Inline Hockey Performance

Article by Steve Volek

Edited by Dustin Roux

How many times do you walk into a gym and hear this conversation?

“Hey man what are you lifting today?”… “I think I’m gonna do some chest, bi’s, and abs”

Depending on where you train, there’s a good chance you’ve heard this exact discussion before. Most people who just lift for recreation get most of their information from magazines like Muscle & Fitness, which just so happens to pretty much revolve around body builders and the way they train. There is nothing wrong with how body builders train; they are training for their sport, but most recreational athletes and gym users see this as the only way to train. This is what is going to separate an average athlete from an elite athlete, they are going to train full body and specifically for their sport. Or to narrow it down even better, they will train not just muscles, but movements.

Typically in a gym you see people using what is called a “split routine”, meaning that they split the body into lifts for each muscle or muscle group they are going to work on, for example:

Monday: Bi’s/Tri’s

Tuesday: Legs

Wednesday: Back and Chest

Thursday: Shoulder

Friday: Read more bodybuilder magazines for next week’s schedule

Following isolation training is flawed for a few reasons for athletes. The first reason should come clear to all of you, and this is: You will never use only one set of muscles during a game of hockey. A prime example of this would be using a leg extension machine. When this is used, the only muscle being trained is your quadriceps. When you play any sport, including hockey, you never use only the quads. A skating stride is actually a complicated movement that require the firing and coordination of many muscles include the hip flexors, glutes, hamstrings, quads, adductor muscles and even your low back (erector spinae) muscles.

As an athlete you should be training total body each time you lift, so that every muscle gets trained, not just one or two. A much better solution would be to back squat, front squat, single leg squat or do some lunges. When you are performing these exercises, you are training the quadriceps, but the muscles being used is not just limited to that single muscle. You have to stabilize your self with your core, you work your lower back to keep yourself from falling forward, and you are also working all of your leg muscles at some point to help yourself go through a squatting motion. A proper training program for an athlete should consist of the following:

• Compound movements: these are your bread and butter. Squats, Cleans, Deadlifts, Bench Press, and their variations
• Single leg movements: You never spend all your time on both legs, so work unilateral movements as well. Start with basic lunges and progress to things like Bulgarian split squats, reverse lunges or single leg jumping exercises.
• Single arm exercises: these aren’t quite as important as single leg movements, but throw them in also. Some single arm bench pressing or rowing (with a dumbbell obviously)
• Auxiliary exercises: These are your lagging body parts or your isolation exercises.

So, for example here could be an easy set up for a good workout:

• Compound lifts:
  • Bench Press
  • Row variation
  • Overhead press
• Auxiliary:
  • Lat raises
  • Rear delt
  • Bicep curls (these are the least necessary of everything)
  

  Would you rather look like this puny fitness guy curling 2 lbs? Or the guy below... winning a gold medal.

When training to increase power and explosiveness, one of the most common exercises performed is a clean. This is one of the best examples of training a movement, not just one muscle. Now you are not going to be performing the exact clean movement in your sport, but it all comes back to sport specificity, that is, performing an exercise that will translate back into making you better at your sport, not just making your muscles stronger.

A clean might not mimic your sport exactly, but you will get a hell of a lot more out of that than you would from a bi’s/tri’s day. Not to even mention the force production and power output you can get from a clean.

Look for part 2 of this article to come out next week.

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