Great Hockey Conditioning Ideas – Part 3

Great Hockey Conditioning Ideas – Part 3
By Dennis Chighisola

This is really just going to be a short post for a couple of reasons.

First, I’ve already shown you the basic exercises we’re using to get my high school guys ready for their coming team tryouts.

Secondly, I’ve also shown you how it all works — like stringing the exercises together and pacing them to simulate on-ice shifts.

That said, I highly recommend you quickly review the short video I prepared for Great Hockey Conditioning Ideas – Part 2, just so we’ll be on the same page as I introduce a couple of upgrades or recent adjustments I’ve made to that routine.

1)  One thing you ought to know is that it’s important to spread certain kinds of training over the course of  a week.  For example, I help these high schoolers with their skills and situational stuff on Monday nights — and I go easily on conditioning, just because I know my boys are going to get a real whipping the next night.  Then, after that Tuesday night whipping in The Motion Lab, they get a night off to rest before we go fairly hard on the roller floor in Lakeville, MA.  (That session at the roller rink actually includes some sprint training and part of the conditioning routine we do in the Lab, these done before we put on the in-lines.)  We’ve had some weekend ice over the early fall, which has allowed us to do things similarly to Monday nights.  However, during some future weeks — when we won’t skate on either Saturday or Sunday, I’ll make some adjustments to what we do on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday.

2)  By the way…  Some consistency is good, while change is also good.  What I’m getting at is that one’s body starts to adapt to a certain training routine, and actually gets accustomed to it.  (That’s the idea of working hard and forcing the body to adapt to the new challenges.)  The problem arises when getting used to an exercise makes that exercise easy to perform.  So, an occasional change in the way practices are spread over time and paced can provide a new and even greater challenge.  Remember:  the main thing is to force the body to constantly adapt and grow — in skills, speed, strength, conditioning, and more…

3)  Building on what we’ve been doing all along, I substituted sandbags last night (in place of their hockey sticks) as my guys did the various kinds of jumps (shown in the video) — onto and over a lower box than we’d previously used with a lighter load.  Both the change in load and the change in height will provide my guys new challenges.

4)  I’ve recently adapted a kettlebell type of exercise and placed it near the end of the guys’ Lab routine.  And, I can tell that this is a real killer for them, especially in their legs.  I tend to call this kind of exercise a “finisher”.  In other words, once they’ve done that, there isn’t much more they can give.

5) Last night, for the first time this training season, we went to 20-second shifts.  (Most previous routines had the kids working for 10- or 15-seconds, with twice as long to rest.)  And, despite the fact that my players were definitely cooked by the end of about 40-minutes, I can tell they are in unbelievable shape.  In fact, I complimented each group last night, suggesting that they’d probably just worked the equivalent of two periods at a pace that is far beyond what most guys would actually skate in a game.

6) I’d like to insert a belief that I’ve shared in numerous other ways here, including in my “Food for Hockey Thought” video, suggesting that quite often we can do a better job training off the ice than we can on it.  For example…  On-ice sprints get pretty old with players, and there’s ultimately the chance that they’ll start to cut corners in their on-ice efforts.  On the other hand, I tend not to see as much coasting when we’re doing a routine similar to the one I’m now discussing.

7)  Okay, those who came to this post via the Goalies link have to be wondering at this point when I’m ever going to get to them.  Sooooo…

Well, over the spring and summer months, Todd Jacobson has always handled our goalers — on the ice, at the in-line facility, and up in The Motion Lab.  And his work with them during those times was almost always position-specific.  However, this year I’ve had our high school netminder join a regular (typically for skaters) training group FOR VERY GOOD REASON.  So, if you can envision some of the drills you saw my skaters doing in that video, imagine how helpful they can be for a goaltender.  Yes, our guy is in unbelievable shape, and I think we can owe it all to this kind of training.

Then, last night, as a group was doing their jumps up onto a box while holding a sandbag in their arms, I decided to have our goalie do a different exercise for his third and final set…  What I had him do was quick ups and downs from his butterfly stance with a sandbag clutched to his chest.  Man, I know it was a killer for him, but he did it awesomely, and in great spirit.  Thereafter, because we do four different types of exercises using a box, he went off to the side and did his special exercise for each third set.

