When should you start playing hockey? How to train correctly? How to sharpen your skates? What should be a real hockey player?

Professional coaches of the network of hockey training centers "BeeLikePro" answered the questions of the readers of "Russian Hockey Style".

- At what age can you start playing hockey so that you can achieve professional level?
- We recommend playing hockey from the age of 5-6. There are examples when famous hockey players started playing hockey later, but in general it is very individual and depends on the abilities.

How many times a week should a 9 year old train?
- If parents prioritize study, then classes should be attended at least 3 times a week. If the child has more serious goals in sports, then training will take much more time - 5-6 times a week for at least 3 hours. But even in such a difficult schedule, many children do well in school, because they are organized and disciplined.

- What qualities should hockey players have?
“You need to develop skills in training. A hockey player must have the most important quality - this is character. Also good muscles, endurance, speed, strength, speed.

- What qualities should a real champion combine?
First, it is concentration. Secondly, installation-motivation. The athlete-champion is aimed at the obligatory (!) achievement of success both in sports and in life outside of sports. The third is professionalism. It is worth noting: professionals are not born - they are made. Even a naturally gifted athlete will not be able to reach his peak if his talent is not based on the foundation of professionalism. “Closedness” (“camouflage”): a champion athlete, who is known and studied by thousands of people, for the sake of his own safety, develops a certain artificial external image over time. This image provides the athlete with a sense of distance from the bulk of people, protection from unnecessary communication, from intrusions by unfamiliar and unfamiliar people into his personal life and activity itself, especially in conditions of responsible competitions.

Also, champion athletes are distinguished by the developed "resistance" - to natural instincts, their own complexes, conditions modern sports(tough competition, behind-the-scenes fight, vile refereeing, hostility of rivals, fans, press). Well, the last quality inherent in champion athletes is stability. Athletes-champions are stable in their sports activities, they never fall below a certain level in the manifestation of fighting qualities and technical and tactical skills. It is no coincidence that it was in sports that the saying was born: “You won’t drink class”. Also, champion athletes are stable in their behavior, manifestations of character, which are based on the most severe self-control.

- What should I do before training, what to eat?
- Before training, it is necessary to check the equipment, including the form for the general physical training, and be sure to wear personal hygiene items in order to go to the shower after training. Two hours before the start of training, it is advisable not to eat, but at the same time you should not go to training completely hungry, a banana will serve as a useful dressing an hour before training (Pavel Bure ate only bananas on the days of the games, but no more than four per day) or a sandwich with walnut pasta (it is often eaten by Sidney Crosby before training).

What muscles are best to stretch before training?
- It is important to know that there is no one ideal warm-up program that suits everyone and everything. This is due, first of all, physiological features body type, body type, joint mobility and many others. But nonetheless, general warm-up it is necessary to perform it, both in order to prevent injuries, and in order to increase the effectiveness of the training. The duration of the warm-up on average takes no more than 10-15 minutes and includes the following types of load:

- exercises for the muscles of the arms / legs;

- light running with a heart rate in the first aerobic zone (50% of the maximum) or jumping rope;

- rotational exercises to increase the flexibility of all joints.

How many times and at what time should skates be sharpened?
– To check the sharpening of skates, there are several ways:

– Place the skate on the blade on a level surface. If he fell, then he should be sharpened;

– Gently run the tip of your fingernail along the blade. If the sharpening is good, then you will have scratches;

– To the touch, the blades should be cutting and sharp;

- When you are standing on the ice in skates, then when skating, your legs should not drive around in different directions.

* In well-sharpened skates, turns are smooth,

* When pushing off the ice, you should not feel slippage.

With proper care, professional sharpening is enough for 6-8 workouts. Entrust sharpening only to experienced specialists!

