Tag: lateral power

Lateral MiniBand Skater Walk

This is an exercise we integrate into our warm-ups to help reinforce a low skating position and strong push-off.

A common problem you see in less efficient skaters is that they adopt a wider stance and their stance leg collapses inward slightly, which causes the player to ride their inside edge, and create more friction on the glide leg, which ultimately slows the player down.

Similarly, a lot of players will make the mistake of over-reaching with the front leg, when the emphasis should be on pushing the ground away through the back leg.

I’ll cue players to think of their front knee, hip, and shoulder pushing against a wall, while the back leg pushes.

The band creates a slight inward pull on the knee, which the player can actively pull against to reinforce the foot/knee/hip/shoulder alignment we want from a stance leg in skating, but the focus on keeping the knee straight also makes it feel less natural to reach with the foot compared to when the front band is around the ankle. If you reach with the foot with the band in this position here, the band rolls up the leg, which doesn’t feel great. Once the player understands the motion, the band can be slide down to the ankle.

Typically performed for 3 sets of 8-10 reps/side

Give this a shot, and feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. For comprehensive hockey training programs to improve your speed AND repeat sprint ability, check out: Speed Training for Hockey

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Lateral Movement: Hip Stability & End Range Strength

One thing a lot of athletes struggle with is maintaining a stable pelvis while pushing laterally.

It’s common to see the torso bend back toward the pushing leg in exercises ranging from Lateral MiniBand Walks to Lateral Bounds and lateral cutting in transitional speed work.

While there’s a time and place for emphasizing this type of “bend”, more often than not it’s causing the athlete to lose time/speed by creating a lag between the push-off and the body moving laterally through space.

One simple way to start to address this is with the Lateral Wall Push exercise in this video.

The goal here is to keep the torso upright by maintaining wall contact with the hips and shoulders and to use the outside leg to “push the floor away” to generate maximum push-off force.

This set-up can be used in a couple different ways – either to: 1️⃣ emphasize push-off strength at different hip angles (more upright = less hip abduction) or to 2️⃣ focus on end-range strength, starting as deep as possible and shifting slightly deeper as range of motion opens up from rep to rep.

The feedback from the wall will help the athletes isolate motion at the hip while maintaining a level pelvis, which creates a foundation for them learning how to push laterally without folding over the back leg.

Typically performed for 4-8 reps of 5s holds.

Feel free to post any comments/questions below. If you found this helpful, please tag a friend in the comments below and share/re-post it so others can benefit.

To your success,

Kevin Neeld
SpeedTrainingforHockey.com
HockeyTransformation.com
OptimizingAdaptation.com

P.S. For more information on how to assess movement and integrate specific strategies to improve mobility and movement quality in training, check out Optimizing Movement. Don’t have a DVD player? Send me a note through the contact page after you checkout here Optimizing Movement and I’ll get you a digital copy of the videos!

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