Finally, I’m kinda bummed that I didn’t shoot any video last night — especially showing that goaler exercise and the one that’s kinda like a kettlebell movement.  However, I will try to get some for you next week.

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As always, your Comments mean a lot to me and to other members.

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Update

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I had to miss a recent High School Prep on-ice hockey practice, so I setup my assistant coaches to run something close to a 3 on 3 one-zone game.  I had two reasons for doing this:

First, at this time of year high players have all sorts of problems when it comes to practice attendance — from the latest flu bug to school functions to church commitments.  So, I figured that working low numbers of players at a time would make things easier to administer if we happened to have guys missing from that specific practice.

Secondly — and the real reason I wanted to do this, “small game” contests tend to really push the players.  I mean, they don’t like to be beaten, so they really do push themselves.

Anyway, the word back from my top assistant was that the guys didn’t even seem to be tired at the end of the hour+ skate.    I have to love that.  And, with still two full months to go before my kids go off to their high school hockey tryouts, I just know they’re going to be lean and mean when they do leave.

Naming Your Hockey Lines

The above is a question I recently fielded from a hockey coach, and it’s a good one.  Actually, I sense it’s one of those that I wouldn’t have even thought to address without being asked.  (See how valuable your questions and Comments can be?)  So, with that, let’s get into…

– Dennis Chighisola

Naming Your Hockey Lines

I almost know that the coach who posed this question did so because he didn’t want to designate kids as first-liners, second-lines, and so forth.  Anyway, that’s my thinking.  I’d prefer not to give my kids the impression that one line is any better than the other, and I even like them to battle it out to show which unit can be trusted more than the others.

While on that subject, I like to keep a lot of stats that are based on a unit’s performance.  (In my case, I like to form 5-player units, but this philosophy also works when evaluating forward lines and defense pairs.)

As for my suggestion, it would be to go with colors.  Take my current Mite AAA team, for example…  Three different 5-man units are dressed alike for our practices — in red, blue and yellow.  So, I simply refer to them by their colors.

By the way…  Not every organization can afford extra shirts just for practice sake.  However, I think every family could manage to purchase a t-shirt of a designated color, and these could easily be worn over another jersey.

Up above, my junior high school team wears their color-coded hockey practice jerseys to any practice will include systems work.

No matter which way a team chooses to outfit players and sort them into lines, I’ll suggest that the parents be warned ahead of time that colors may be swapped from time to time.  In other words, it’s quite possible I’ll sometime down the road move a boy from the red unit to the blue, etc.

Okay, that’s the way I happen to handle this little challenge — dressing and referring to my players by color-coded units.  Yet, I am going to bet that there’s a member or two out there who has an even better idea than mine.  So, since exchanging ideas is just one of the many benefits of CoachChic.com membership, I’d really like to hear from others on this subject.  (Just use the Comment box down below.)

Hockey’s High Flip Passes

This is just a short post, but I took a little video during my high school team’s recent practice, and I thought I’d not only show you a specific drill, but I also wanted to tell you about my reason’s for doing it.

– Dennis Chighisola

Hockey’s High Flip Passes

Just so you know, most of the drills I use with my players — from the very beginners through to my oldest guys — are ones that I’ve deemed necessary to their development.  In other words, I may have noticed a flaw in their game, and I’ll come-up with something that should help.  (Sometimes it’s just the needs of a single player that cause me to do this, but even catering to the needs of one kid will usually end-up helping quite a few others.)

Yet at other times, there are little extra skills I want to get into my players’ games.  Often they’re things that most other coaches don’t even think about.  But, as I told a few of my guys the other night (while doing a different drill), ‘This just broadens your effectiveness.”  In other words, the new trick or skill might not necessarily be all that noticeable in a game — to the fans.  But a coach is very likely to appreciate one of my guys because he has a knack for doing the “little things” that help win games.

Okay, so what did I have my guys trying the other day?  It was the high flip pass that can be used to sail a puck up and over some oncoming opponents.