- What exercises on the ice would you recommend for speed skating?
– The speed of movement and speed of reaction in hockey depends on physical features the player and his skill level. Highest value for hockey players has the speed of skating, dribbling and passing. But if in athletics important role plays the length of the step, then in hockey it is exclusively the technique of skating and the general physical training. In order to develop the ability to move quickly, there are special exercises for speed in hockey. It will not hurt to follow some recommendations:

- Focus your efforts on short distances(15–20 meters);

– Develop skating skills;

– Observe the measure in training (do not overtrain);

– Practice lateral accelerations.

The following exercises are well suited for developing the speed training of young hockey players.

1. Running for 30, 60, 100 m;

2. Running in place with the maximum frequency of movement of the legs;

3. Running uphill downhill with and without weights;

4. Running with a change in direction, speed and sudden stops;

5. Shuttle run;

6. Starts from various positions from a place;

7. Starts in motion;

8. Jumps up, long jumps from a place, from acceleration, multi-jumps;

9. Relay races for short distances;

10. Playing big and table tennis;

11. Beating tennis ball from the wall;

12. Fast reaction hockey player to the actions of a partner;

13. Keeping the puck on the spot or with the maximum frequency in motion;

14. Games on ice, built to get ahead of the opponent.

What exercises would you recommend to improve your skating?
– An approximate list of lead-up exercises for skating training (out of ice, on skates):

1. Walking in different directions;

2. Walking with 180 and 360° turns;

3. Walking with side steps left and right side;

4. Squats, half-squats;

5. Walking backwards;

6. Walking with a lunge forward;

7. Acceptance of the main stance of the hockey player;

8. “Springs” (half squats, arms forward), “heron” (walking in a semi-squat, arms to the sides), “roly-poly” (rejecting the body to the right, rearrange the skates to the right, the same to the left), “make a figure” (“swallow” and etc.);

9. Skating with a stop on one leg (the other is raised forward or laid back; arms to the sides);

10. Walking with a cross step along the turn (to the right and to the left);

11. Jumping out of the semi-squat and out of the squat;

12. Jumping on skates with forward movement.

Group Russian Hockey Style

Hockey has a great influence on the character and personal qualities of an athlete, strengthens morally and physically. This is a team game that develops the ability to work in a team and appreciate the help of comrades.

From the first lessons, a hockey player is taught to respect his coach and unquestioningly follow his instructions, train with full dedication and spare no effort to win. A real hockey player must be prepared for difficulties and endure great physical exercise.

Physical qualities of a hockey player

When enrolling in a hockey school or sending a child there, everyone should understand what a hockey player should be like, everyone should be prepared for the fact that a lot of time and effort will have to be spent on classes. Sports will take everything free time, you have to give up a lot. On the way to professional hockey - great physical exertion, many victories and no less - disappointments. To show good results, the hockey player must have well-developed muscles, be:

hardy.

Strong.

Fast.

Hockey strengthens health and develops physically, it develops discipline, which helps in later life. A sense of responsibility is equally useful both in everyday life and in sports, and the habit of following a daily routine and healthy lifestyle life will last forever.

What should a hockey player know?
Hockey is hard and technical, really masculine appearance sports, it develops masculinity and courage. The hockey player must:

Have a good response.

Accurately coordinate their movements and actions.

Be able to assess the situation on the site in seconds.

Be organized, strong-willed and purposeful.

Have endurance.

Make quick decisions.

Put the interests of the team ahead of personal ambitions.

Be a leader.

Find a role model for yourself professional hockey not difficult. They can be Alexander Ovechkin, who shows himself equally well at high speeds and in power struggles, and Ilya Kovalchuk, who strikes with the strength and accuracy of throws. In his desire to win, Sean Avery always surprises the fans, Joe Thornton knows how to give brilliant passes, and Sidney Crosby quickly assesses the situation on the court. An example of excellent physical shape is Zdeno Hara, reasonable rigidity - Dion Faneuf, skating skills - Scott Niedermeier, and playing for the team - Sergey Zubov. You can list dozens of Russian foreign hockey players that you can and should be equal to, but you should not forget that success in hockey depends not only on the efforts of the coach and personal data, but also on your perseverance, determination and love for sports.

