Off-Season Work For On-Ice Speed
The goals of the off-season program first: Improve fitness, increase on-ice speed, increase usable, on-ice strength and address any on-ice weakness from a physical standpoint. Some may need to lose body fat. Some players may be asked to gain body weight. Depending on age and body type, nutrition- factors that may be out of the S+C coaches control. I never promise size, but I can promise increased speed and strength.
Every player can use increased speed and every player can get faster. I feel and have seen- if you increase sprint speed off-ice, you will skate faster and move better on-ice.
The basic premise for increasing speed is this: You must do high intensity(95-100%) speed training. This is done with short bursts of FULL speed work. Sprinting 10, 20 and 30 yd distances will work well. Because of the high intensity, you will need almost full recovery between reps, this training is not for conditioning, it is for speed. The final consideration is fatigue- once central nervous system fatigue sets in, you cannot work at high enough intensities and therefore work after this point is unproductive for the goal of increasing speed. One other point- the athlete must be fully and properly warmed up. You will risk injury if you attempt full speed work when the muscles are not ready.