As you’ll see in the following video, I sorta just gave my high school players some rough guidelines, and then I allowed them to experiment.  In this case, we were at our roller rink facility which has a high wall along one side.  And, conveniently painted on that wall is a long red line that’s probably about 6- or 7-feet above the floor, and it acted as a spot for my guys to aim.  So again, I told my kids to take their time and get a feel for the movement.  That’s all I can expect in their first go at it…

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You may have noticed that the young fellow featured at the beginning and end of that clip has fairly soft hands.  Not that the other guys don’t, but it’s pretty pronounced in that one boy.

And that brings me to another point, in that a lot of the drills we do with one purpose in mind also aid the development of another skill (or several others).

More than anything, though, I want to emphasize three other points…

First, if you hadn’t already, you now realize that a skill like this one is pretty handy.  Oh, as I suggested before, it’s not a necessity, by any means.  But it sure is good to have within your bag of tricks.

Secondly, I hope you noticed one of our goaltenders working on the very same skill.  I know lots of other coaches would exclude him or her from this kind of stuff, but not me.  I want my netminders to (within reason) have the same skating, puckhandling, passing and shooting capabilities as my skaters.

Third — and really most importantly, I’m using this post to lobby for a little built-in practice time where your skaters can just relax and experiment with a given skill.  Oh, I’m as driven as any coach to run fast-paced practices, and to do lots of stuff with discipline.  However, today’s kids — at least from my point of view — lack the chance to freelance and experiment like a lot of earlier generations did on local ponds and rivers.

Lastly, while our off-ice facility is a great place for the guys’ first tries at a new skill, you can be sure we’ll take this drill to the ice shortly, and probably at some point even have the players try to execute the skill under some game like pressure.

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As always, I love (and greatly appreciate) your Comments.  Just use the box below.

More on Solving Hockey Problems

As I do sort of a sequel to an earlier post (“Solving Hockey Training Problems”), I’m almost thinking that a kzillion other articles and videos could have been titled almost the same.  After all, what I’ve done for years is to mainly troubleshoot — for the sake of my players, my students, their parents and a lot of other coaches.  And, chances are good that you also have to do tons of problem solving if you’re a hockey player, parent or coach.

That said, let me share what got me going on my current rant…

– Dennis Chighisola

More on Solving Hockey Problems

Last week I corresponded with a member who was having some ankle and hip problems.  I made sure I told that young lady player that I’m not a doctor, and that my ideas and experiences should not replace her seeking professional medical advice.

That out of the way, I did share with her my thoughts based on about 40-years of experience in such matters.

My first question — again based on experience — was to see if she’d made any recent changes — especially when it came to her skates or any other gear she wears on the lower extremities.  Her first answer was, “No.”  However, given a brief time, she did say that her latest skate sharpening was not to her liking, and that it made her feel uncomfortable on the ice.  Hmmmmmm…

Now again, I am not a doctor.  However, think this through with me…

If a piece of gear feels the least bit uncomfortable, a hockey player is very likely to compensate in some way.  In this member’s case, I suspect she may have started skating just a tad differently, which might have caused some soreness somewhere.  Yes, somewhere, because I’ve seen a change in posture suddenly cause awful back problems, and pain in several other places.  So, what’s the chance her way of compensating had her over-stressing her feet and ankles?  Could be, huh?

With that, I might further guess that her sore ankles caused her to skate even more differently, with that resulting in some pain in her hips.

Now, this stuff is still all a guess; it’s just that it’s a fairly educated one.  (I don’t know if you’ve read through the years how some Major League Baseball pitchers have had their careers ended because a foot or leg injury caused them to throw differently and to ultimately over-stress their pitching arms.  But, it is so.)

All this said, today’s post IS NOT really about our young friend’s aches and pains.  What it IS about is our need to gather as many experiences and bits of knowledge as possible, in order to be able to troubleshoot any difficulty that might come along.

  I used to get teased by a friend who liked to say that I “know too many facts”.  That discussion ended, however, when I ran across an article whereby it was stated that (and I paraphrase), “Common sense stems from being able to piece together numerous random facts.”

That in mind, you can imagine how helpful it can be for anyone in hockey to know not only the sciences, skills, tactics and strategies, but also the way equipment should be measured, how skates and sticks should be adapted to the individual, and so much more.

