Are you a hockey player looking to elevate your game, boost your performance, and stay injury-free?
Many athletes fall into common training traps, but with the right approach, you can unlock your full potential on the pitch. We’ve gathered 7 essential tips to help you train smarter, harder.
Beyond the Gym: Smarter Strength Training
Most hockey players either train without a plan or follow a generic gym routine, which isn’t ideal for peak performance. While some players focus on muscle size like bodybuilders or avoid weights fearing they’ll become slow, the truth is that proper strength training is crucial for speed, power, and injury prevention.The key is to train for explosive power, stability, and movements specific to hockey. Think compound exercises like split squats, Romanian deadlifts, and lateral lunges, which directly translate to on-pitch movements. Your training should be tailored to your individual needs and assessed to understand your current strength and capacity.
The Strength Pyramid: A Foundation for Performance
To truly improve your hockey strength, understand the “strength pyramid”:- Mobility & Stability: This is your base. Without a solid base, strength and power won’t transfer to performance. If you’re finding that you can’t stay low on the pitch, or struggling with lower back pain, then mobility could well be your missing element. Get this right before starting to load your body.
- Strength & Power: Once you’ve got high quality movement and control, you can load your body and build force production for speed and agility. The movements should relate directly to hockey performance and at the very least, be individualised to your specific needs.
- Sport Specific Movements: This is where you translate your strength gains into actual hockey skills. Don’t only do double leg exercises; ensure transfer to performance. Otherwise, you’re wasting your efforts. If your training isn’t structured this way, you’re missing out.
Speed Secrets: Don't Just Sprint
Speed wins games, but getting faster isn’t only about sprinting more. Most players think that simply running sprints will make them faster, but true speed development requires a more structured approach.Hockey speed is about acceleration, agility, and power. All of which start in the gym.
A major mistake is neglecting strength training. Your ability to accelerate depends on lower body power. If your legs aren’t strong enough to generate force, you’ll struggle to explode forward. Plyometrics, sprint mechanics drills, and unilateral exercises like Bulgarian split squats can help develop the kind of strength that transfers to speed.
Additionally, technique matters. Simple improvements to body position, arm drive, and stride mechanics can lead to noticeable speed gains. Think of sprinting as a skill that needs intentional practice, not mindless running.
Injury Prevention: Stay in the Game
Injuries are one of the biggest obstacles to success in hockey. They keep you off the pitch, slow progress, and hurt your confidence. The good news? Many common hockey injuries, like ACL tears, hamstring strains, and ankle sprains, can be significantly reduced with proper training and preparation. A strong foundation of mobility, stability, and strength is crucial for injury prevention. Your knees, hips, and ankles must be stable under load, and your muscles strong enough to absorb impact and change direction rapidly.Most injuries happen due to weaknesses in these areas, often caused by imbalances or poor movement mechanics. Key strategies for reducing injury risk include a proper warm up routine, strength training that prioritises single leg stability, and regular mobility work. This should be underpinned by an individual, tailored approach that makes sense for you.Recovery is also essential; overtraining without proper rest increases your risk of injury. The difference between consistently performing and spending months in rehab is often a smart, structured training plan.To prevent ankle injuries, a common issue hockey players face, focus on three key areas:- Balance Training: Balance is crucial for stability and injury prevention. Athletes with poor balance have a higher risk of ankle injuries, especially those with a history of previous injuries. To enhance balance, start with single leg balance holds (3–5 sets of 30 seconds) and progress to unstable surface balance work, adding throwing/catching drills for dynamic stability.
- Hopping & Dynamic Stability: Static balance is important, but hockey demands dynamic control. Hopping drills train your neuromuscular system to handle quick, unpredictable movements. These exercises mimic game-like movement patterns, helping to build reactive strength.
- Calf Strength: The calves are key players in ankle stability and propulsion. Strengthening the soleus and gastrocnemius muscles reduces injury risk and enhances agility. Integrate exercises like leg press calf raises, seated calf raises, and standing Smith machine calf raises into your training to improve ankle durability and resilience.
The Importance of the Warm Up
Most athletes think of warm ups as only ‘getting warm,’ but movement prep is much more. It’s about preparing your body for the demands of your session, while improving movement efficiency, reducing injury risk, and enhancing long term performance. A structured movement prep routine should prepare for the upcoming session, improve short term performance, and contribute to long term athletic gains. The RAMP method: Raise, Activate, Mobilise, and Potentiate, ensures an optimal warm up, gradually increasing intensity, activating key muscles, improving mobility, and finishing with explosive movements. Instead of aimless jogging, use this time wisely to maximise training impact.
Optimal Fitness: Why Running Long Distances Isn’t Enough
Many hockey players think running long distances equals better fitness, but that’s not the case. Hockey requires short, intense bursts of speed, rapid changes of direction, and repeat sprint ability. Traditional endurance training won’t fully prepare you and can even increase injury risk.Instead, focus on training energy systems specific to hockey: short sprints, repeated efforts, and active recovery. Mix aerobic and anaerobic work using interval training instead of long distance runs. Sprint-based conditioning improves repeat sprint ability, a key performance factor. The best hockey plans focus on interval training, sprint drills, and agility work because they reflect the demands of the game.Understanding your “running profile” (speed, hybrid, or endurance) is also important to align your conditioning sessions with your specific needs.
Speed profiles are fast but lack relative aerobic capacity, hybrid profiles have a blend of good speed and endurance, and endurance profiles have a large aerobic capacity but aren’t as quick.
Anaerobic Speed Reserve (ASR) and Repeat Sprint Ability (RSA)
Anaerobic Speed Reserve (ASR) is the difference between your maximal sprint speed (MSS) and maximal aerobic speed (MAS). The bigger the gap, the better your ability to sustain high intensity efforts and recover quickly. A higher ASR means less fatigue during repeated sprints and is a better predictor of endurance in high intensity sports like hockey. Elite players with a larger ASR perform more high intensity actions in a game.
You can measure ASR by determining MAS (e.g., a 1462m time trial, dividing total distance by time) and your MSS (e.g., timing a flying 10m sprint with a laser gate or GPS). The difference between those two gives you your ASR—and your training should target both ends of the spectrum to maximise performance.
