Hockey fitness regimen

[jwalker678]

I am an old hockey player lookiing to improve on-ice endurance and power. My overall goal is to extend my playing years. The problem is that I really don't have an off season. I play 3-4 times per week but still I have a lot of room for improving my endurance. Most of the fitness regimenes for improving seem to be designed for the "off-season". I never know if I am doing too much or not enough. My typical hockey schedule is Sunday morning, Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening with an occasional fourth day. I have been doing some heavy weight training for strength but only once a week figuring I might otherwise be doing too much. Recently, I have added interval training using a stairmaster. Now, I am wondering if I should do some high rep weight training for muscular endurance as an add-on or perhaps in lieu of the strenth training regimen. Given, my hockey schedurel what would be a good training regimen?

[Frank.S]

I wouldn't worry to much about keeping the reps high. Hockey is a very explosive sport and you are going to want to develop that. You are generally not going to get as much power out of higher reps (there are exceptions of course). There are many schools of thought on this, but I'm a big fan of sticking to the basic lifts (squat, deads, overhead press, rows, pullups, bench press). It sounds like the level you are currently at would benifit solely by incorporating these lifts in. Later on once you have made some strength gains from the lifts, then start to get more sport specific. You may be more advanced with weight training then I am thinking, if thats the case I would change things around..

Since you are in-season I would suggest a lower volume of work along with a lowered frequency. 1-2x per week you should be fine. A very simple program of something along the lines of:

day 1
squats 5reps, 3sets
standing press 6-8reps, 3sets
pullups 3sets as many as possible

day 2
deadlifts 5reps, 3sets
bench press 6-8reps, 3sets
rows 8-10reps, 3 sets

Is going to get you on the right track pretty quickly. Again, it all depends on how advanced you are. As you get more advanced a more sport specific training would need to be put in place.

Make sure you have a good grasp on form in all the lifts before you start. IE squats done below paralell and deadlifts without a rounded back.

There are far more qualified people then me in terms of sports performance on here, so listen to them over me haha.

[ninja]

No matter what you're doing, you need to be making sure you're doing enough adductor/abductor work

[jwalker678]

Frank, that makes sense and is similar to what I have been doing. Lately, my stamina has been lacking during games. Could be that I am not allowing for enough rest between workout and game or maybe it is something else like diet which I haven't paid a lot of attention.

[laxcdn]

I put a link in the hockey section.