Actually, I learned how to sharpen skates in my earliest years in the game, and I studied all I could about the characteristics of a skate radius.  I picked the brains of my friends in the local pro shops, and I’ve even asked a lot of questions of the Zamboni operators.  Beyond my Physical Education Degree studies, I even took extra sports medicine courses outside of my formal education.  And I’ve forgotten where else I’ve stuck my nose in, just trying to gain more and more “random facts”.

Okay, so the reason I’m saying all this…  First, I’m hoping that a lot of the “little things” you need to know are already somewhere within the near 400 posts contained here.  I’m also suggesting each member nose around as I have, asking questions wherever and whenever there’s a chance to gather a deeper understanding of our game and a player’s needs.  Then, of course, I truly want you to put me to the test, and to ask me absolutely anything you’d like.  Hey, I said I truly want you to.

A Sample Hockey Practice Plan

Before anyone thinks the following is going to be just for coaches, I want to point-out that I’ll be sharing some of my thinking behind the drills I’ll list.  Hopefully then, a lot of this will prove valuable to older hockey players and to parents of younger ones.

– Dennis Chighisola

A Sample Hockey Practice Plan

I might begin by telling you how I arrive at some of the topics I’ll cover in a given practice.  Actually, they’re derived from two main sources:

1. If you go to my video on “Breaking Down Hockey Strategies“, you’ll discover that I use something like a checklist of all the tactics and strategies my players will be expected to know and ultimately master.  Sometimes I need to go to my written notes for reminders, but oftentimes I can visualize the plays — as my players have or don’t have the puck (or they’re on offense or defense), and according to what zone the play is in.  So, that kind of self-talk might go something like, “Forechecking…  Backchecking…  Covering enemy rushes…  Defending in our end…  Breakouts…”
2. I am forever taking notes (see the intro for a category titled A Coach’s Notebook).  And as I prepared the following practice plan, I was falling back on some notes I’d jotted after our last hockey game.

I’ll usually use a piece of scrap paper to initially list all the things I’ll want to accomplish in a practice.  With that, I’ll ultimately re-order the drills in the following way…

To be honest, this wasn’t my idea; I happened to see it mentioned a lot of years ago by another coach and I thought it made a lot of sense.  What I’m getting at is the concept of grouping certain drills into offensive and defensive categories.  The aim of doing it this way is to get my players thinking defense for a certain amount of time, and then shifting them to thinking offense for another stretch.  I wouldn’t say I have a preference for putting one before the other, but with the sense that defense takes a lot more work and a lot more concentration, I might often put that group of drills first so that we ultimately finish with the fun stuff (or some offensive drills).

The Drills

Warm-ups We almost always begin every practice with a sequence of drills I’ve designed to ready us for games AND PRACTICES.  I have to tell you more about this sometime soon.  But for now, these are a collection of simple drills that I feel will really lift my kids’ game as hundreds of repetitions are done over the long season, and they’re also sequenced to bring my players from a resting heart rate to being game ready.

The Strength Position In anticipation of starting this practice with some defensive drills, I  first showed my kids how they can get the most strength on their skates — with their feet spread, sitting a bit to lower their centers of gravity, keeping their heads up, with their sticks held firmly on the ice and in two hands.

Stick Lifts You might think that players need to be shown how to lift an opponent’s stick.  However, I find far too many place their hands too close together, thereby having almost no strength whatsoever.  Really lowering the bottom hand, however, can make it possible for the smallest player to raise the stick of a much bigger guy (or gal).

Covering an Open Man With the rough basics in place, I next held some equal strength battles…  I sent so many attackers towards a net with an equal number of defenders attempting to cover them.  I wanted my defenders to control the sticks of intended pass receivers as an assistant coach fed a pass into the slot.

Actually, the above included three separate drills, with 1 on 1, 2 on 2 and then 3 on 3 match-ups.  The last progression is a tough one for defenders, because they have to scan the ice and communicate with teammates so that all three attackers get covered in man-to-man fashion.

Wide Dribbles on the SMG Switching to offense next, my players attacked our simulated goalie (or the SMG) as if on a breakaway, and I asked them to use the wide dribble move we’ve been working on lately in our skills sessions.

As an aside…  I’ve noticed some of my players being a bit too casual lately while attacking that SMG.  So, I think I’m going to put a little punishment in soon in the event anyone hits that stationary goaler.

