Hockey Training: Get Off The Machines!
By Kim McCullough, M.Sc., YCS
Over the past few years, the number of youth-specific fitness facilities has exploded across North America. While many are focused developing on general fitness, many are attempting to branch out into the sports-specific markets - and the youth hockey market is certainly no exception.
These fitness chains boast that they are "interactive fitness facilities designed especially for youth". They are jam-packed with video game-based exercise bikes and kid-sized strength training equipment. Youth-specific training facilities are a good idea, whose time has finally come due to increased concerns about childhood inactivity and obesity. However, machine-based facilities that focus on training muscles, instead of movement patterns, will do more harm than good to young hockey players looking to take their on-ice performance to the next level.
Train Movement Patterns, Not Muscle Groups
Participating in machine-based hockey training will prevent young players from learning how to move and control their bodies in space. There is a reason that machine-based resistance training for adults has been receiving bad press in recent past - training on machines restricts freedom of movement, serves to reinforce poor movement patterns and tends to work the muscles in isolation. Instead of having an athlete perform abdominal crunches and chest presses on a machine, we should be teaching them how to move and control their entire body in free space.
Think about it - when was the last time you saw a hockey player execute a skill or movement on the ice while fully supported by some bulky machine or by using only a few muscles at a time? In order to excel on the ice, players must master fundamental movement patterns off the ice that integrate coordination, balance and strength - and that can't happen on a machine.
Group-Based Training for Team Sports
Interactive video game-based gyms may succeed in luring previously inactive kids away from the T.V. and computer. But there is a fundamental problem with most of these facilities that make them completely inappropriate for young hockey players.
All of the kids seem to be working out alone!
Sure, there are adults supervising and other kids on other machines, but the majority of the children seem to be 'interacting' with a computer screen and no one else. (And I was under the impression that we wanted to get kids away from 'screen time' and actually encourage them to interact with other human beings). With hockey being a team-based sport, athletes will get far more benefit from participating in training sessions that involve playing partner-based and group-based games, than from those that involve playing video games all by themselves.
In order to take their on-ice performance to the next level, young hockey players must be taught fundamental off-ice movement skills by trained professionals who would never dream of restricting an athlete's movement and imagination to a computer screen. Training hockey-specific movements in a group setting, instead of training isolated muscles on machines, will better serve players in terms of their athletic development both on and off the ice.
About The Author
Kim McCullough, M.Sc., YCS is a highly sought-after expert in the development of aspiring hockey players and has played at the highest level of women's hockey in the world for the last decade. Kim's player development website gives coaches and parents of aspiring young players access to programs, articles and advice on how to help their players take their game to the next level. To learn more about hockey-specific training and how to have your best season ever, visit: http://www.besthockeyseasonever.com
© The Young Athlete 2008
