subject: Hockey Drills - Off Ice Fitness Drills For Improving Skating Speed and Power [print this page] Hockey drills don't necessarily have to be limited to the ice. You can run drills during dry-land training as well. The key with off-ice training drills is to focus on the fitness and add the hockey skill as a secondary aspect. In this article we'll look at some great drills players can do off-ice to build speed and develop their skills.
Sprint and Shoot
This one is a lot of fun and players tend to like it. If you're training alone, use a timer and play against yourself. The real fun though is when you do this drill one on one. Set up a 100m dash and place a net at some distance from the end of the 100 meters. Set up a bunch of pucks on a shooting sheet and have the players sprint the 100m and then fire at 4 targets in the net. After hitting all four, sprint back. First one back wins.
Interval Running
This is a great drill to do for building speed. Simply run in alternating sets of high and low intensity. A good ratio is 45 seconds high intensity and about a minute and a half to two minutes of low intensity. This is also good for conditioning as the intervals of high and low intensity approximate the length of a shift.
In-line Drills
One good way of conditioning in the off season and away from the rink is to run drills on inline skates. Inline skates are different than ice skates, and the adjustment from one to the other will take a few skates to get used to, but a summer spent training on in-lines will very closely approximate on-ice drills, without the need for expensive ice time.
Remember, skills development is important, but the off-season is an exceptional time to work on your fitness and conditioning, and that should be the goal of most off-ice training. For a complete set of drills and exercises for off-ice conditioning, click here to check out the Hockey Speed and Power manual. It was written by an ex-NHL player and career pro, and it provides a professional, complete, hockey specific fitness plan. You can read a review at www.tophockeytraining.com
Hockey Drills - Off Ice Fitness Drills For Improving Skating Speed and Power