Really, the word “punishment” is a little strong for what I intend.  What I truly want to do is to just connect some sort of negative to their misfiring, or make my kids very conscious of what they’re doing on their way to the goal.

2′s and 3′s Attacking the Net Next we went with pairs and then groups of threes attacking the SMG.  My emphasis here was more towards the kids giving good targets and making good passes, as well as moving towards the net in proper formations.

On the latter, I’m talking about two attackers going to their own net-posts, or three attackers doing the same with a trailer behind the first two.

5 on 1 Keepaway Again, passing is the aim in this one, while I also want to get my players to stay moving — or getting open for passes, keeping their eyes up and making sure they keep the puck far away from the lone defender.

Okay, a couple of things I ought to let you know before I finish here…

Number one, a lot of what I’m doing in recent practices is geared towards helping my players prepare for a 3-on-3 league that they’re currently playing in.  Oh, much of what we’re doing will also help — tons — when we switch to regulation games in a few months.  But, helping them be successful right now will help morale and also help all the players learn some great playing basics.

Secondly, while some folks might think that the above includes an awful lot of drills for one practice, I’m going to suggest that I get half as many more drills accomplished in a longer session (this one was only 50-minutes).  A lot of the drills were fairly new to my kids, also, which means they took extra time to explain and set-up.  Once drills become familiar with players, though, I can get them going quickly, and thusly get far more accomplished for the night.

Number three, I don’t know if you’ve thought about this as I’ve been describing the drills.  However, all of the above was designed for my 8-year old AAA Mite team.  Yup, I respect those little rascals as much as I do all my older guys, and I’m teaching them the game as I would anyone else.  About the only difference might be the way I communicate with them (because they’re young), or the slower way I introduce the fairly high level tactics.  Again, though, as I’ve said countless time throughout this site, I truly respect hockey players OF ALL AGES, and I aim to teach all of them what they need to know to move up the hockey ladder.

Oh, one final note…  We have been hugely successful in our first two weeks of 3 on 3 games (which include a jamboree type round robin of three games).  And I’m quite pleased at us amassing 4-wins, 2-ties and zero losses.

What I’m even more thrilled about is the fashion in which  we’ve played.  I mean, my little rascals are unbelievably aggressive on the puck, and they are making terrific passes to open mates.  In most instances, our practice work against the SMG is also paying-off, with nearly every team member tucking at least one goal into an open corner.

Ya, as I so often joke (as I borrow a line from the TV program, “The A-team”)…  I just love it when a plan comes together!

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I’m hoping the above stirs some conversation or questions.  So, just fire away in the box below.

Solving Hockey Training Problems

I could have chosen a lot of different titles for this entry, and I also could have placed it under a number of different categories on this site.

However, while the awesome little homemade gadget I’m about to show you is very narrowly focused — or it suits only a very narrow need, it’s the overall theme that I really want to get across — to hockey players, coaches and parents.

That overall theme, of course, is our need to constantly attempt to solve hockey training problems.  So, with that, let me address that subject, and then let me show you that neat little gadget it took me a few minutes to invent, and not much longer to actually make.

– Dennis Chighisola

Solving Hockey Training Problems

Okay, nearly every day or night at a rink raises some sort of hockey training challenge (and on most occasions you and I just might notice a whole lot more than one problem).

As an aside here…  I have a brother who is a pretty shrewd businessman and he’s also an inventor of note.  And his favorite line whenever we get to talking business is, “The most important thing is to ask the right question.”  In other words, instead of doing as most of us do — running around searching for answers, he believes that isolating the REAL question — or the real problem at hand — is key.  After that, all the answers just tend to roll on out.

Okay, so on several occasions over the past few weeks, I’ve had cause to mention to different people that, “The defenseman’s defense of a 1 on 1 is perhaps the most difficult skill for any hockey player to master.”

Ya, I said that to one of the dads on my HS Prep team, because he seemed frustrated at times watching his boy work against a lone attacker.

Then, I also found myself sharing those same feelings with the young coach who works with our Mite AAA blueliners.

Of course, in each instance it was pretty easy for me to isolate the most significant problem with any of my guys’ 1 on 1 play…  I’m even sure anyone who reads this — no matter his or her experience level — will appreciate it when I say that most defensemen get lured into taking their eyes off the attacker’s body and ultimately look down at the puck.