Hockey is thoroughly understood only by people who hardly talk about it. There are not so many books about hockey, journalists from websites and newspapers are constantly being clever, and commentators, it seems, do not always understand what is happening on the ice themselves. Therefore, you can watch one and a half thousand matches, but still not understand why some players are removed, while others are not for the same thing? Why don't wingers play in the center, while the centers go to the edge? And why, oh why do they change players at the face-off, although they do everything as usual?

Here are the hottest questions - the answers to them will make the game more interesting for you.

1. How is icing different from offside, and why are they needed?

To warm up, let's start with the simplest. An offside is when a player crosses someone else's blue line before the puck. In this case, the zone starts where the line ends, so the player can keep one skate on the paint - he will not be considered as entering the zone. If, nevertheless, he entered earlier, the referee whistles, a throw-in in the neutral zone.

On an icing, a puck thrown out of its own zone crosses the opponent's end line without touching anyone along the way. The whistle sounds and the puck is returned for a face-off in the zone from which it was taken out. In this case, the defending team cannot change the composition.

The logic of the rules is to make the game more spectacular. The icing limits the possibilities of defense: the team cannot be thrown back and change the line-up every time. The icing rule forces defensemen to get out of the zone with the puck on the hook or toss it carefully onto open ice to have three to four seconds to change. And this is not a formal measure: three or four careless ejections - and you have a tortured link on the ice against a fresh one from your opponent, and the puck is in your zone. , a tired player is bad.

Now in hockey, the hybrid icing rule works, when, in addition to the front line, the referee has in mind the combat of the attacker and the defender. If the offensive player has the puck advantage to the faceoff line in the zone, there is no icing. If there is a defender on the puck - or the outcome of the fight is not obvious, then the icing is whistled. If it wasn't for the hybrid forward, Kyle Quincy might have been hurt.

On the other hand, it is an encouragement of active actions - if you successfully fight in a foreign zone, then the rules are on your side. Sighted forwarding can be a dangerous weapon.

In fact, just like in football, the offside rule keeps the game as it is. It is easy to imagine what a mess hockey would turn into if it was possible to keep an attacker on someone else's penny forever.

2. What is the difference between the functions of the central striker and the wingers? Are there any differences between right and left hitters?

First, the center forward plays a throw-in. This is his most visible part of the job, and basically he does it best of all on the team. Sometimes the winger gets on the point and can even win a couple of face-offs. Therefore, sometimes in the statistics after the match, the conditional Ovechkin can have 100 percent of the face-offs won, and Backstrom - 45. The point is the number of attempts.

But playing on the dot is just the beginning. The center forward has a huge amount of organizational work on the ice. The center is obliged to help the defenders: picking up the puck on the penny is largely his business. The center accelerates the attack (leaving the zone + picking up speed in the middle), connects the defenders with the wingers and the wingers with each other, participates in the fight on someone else's penny, the first of the attackers runs back. The unique skills of each center forward tint basic set, therefore, for example, Crosby is the most effective in the end, and Datsyuk is one of the best in both halves of the court and shines in the backcheck (selection on the back movement). Here is a very revealing change of Pavel back in Detroit: he went into the zone, created several chances in a positional attack, was the third catching up with a counterattack and made a rebound.

The difference between extreme and central is responsibility. The centre-forward is responsible for almost everything that happens on the ice; if he is not in the thick of the fight, he must control the rebound. The main meaning of the game of the extreme is to enchant on someone else's half. In terms of creativity, extreme forwards are the freest players on the court. All coaching systems interpret this freedom in their own way, but the main task is nevertheless the same - to create and score. Get the puck, move to the center, look for free ice and shooting space. Defensive duties vary by team, but the basic minimum is not to get stuck in the opponent's half and to control your defender. Or just a nearby player, if it's really hot.

