Off-Ice Goalie Training Q&A
Okay – on to the task at hand. Time for another installment of… Off-Ice Goalie Training Q&A – Part 1
This one got so long that I decided to split it into two. Today I will answer questions about…
– medicine ball exercises
– I want to do UGT 2.0 because I am very competitive – but I am also super busy – what should I do?
– starting your hockey/goaltending career later in life
Get all the answers in the video below and stay tuned for part two later in the week.
What’s with Spring Hockey Tryouts?
Remember a few weeks ago when I talked about my wish for a ‘rule’ that would let you punch (might have said pinch – but what I meant was punch) someone as hard as you can without any repercussion? So there would be a list of circumstances when you could punch – just once and then go on about your day. Need examples….
You need a divorce.
Did I get you with that headline? Hope none of you stopped reading at that and went straight to the phone to call your lawyer. Put down the phone and let me explain how you need to divorce something from your off-ice training.
I cannot remember who it is off the top of my head, but there is a strength coach who talks about coaches, trainers and athletes who are ‘married’ to an exercise. You know the type – they are nice, smart, honest people who choose a spouse who lies, cheats and steals.
You finally get the courage to tell your friend ‘the truth’ about their spouse – thinking you are doing them this great favour – letting them know that the one they love is actually doing them long-term harm. You are saving them from pain and suffering down the road – you are a good friend.
So you give your friend the facts and what is their response?
The Goalie Training Dilemma
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could just open a window into the workings of the human body and see exactly what adaptations were occurring (both good and bad) with different goalie training programs?
Imagine. You could do a set of heavy back squats and see your quads, glutes and hamstrings all get stronger, get better at utilizing energy and more resistant to fatigue. But then you could look a little deeper and – ‘oh oh’ it looks like we are also adding some wear and tear to the vertebral discs at the same time.
Okay, let’s contrast that to a set of barbell front squats – ah ha! We get the same benefits to the legs without the back squat, but as we take a look at those vertebral discs we don’t see the same degree of wear and tear. Okay, now we know exactly what to do – keep the front squat and can the back squat.
Top 10 Off-Ice Goalie Drills
Before I get into the goalie drills that will actually help you perform on the ice, I also want to be clear that we are not trying to simply mimic exactly what you do on the ice with your goalie coach. During off-ice goalie training, the goal is to enhance the physical capabilities to execute your movements on the ice with more speed and precision.
Now let’s take a look at the Top 10 Off-Ice Goalie Drills…
The Worst Hockey Goalie Exercises Ever.
Let me start by saying that I hate to call any exercise a ‘bad’ exercise, so it was a little tough for me to title this post “The Worst Hockey Goalie Exercises Ever”. But I always want to be upfront with you and make sure that things are not open for misinterpretation, so I am going to tell you what I feel, what I believe are the worst hockey goalie exercises based on my knowledge and experience.
Maybe you have seen some of them maybe you have even done some of them. If you currently use some of these hockey goalie exercises please do not send me an email telling me how much you love doing them and how you have done them for the past 843 days without any problem, blah, blah, blah…that is fine, I am glad you are happy, we can still be friends.
3-Ways Hockey Goalie Training Differs from Skater’s Off-Ice Training
In the strength and conditioning world, some coaches love controversy. I don’t have much use for it, but here is where some view me as a little controversial because I firmly believe that the dryland training for a hockey goalie should be different than the training done by the skaters.
So let me start by saying that you can disagree with me and that is fine, we can still be friends. I will also say that a goalie is an athlete first, so the first job is to create an injury resistant athlete. But beyond that I have some different ideas about how hockey goalies should workout away from the ice.
I am highlighting three ways hockey goalie training differs (or should differ) from a skaters training program and the three elements that need to be considered are…
Goalie Training Q&A + Pugs…
All I can say is that mother nature has given us a cornucopia of weather this winter (good word eh?). Saturday it was about -10C when Paul and I were out running in the morning, yesterday was another lovely winter day and today it is pouring rain with a predicted high of +9C! What the huh?! Had a pretty quite weekend – watched my clients Virtue and Moir win the National Championships in Ice Dance the other day, so that was great fun. Next they are off to the Four Continents Championship and then World Championships, so still lots of season left for them.
Anyway, today I am hitting you with some goalie training Q&A. I am going to hit the following topics in this video….
The Heirarchy of Goalie Training
Guess I got too much sleep last night because this post, this report over delivers a little on goalie training program design. I am not going to try and sell you on goalie training. I am not going to justify why you can kiss your potential good by if you do not do some goalie training away from the ice. If you are serious about your craft, it is already a part of your routine and I have already written dozens of articles about the key exercises that need to be a part of any successful off ice goalie training program.
My purpose today is to establish the hierarchy of goalie training. What do I mean by hierarchy of goalie training? Well, let me tell you…
Grainy video from Vegas & multiplanar flexibility
Okay, so this is going to be a super short post today. Somehow it takes about a week to catch up from missing one day in the gym last week – not sure how that works exactly, but it is what it is. Anyway, when I was in Vegas I was talking to my friend Rick Kaselj of ExercisesForInjuries.com and we were talking about groins….well, you know what I mean, we were talking about groin injuries in hockey players. Anyway we were talking about how so many players use uniplanar stretching techniques when what they really need is multiplanar stretching.