Coach,
This question will relate to energy systems training for hockey, but it could likely be applied to any sport really. And if my post is too length for you to read any further or out of place here, I’d even appreciate a recommendation of resources I should check out to learn more about how to properly structure in and off-season conditioning, as well as how specificity or lack there of fits in with it.
In season, I would assume that you let games and practices maintain conditioning levels and only supplement as needed based upon how much ice time a player usually receives, number of practices per week (obviously varies with level), etc.
But for off-season I am wondering how you go about deciding just how much of various types to include (off-ice versus on-ice), as well as how “specific” it needs to be when using on-ice work.
For example, some would see skating without equipment and a stick as not specific enough. Other coaches would ass that as much of the conditioning work as possible should be performed with a puck. But during a typical game, you rarely have control of the puck for a lengthy portion of time, and much of the play is starting, stopping, changing directions, jostling in front of the net/fighting for the puck along the boards, etc.
Now I grew up spending tons of hours going to free skates where I would dart in and out of other skaters. While it wasn’t identical to hockey, it did help me perfect my edges and greatly increase my skating power and ability to maintain speed, plus I always had to be alert to avoid running into other skaters. I also spent hours at practices where the coaches would use drills with predictable patterns with plenty of skating without pucks.
These days it seems like coaches are focusing more and more on multi-directional, somewhat randomized/unpredictable drills (often with visual cues), and many other techniques to try and produce a more “authentic” conditioning environment.
What is your take on hockey ESW?
What helped me develop a high level of skating speed, stamina, agility, stability, and overall proficiency was hardly scientific or “cutting edge,” but it produced results, so that lead to my questioning about developing ESW programs for hockey players now that I am interested in being a performance enhancement coach and simply saying “it worked for me” is not good enough.
On one final note, I truly found my work performed at public skates to have a major positive transfer to my hockey playing. Refining technique, the random nature of the skating patterns (stopping starting, turning, darting in and out, forwards, backwards, etc.), and becoming increasingly used to maintaining stride power for longer durations (but still specific to a shift or double shift in a hockey game) always seemed to have significant carryover, which lead me to wonder where to draw the line between allowing my past experience to inform my decisions and a tendency to get too complex with things as some coaches are wont to do.