Unlike football players, right-handed and left-handed hockey players are more likely to like opposite flanks. That is, the left-handed Radulov plays on the right, the right-handed Kovalchuk, Mozyakin and Ovechkin play on the left (so you will not see this trinity in one link, with the exception of special teams). This is logical - more angle for the throw and the possibility of shifting to the center. There are also right-handed right-handers - Corey Perry, for example, is just like that, he likes to enter the goal from the right side.

3. How to distinguish a pure power hold from a violation of the rules?

At first, in the sense of breaking the rules, it is quite possible to focus on universal ideas about rigidity. An overly harsh or just brutal power hold is almost certainly a foul. Firstly, the rules of hockey literally repeat several times that you can’t overdo it with the power of tricks. An "excessive force push" is a player's illegal attack and a minor penalty. Too sharp push of the goalkeeper behind the gate - foul. Tapping with a stick on an opponent to take the puck away from him is normal, a sharp blow is a foul.

Secondly, all possible manifestations of cruelty on the ice are reflected in the rules. Blows to the head and neck, any form of rudeness, goalkeeper attacks, stick blows, blows from behind - all this looks inadequate even within the framework of such a tough game as hockey and, accordingly, whistles. It is unlikely that anyone needs to be explained that young Stefan Da Costa is wrong here.

At the same time, the bulk of power moves do not look like this and, of course, you need to understand the nuances. In fact, there is only one legal way to carry out a power hold - body to body, shoulder to shoulder. The principal point of contact in a power hold should not be above the shoulder or below the hip. Everything else is a deviation from the norm. A swoop and a raid on an opponent is too high and strong, a whistle. Elbow strikes, strikes to the head and neck, holding hands are prohibited, so you need to monitor the position of the hands: if a player raises them in martial arts, this is most likely a foul.

In addition, you can’t help yourself with your hands and stick - it will be either a delay or a push.

You also need to wisely get away from power reception. If a player bends down to avoid a power hold and hits the attacker's knees, he has broken the rules. If he puts out his hand and hits the head - too.

4. What should you do on a faceoff? Who, where and why should run after the throw-in?

Throw-ins must be won cleanly. If not, you need to try to refine in the fight. If this does not work out, then you need to try to minimize the losses. In the simplest scenario - a cleanly won faceoff - no one needs to run anywhere: the defenders pick up the puck, the wingers control their players in order to prevent them from catching/fighting.

With a purely lost throw-in in someone else's zone, where it is important to cling to any chance, one attacker rolls on the player to whom the puck bounced and imposes a fight on him, the second winger blocks the transfer zone or goes to rebound if the fight for the puck still started . Approximately so the Moscow army team turn lost face-offs into shots on goal.

CSKA is generally a good example of how to work on face-offs. Here it is more important to play reliably in your zone - defender Nikita Zaitsev immediately runs behind his center forward, to rebound. And striker Igor Makarov is behind the opponent to fight for the puck if the face-off is lost.

5. Why do the referees keep changing players at faceoffs?

Because players break the rules. The throw-in procedure is described quite clearly. The hooks of the sticks must be on the white parts of the faceoff spot. In the half of the defense, the player of the defending team puts the stick on the ice first, in the center of the field - the player of the guests. The club must not touch the opponent. If the judge notices a violation, then he changes the player at the point. The NHL rules also state that the player has five seconds after the referee's whistle to take his place at the spot.

Another thing is that, even knowing all this, you will not be able to understand why they drove Joe Thornton from the point.

6. What are "overlays"? What else is included in the concept of "coaching"?

Overlays are called situations when, for a certain link / player of one team, the coach of another specially releases one player, a bunch, a pair of defenders or a whole link. It’s easier for the home team, which has the right to release its squad later than the away team, but there are a lot of techniques for how to do this if you play away (for example, release a mixed three and change one or two players after the throw-in). The purpose of the overlay is to arrange matches that are beneficial to you, so that, for example, your best players play against the opponent's worst players. This story is not easy to illustrate with a video, so here is a tweet about Ovechkin's performance in the 2016 WC semi-finals:

Ovi spent 18 shifts, in thirteen of them Weber and Vlashik played against him, in sixteen - Toews. It is clear that this could not happen by chance or during the usual shifts.

