the more common limitations to speed in these situations is helpful.

After going through our assessment process, we discovered:

He was a giant for his age (around 5’6″ and 157)
He had a 1/2″ of ankle dorsiflexion on his left side, -1/2″ on his right
His single-leg stability was poor, not allowing him to perform a 1-leg SLDL (unloaded) or split squat with proper alignment
He did one chin-up, but couldn’t do one push-up with proper torso control (e.g. not letting the lower back overarch and hips sag on the way up)

In summary, we have a player that was far above average in terms of his size, had exceptionally limited ankle dorsiflexion, poor single-leg stability, and generally wasn’t strong.

Growth Spurts Compromise Coordination

To break things down a little more, it’s extremely common for kids that go through growth spurts to have coordination issues. It’d be like you standing on stilts and trying to go through your normal daily behavior. It takes the nervous system some time to repattern around new levers and a higher center of support.

There is considerable variation at the timing of the development of different systems in the body

Ankle Mobility Matters

The standard for ankle dorsiflexion range of motion in the test we use is 4″ bilaterally. He had 1/2″ on one side and negative motion on the other.

Not having ankle mobility is a big deal.

It will prevent him from being able to get into a good acceleration position as he won’t be able to position his knees appropriately in front of his foot to get a strong push back. It will also cause his foot to collapse in anytime he tries to get into these positions that he doesn’t have the range for.

Despite being in a skate boot, the ankle needs to move well to get into good skating positions.

When the foot collapses in, the knee tends to collapse in with it. This not only leads to compromised stability on the stance leg while skating, but it also causes players to ride their inside edge more, effectively increasing the friction between their skate blade and the ice, slowing them down a little on each stride.

Lastly, ankle dorsiflexion is tied to hip extension so limitations in ankle mobility are likely to be mirrored by limitations in hip mobility. An easy way to understand this concept is to think of your ankle and hip position as you’re walking. When you transfer your weight over your foot, your ankle needs to go through dorsiflexion (shin transfers forward over your foot) as your hip extends. A lack of dorsiflexion will cause your heel to peel up early, which prevents the hip from going through extension. Given how important hip range of motion is to the skating stride, it’s essential that we don’t neglect some of these secondary drivers of hip mobility limitations.

Strength Is the Foundation For Speed

It’s extremely rare that I see athletes that have above average strength and reasonable body composition and are still slow. There’s a reason for this. Movement is driven by ground reaction forces. In this case, the force a player is above to drive through the ice is what propels them forward. If you can’t produce a lot of force, you can’t produce it quickly…meaning you can’t be fast.

Limitations to Improved Speed

Anytime someone comes to train with me, I try to think of their training goal in terms of what is limiting them from achieving that goal, and then what do I have the best ability to influence. For example, a player that comes to me with the same goal, but is mobile, stable, powerful, and strong may be best served by seeking out a skating coach. A player that has all the tools, but suffers from consistency issues may need help outside of training or on-ice settings (e.g. with diet or sleep behaviors).

In this case, the player has very notable (and common) limitations in areas that will directly impair his speed. If he can clean up his ankle mobility, get on a quality full body strength training program, and work on his single-leg stabilization strategies, he’ll be able to get into better skating positions on the ice, apply more force into the ice with each stride, and maintain a more stable stance leg to decrease the friction with the ice and get more out of each push from the stride leg.

Understandably, most players think they need to do more sprints if they want to get faster. This strategy works, but only to a small extent. In this case, the player would basically be maxing out his speed potential with limited ankle mobility, compromised single-leg stability, and poor force producing ability. In contrast, if he addresses these limitations first, he’ll not only be faster, he’ll have more room for improvement moving forward.

Wrap Up

Wrapped in all of this discussion is an underlying message to parents of youth players that you need to be patient. Puberty is a wild ride, and having worked with players at a variety of ages across many years, I can say, confidently, that the kids that excel early aren’t always the ones that are still ahead of the pack a few years later. Be patient and continue to emphasize good practice/training habits and having fun!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingMovement.com
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

P.S. If you’re interested in off-ice speed training exercises for hockey players, check out Breakaway Hockey Speed, which now comes with a full downloadable exercise database!

Enter your first name and email below to get your FREE copy of 5 Strategies to Improve First Step Quickness!

Get Ultimate Hockey Transformation Now!

Year-round age-specific hockey training programs complete with a comprehensive instructional video database!

Get access to your game-changing program now >> Ultimate Hockey Transformation

“Kevin Neeld is one of the top 5-6 strength and conditioning coaches in the ice hockey world.”
– Mike Boyle, Head S&C Coach, US Women’s Olympic Team

“…if you want to be the best, Kevin is the one you have to train with”
– Brijesh Patel, Head S&C Coach, Quinnipiac University

Breakaway Hockey Speed Q&A

The other day I got an email from a hockey dad that had just downloaded and started diving into Breakaway Hockey Speed, and immediately had some questions. Based on what he told me, he has two sons that have completely different skating styles (which is something I discuss in the manual), and was hoping to get some clarification on “ideal” skating patterns.

He wrote:

Kevin, I signed up for Breakaway Hockey Speed and am reading it now.It’s awesome! It rings very true to me. You don’t look like a very old guy but the observations here would seem to have taken a lot of time or some very careful observation over a number of years.

The reason it rings true to me is that I played hockey all my life and now have two boys ages 12 and 10 who have played since they were old enough to skate. And the two have totally different skating styles.

