A Two Minute Technique That Will Improve Your Skating Speed Today
If you skate with the same tempo, but take longer strides, you will skate faster right? Basic physics. In about 45-seconds I will show you how we can manipulate the body to do just that, but first let me give you some background.
A hockey player walks into a gym…
I am sure I have seen a hockey player whose hips are not locked up in some way, but I don’t really remember when that was. Pretty much all of the skaters and goalies I see in the Revolution Gym come in with tightness in the front of their hips (hip flexors).
It is not a simple case of just being a hockey player and having tight hips, it’s also related to our ‘modern’ lifestyle. We sit way too much! Sit in the car, sit at school, sit at work, sit watching TV. You see sitting puts your hips in a flexed position or a position where the flexors are shortened.
Then you strap on the skates and skate around the ice for a few hours with your knees bent, your torso forward and…your hips in a flexed position.
You are changing your structure
One of my mentors Tom Myers (author of the book Anatomy Trains – a must read for every trainer or strength coach) has a saying to sum up what happens to your hips. It goes something like this…
- Position becomes habit
- Habit becomes posture
- Posture becomes structure
So the habit of constant hip flexion not only makes the front of your hips feel tight and stiff while shortening your skating stride, long-term this will change the fabric of your hip musculature. You will actually change the structure of the tissues including the fascia.
Stretching doesn’t work
So what do you do about it – well, you stretch.
Show of hands – how many of you have tried stretching and seen no real improvement? Just as I suspected, quite a few of you.
There could be several reasons for this:
- You did not stick with the stretching program long enough – after all, you are trying to remodel tissues that have been short for perhaps years and years, it will not happen over night.
- You are not doing the correct stretches
- You are not using the correct dose in terms of holds and repetitions
- You are not addressing the fascia
That is what we are going to focus on today – the fascia.
So here is what I want you to do…walk back and forth across the floor a few times and just take a mental note of hour your hips feel.
Then do this technique exactly as outlined in the video below. Do 15 reps on each side.
If you cannot see the video in the player above, here is the link you need:
http://youtu.be/0fC0maAKnoI
Now walk across the floor a few times and notice how your hips just feel like they swing more freely, they feel smoother as though someone has ‘unlocked’ them – it is hard to describe, you will have to try it and let me know what you feel.
You can do this everyday and again, don’t think you can do it for a week and viola your hips will stay loose – you will have to keep it up.
Cheers,
Maria
PS – if you are looking for on-ice drills to improve your speed and stamina on the ice, then take a look at Hockey Speed Secrets
PPS – if you haven’t ‘Liked’ me on Facebook yet – better do it now – or risk getting turned into a pumpkin (see below….) 🙂