Overlapping is one of the coach's tricks for managing the game. In other words, coaching. Among other things coaching staff can change players in the squads, distribute special assignments to hockey players, determine the best on the ice by the match and release them more often. In recent years, the KHL has placed more and more emphasis on controlling playing time because coaches want to keep players fresh and team speed. This is also an element of coaching. A perfect illustration of how it works is the statistics of last year's match between Sibir and Slovan. Eighteen players played from thirteen to seventeen minutes. Andrei Skabelka really wanted his team to stay fresher than the opponent.

7. Are there tactical formations in hockey? What is a "rollback"?

There are tactical formations in hockey, but they are all somewhat conditional - after all, the game is very fast, everyone moves and any formations are clearly formed for a couple of seconds. The 1-2-2, 1-1-3, 1-3-1, 1-4, 2-2-1, and 2-1-2 formations work but are hard to see during play, especially if you don't use the pause button . We have such a button.

Any scheme is tied to the game system - and this is quite simple: any team plays aggressively, neutrally or passively (the system, of course, can change during the match). A good indicator is how active the attackers are in the opponent's zone and how many of these attackers are. Accordingly, two active forwards in a foreign zone with the support of a third is a game of pressure, power or technical, most likely according to 2-1-2 or 2-2-1 schemes. Meet the team of stars in bright uniforms North America, which is why it was very difficult against her.

A more neutral option is saturation of the middle zone. One attacker works in a foreign one, who tries to bring down the attack on the flank, in the center of the opponent two attackers actively meet with the support of the defenders. At the same time, possible diagonals and long passes are blocked, a trap is organized - this is exactly what they call a trap. From above, it will most likely look like 1-2-2 or 1-3-1. So, for example, Canadians played in Vancouver-2010.

The passive system of the game is our favorite classic rollback, which few people practice in its pure form. When the puck is lost, four players in a line roll back to their blue line, where they meet an opponent in order to prevent themselves from being beaten, one attacker on the red line repels an attack on one of the flanks. No matter what Zinetula Bilyaletdinov says, the screenshots do not lie - his Olympic team is the most striking example of such hockey. These are pure 1-4 (the democratic version is 1-1-3).

If we missed any important question, you can ask it in the comments. It will be necessary - we will make a continuation.

Top photo: Gettyimages.com/Vaughn Ridley

Hockey is a team sport that requires full dedication from the player. As a rule, he is taught the basics from an early age, but an older beginner can achieve results. Read on to find out what parameters athletes must meet in order to become the best.

Physical data of a successful hockey player

Good physical form is the basis for achieving mastery and consists of the following elements:




Attention! The necessary indicators are developed through physical training.

What skills should a hockey player have?

The physical potential of a beginner will be in demand only in conjunction with the technical component. The skill of an athlete is made up of two elements: possession of a stick and a puck.

The ability to work with a stick implies the perfect execution of techniques (the correct stance and a certain grip).

Control of the puck is achieved through dribbles, shots, shots, feints, etc.

The fastest mastering of techniques occurs if the player can observe the work of the masters in this sport, repeating their manipulations.

Other required qualities:




The development of skills is facilitated by such character traits as willpower, determination, self-confidence. A player with these qualities is able to perform the most challenging tasks to overcome their weaknesses. What matters is the concentration on the game and the ability to analyze your actions, recognizing mistakes or emphasizing successful moves. Developed imagination will help to predict the behavior of rivals.

Attention! It is important to maintain a balance between physical and special skills, to choose the best teaching method. For example, in Canada, children are first taught speed skating and technique, then correct throws, tactics and teamwork.