It’s been a real nature vs. nuture observation for me – they both learned the exact same way and they both did the exact same programs. But they have two very different body types (youngest one lean and flexible, the older more dense with a more limited range of motion) and that certainly seems to have been the biggest difference in their development as hockey players and skaters.

I’ve cut out parts of the message, but his questions and my responses are below:

1) How does one determine their optimal skating depth based on their individual build and joint range of motion (ROM)? Should working on improving ROM be the priority instead of adapting to a sub-optimal situation?

Skating depth based on an individual’s build goes much deeper than muscle flexibility. The contour of the hip joint itself and the length of the femurs relative to the torso will both play a huge role where a player’s optimal body position falls. Longer femurs relative to a shorter torso (this can occur in tall and short people as it’s the ratio, not the absolute lengths that’s important) will necessitate that the player maintains more of a forward torso lean to position his or her center of gravity appropriately above their skates. This will necessitate more hip flexion range of motion, which the individual may or may not have, or will result in a spinal flexion (rounding, particularly of the lower back) which is likely to cause discomfort in this area over time. Allowing this player to skate “higher” than some arbitrary “norm” isn’t allowing them to adapt to a sub-optimal situation, it’s keeping them out of sub-optimal positions altogether. I’m sure these things could all be measured, but that’s really not necessary. You just need to have a good eye for how they move.

In reality, the “ideal” stride is almost the same for everyone: it’s the lowest depth that a player can achieve keeping their hips above their knees, maintaining a neutral spine with their center of gravity balanced appropriately over the skates. In Ultimate Hockey Training, I’ve included some pictures of extreme situations to help illustrate how “lower” is not always better.

In this picture, the degree of hip flexion (think torso lean) is way too far. Note that I still have a fairly neutral lumbar spine (lower back) in the picture, which is desirable. However, the angle of torso lean is such that it unloads the stride leg, so it’s not possible to produce as much propulsive force off that leg.

In this picture, the degree of knee flexion is way too far. This shifts the COG too far behind the lead leg, but the deep bend also makes roughly the first half of the stride very awkward, as it’s essentially just repositioning behind the COG to be able to create propulsive force.

In contrast to the firs two pictures, this one is characterized by much more mid-range hip and knee flexion angles. This allows a more optimal positioning of the COG over the front skate, while also positioning the body for a strong propulsive stride. In the picture below, I’ve put the three pictures side-by-side, with a box that encompasses the shoulders and the pelvis to provide a crude illustration of where the bodies weight is positioned. Note that the first box is shifted forward, and the second box shifted backward relative to the more optimal stride position.

With all of that said, the criterion for an optimal position is relatively similar for most skaters, but the outcome will be much different based on individual structural differences. As I noted above, an individual with longer femurs and a shorter torso may look a little more like the first picture in order to keep their weight positioned appropriately. An individual suffering from femoroacetabular impingement will have limited hip flexion ROM (typically around 90 degrees, compared to 120+) and will therefore need to maintain a slightly higher skating position to minimize stress to their anterior-superior hip labrum (the most common site of tears), and their anterior hip capsule. The point here is that optimal will look different for everyone, and it’s important to identify WHAT exactly may be limiting an individual’s ability to skate at a lower depth (if they appear too high, which is the most common complaint). It could be strength, positional awareness, or structure, all of which are trainable/coachable, but they require very different strategies to address.

2) When you say that most skaters with shorter, choppier strides are “naturally tighter”, what does this mean exactly? Is there any point in working with a skater that fits into this category to attempt to develop the flexibility and ROM necessary to have a closer to ideal knee and hip flexion?

This is an observation I’ve noticed from my time as a player and as a strength and conditioning coach. Stiffer players tend to be faster. This is true in almost all sports. They tend to be higher force output individuals, probably because the stiffness allows them to transfer energy and reduce force better. Stiffness, by definition, means it takes more force to displace the joint through any given range of motion; it doesn’t mean they can’t achieve full ROM. Although this is sometimes the case; the key is to know what they need and ensure that every player has that plus a little “wiggle room”. The idea that more flexibility is better is drastically misguided, and stiffness gets a really bad reputation when it probably shouldn’t.

3) You wrote that about 45-degrees is an optimal stride angle. I’ve noticed that for really effortless looking skaters who have green knee bend and hip flexion it sometimes seems like they are pushing almost straight out to the side at times. I know that just doesn’t sound right and I’m sure there’s no way the mechanics can work but maybe there’s a radius / arcing motion at play that makes it look that way. Just curious if you have ever studied that?

The 45-degree angle is optimal simply because of physics; think Newton’s laws. When an individual pushes through the ice, the stride leg is creating the propulsive force and the glide leg is determining the direction the individual will move, within reason. If a players stands with both skates pointing straight ahead, and pushes straight to the side with the right skate, he/she will either: A) Shave ice with their left skate or B) Fall over. This is despite the “glide leg” being oriented straight ahead. The vector that the individual pushes at will strong bias their movement in that same direction. Just as a push straight to the side would push them straight sideways, a push straight back would push them straight forward. This latter scenario would be ideal, but given the contour of the skating blade, they wouldn’t gain any friction. 45 degrees (or some slight variation of it) maximizes the combination of the forward propulsion vector AND skate blade contact.

That’s a wrap for today. If you haven’t yet downloaded your copy of Breakaway Hockey Speed, you can do so for FREE by entering your name and email in the form below!

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
UltimateHockeyTraining.com

Please enter your first name and email below to sign up for my FREE Athletic Development and Hockey Training Newsletter!