As yet another aside, let me tell you that I’ve gathered plenty of video footage showing future NHL Hall of Famers getting torched on a 1 against 1 (and there’s a video within this site showing the awesome Pronger getting undressed by Bergeron).  So, the problem isn’t one of youth, inexperience, whatever.  It is, I’ll suggest, a matter of practice and discipline.

Still, while I’ve stated the overall problem so far, that simply doesn’t help you or I, the above noted dad, my assistant coach, or any of my players.

What I did discover, however, is that I frequently mentioned the main problem in my conversations with the dad and my assistant.  And it wasn’t until a recent drive home from a Mite AAA practice that the real question hit me right between the eyes.

“WHY is it that defensemen look down at the puck?”

Again, I’m asking “WHY”.

And my answer is that it’s because players get away with it far too often.  I mean, they look downward and poke the puck, and manage to stop the rush far too often in that very faulty fashion.  And, the best young defenders — or the craftier ones — tend to get away with this technique more than lesser players.  Anyway, the fact that anyone gets away with this tends to reinforce that approach.  But, let me come back to that part of the discussion a little later.

Still trying to refine this whole matter a bit more, I arrived at the idea that the puck itself is a huge distraction as defensemen try to practice their 1 on 1′s.  However, to remove the puck from the drill wouldn’t make sense (which is a discussion for another time).

If you’re thinking it would be a good idea to make our defenders practice this area without their sticks, I’ll suggest it’s a very bad idea.  Our “D” can’t steer his or her man without a stick.  Nor can our defender practice poke-checks (while keeping the eyes up).  Worse yet, attacking forwards take huge liberties under such circumstances, and these tend to totally ruin the purpose of the drill.

Okay, so what I arrived at was the need to remove the chance for a defender to steal the puck while not actually removing the puck from our drills.  (Got you scratching your head, huh?)  In other words, I wanted my kids to be able to play everything as usual, but they had to know that lunging and stealing the puck was not an option.

So, to the left is my answer to all that.  There’s a puck, it’s going to be right there and present within every play, but you better know that my “D” can’t steal it if it’s attached to the attacker’s stick by the little bungee rope.

I put this contraption together rather hastily, using a few available roller pucks and some handy thin bungee.  (Regular twine might be okay, but I wanted the bungee to stretch and then grab fairly snugly over the stick’s shaft.)  Down the road, I might take the time to drill into a batch of regulation pucks; or, I might just spray paint these black to make them look a little more realistic.

Now, I promised earlier to come back to that thing about crafty players getting to reinforce the wrong techniques by stealing pucks from less skilled attackers.  And to do this, I need to remind you about something you’ll often hear me say, in that, “The more times we do something a given way, the more that becomes they way we’ll do it under pressure.” And mainly, what I’m getting at is practice-time — or should I say, the right (or wrong) kind of practice time.

In all honesty, I think I’m going to relax and let the chips fall where they may in our future games.  However, what I’m going to do is have my young defenders work against the above noted gadgets hundreds and hundreds of times during the coming winter’s practices.  I don’t think it’s going to take long for even the youngest among them to realize that he can’t steal the puck.  That accomplished,  us coaches will be able to steer him/them towards the few important things they should be focusing on.

Okay, so let’s get back to the process here, or the title theme, about solving hockey training problems…

I don’t think it took any genius for me to realize the problem, and I don’t think the above shown gadget is going to make anyone forget Thomas Edison. Yet, why is it I can almost bet there won’t be a coach within the league I’ll coach in who will use any sort of extra measures to help his defensemen in their 1 on 1 play?

I’ll venture to guess…  First, some of them won’t even notice their “D” have a problem (and almost all “D” do).  Even if they ultimately figure-out their kids are getting burned on 1 on 1′s, there’s a likelihood that most coaches won’t recognize the real problem (or the real question).  And, unless that kind of thought process is used, it’s highly doubtful anyone will be gracing local practices with anything as simple of my bungee puck arrangement.  You, on the other hand, as a CoachChic.com member, now know how to go about solving a lot more problems than the one I’ve described here. 

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As always, I’m dying for your input.  So, let me know your thoughts on this, huh?