Many boys dream of playing hockey and reaching heights in it since childhood, and this goal is achievable. The athlete undergoes physical training, learns playing skills, and then consolidates them. Masters such as Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Khara become a model for beginners to follow. Professionalism appears gradually, with the accumulation of experience, as a result of work on oneself and one's technique. Anyone who wants to reach sports heights gathers his will into a fist and achieves his goal.

In the world of functional training and strength training for hockey players, there are a lot of different arguments, but when it comes to the offseason and preseason in general, experienced coaches usually agree on one thing.

The following 5 points are dedicated to the main mistakes that players make every year out of season.

1. A LOT OF WORK FOR MOBILITY

Mobility has suddenly somehow become a buzzword in social networks and seems to have become popular last years. Ridiculously enough, suddenly everyone - from couch potatoes to KHL and NHL stars - must be mobile. But how did they live before that?

We at the site believe that its popularity, along with its muscle activation work, is a fad and a marketing ploy by fitness equipment manufacturers. Of course, mobility and activation play a role in hockey. Are these exercises necessary? Certainly! But is it necessary for everyone and everyone? No, it doesn `t need.

What's even more interesting is that the word "mobility" has its own definition for everyone, and some coaches can't give it at all, and if asked, they will freeze for a while and tentatively say something like, "Well ... it's like flexibility, right? » Yeah. Something like that.



MOBILITY - A COMBINATION OF THREE QUALITIES: FLEXIBILITY, TECHNIQUE AND STRENGTH

TECHNICS

The player's technical skills can be quite poor and this can become a problem. For example, many people bend and upper part body. Adepts of "mobility" could happily take advantage of this and start looking for signs of tension in the spine, while you just need to tighten up the technique of the exercise.

FORCE

And finally, strength plays a big role in mobility. It allows you to remain stable throughout the entire range of motion. If you're not strong enough to keep your back straight during a deep squat, then it's a matter of strength, not flexibility.

Once the intersections with mobility have become clearer, we can talk about the most important principle, which is the principle of specificity.

SPECIFICITY OF HOCKEY

To produce a training effect, sports training must be appropriate and appropriate for hockey.

This means that everything you do gym and outside of it in order to improve efficiency, must somehow be associated with increased performance in hockey. An example of misuse of training specificity: a hockey player running a marathon to gain top scores in ice endurance is nonsense and does not apply to our sport.

It's the same with mobility. More doesn't mean better! Mobility is completely specific to hockey. Should hockey players be as mobile as gymnasts? Of course not. Should hockey players be more mobile than powerlifters? Still would.

We've talked about mobility in the past, but we've never said "more is better".

If you focus too much on super mobility of the whole body, you will only get better results in mobility, not hockey. When do you need to be insanely flexible in hockey? Almost never? That's it!



This is also important for rational time management. If you can only spend 4 hours a week training off the ice, and devoting half an hour to Mobility and Activation exercises before each session, then you are wasting your time. It would be more useful to use by doing power training while working on their general physical fitness and their technical skills.

2. NO MEASUREMENT OF PROGRESS

It is incredibly important for hockey players to track their progress and set goals for the entire off-season. But, on the other hand, it is difficult for a hockey player to choose criteria for measuring overall progress. For example:

• The golfer sees his scores go down;
• The rider sees his lap time drop;
• The cyclist on the track sees an improvement in time;
• A basketball player sees his free throw percentage going up.

It is more difficult for a hockey player to assess what is happening. Hockey is a chaos with a huge number of variables. The results on the scoreboard and the data on the player card do not always tell you how well you played. Many hockey players that teams would never want to give up don't get the scoreboard lit up regularly.

This is one of the reasons why it is important that players (in addition to coaching) use physical parameters performance to assess your progress levels: strength, speed, endurance, body fat percentage, resting heart rate, etc. These are visual, clear metrics that you can see and feel.

Tracking sets, reps, weights, sprint times and more lets you see where you've been and how far you've come. This can have a significant impact on the ice. Which in the case of the scoreboard can only happen sometimes ...

3. IMPROPER NUTRITION

Too many guys only think about training process and completely slaughtered for food. The world of balanced nutrition is a complete world that includes very complex topics and strategies that go far beyond: "Take extra protein" or "Just try to eat healthy."

These approaches won't get you far. It is normal when the weight change freezes and the mass growth that was planned at the beginning training plan, is reduced by half. To make serious progress on the ice or in the gym, you need to pay the same attention to your nutrition. Anyone who has gone through this before will say the same thing. Results come faster and more consistently when you eat strictly according to a plan designed for your goals.

It comes down to properly stimulating recovery. In the gym, you create an incentive for muscle growth, fat loss, or strength gains. How well you recover from a workout determines how well you can develop these characteristics.

For example, if you are following a training program to build muscle mass for 6 weeks, but eating junk, you reduce the potential that could be used for muscle growth during this time. Or another example - your son did a great job in the morning physical training, then switched to the box and threw the puck for half an hour. How is he recovering? PlayStation, lying on the couch, grandmother's cheesecakes with sour cream and sweets. This will also not lead to the desired results.

Working out hard is the fun part, a lot of people love to work out. Proper nutrition- it's more hard part, but that's what will ultimately determine your results.

4. WORKOUT PROGRAMS LIKE A GAME OF PINBALL

One of the common problems that can be avoided. By "pinball" we mean jumping from one program to another without any integrated approach. In general, this is normal. Ordinary people can do whatever they want. If they just want the health benefits, they don't need a well structured athlete training system for the year.

But if you're an athlete, then a periodization-based training program needs to be clear and well thought out, with distinct goals for each phase that make sense both in terms of where they fit on the schedule throughout the year and how they will be applied throughout the year. ice.

Going from one popular magazine program that looks cool to another online program that looks just as cool doesn't make sense from a sports science perspective. What an athlete needs are training systems designed to raise his level of play that are linked together as common system and rely on each other to achieve common progress.

You can think of running random programs throughout the year as trying to build your car from junkyard parts. You have to go out of the house, find different parts from different models, and in the end, maybe you will actually get a car that will run.

Now compare that to a BMW built from premium parts in one place. Who will perform better in the end? A car that was randomly assembled from various pieces of scrap metal or a methodically constructed BMW?

• No focus on strength and muscle growth at the right time;
• No access to the peak of form for the next season;
• No load reduction where needed;
• Late start of off-season training.

The list goes on, but the biggest crime is to de-emphasize strength and build muscle as soon as the off-season hits. hockey season not easily reflected on the player's body. Hockey is a sport with a strong impact, and after hard season you can feel a noticeable loss of health.

A typical season is full of games, trips, and high-end workouts that put the body in a state of wear and tear. After a quick recovery period, possibly with short time after the season, hockey players should dive right into the hard work of building muscle and strength.

If you're pretty beat up, take a little break. A week or so will be enough and you will have a head start over your competitors in development during the off-season.

WHY ADD MUSCLE AND STRENGTH BUILDING WORK?

In the off-season, you have the most time until the next season of competition. It would be impossible to immediately play well and focus on strength and muscle building. Performance is the number one focus during the season.

Maintaining your current strength, endurance, fitness level and muscle mass is number two. Therefore, it is quite enough to maintain the existing strength and muscles during the season in order to fully recover from hard training.

The main idea that should be taken away from the 5th mistake is that you should not consider the development in hockey and your strength + physical fitness as different independent processes, but rather as a continuation of each other.

CONCLUSION

your potential to be good hockey player depends almost entirely on your skills on the ice and your team's strategy and tactics. But in order to effectively use these skills and perform them quickly, sharply and powerfully throughout the entire period of the game, you need special strength and physical training. One is nothing without the other, they are an extension of each other, and how well you are able to combine them shows how competently you train.