I was taking in some content from coach Mike Boyle not that long ago and learned some great stuff from him (shoutout to Mike!). One of the things that he talked about which really resonated with me was about how he comes up with all of his training ideas. He said he steals them all from all of the smart people in the industry! I thought this was funny, whitty, but also very smart on his part. He even created an acronym for it – Steal Smart People’s Shit or SSPS. So in sticking with this concept, full credit to Mike Boyle for the concepts I discuss in this article.
One of the training concepts that he brought up was how he trains athletes during the season. He went on about how some people do maintenance during the season to avoid getting out of shape. Mike believes there is no such thing as a “maintenance phase” in-season. If you’re going to the gym, you should be going to get stronger and that you can get stronger throughout the season. He also makes a good point for young athletes coming in to training camp but are still maturing physically. Staying out of a maintenance phase during the season could be detrimental for their development as players have limited time during the off-season depending on how far they go in the playoffs.
Boyle then explained the concept of filling buckets during the training sessions. As he brings that up, my first thought was NHL HOFamer Al MacInnis’ training consisting of working on the family farm carrying buckets full of water and feed. And that worked out well for MacInnis who won the NHL’s hardest shot 7 times. But that’s not what Boyle was talking about when he referred to filling buckets. Boyle meant that each sport has different facets of training to work on. And each season has more of a focus on certain facets in the gym depending on what the sport consists of. The goal of off-ice training is to fill the buckets that aren’t being filled by the sport.
Here are Mike’s 5 training buckets to fill for hockey and when to focus on them–
Bucket #1 – Movement
Movement is something that we can work on year-round. With high level players playing close to 100 games in a season plus practices, there is a lot of potential for muscle imbalances. Not addressing this would be like having a leak in the movement bucket. As the movement bucket slowly empties, the risk of overuse injurie increases. Working on mobility and motor control drills in-season and continuing into the off-season to reverse the effects of the sport are a great way to reduce the risk of overuse injuries. These drills can be implemented as part of a warm, cool down or as an active recovery day.
Bucket #2 – Strength
Strength should also be trained year-round, maybe against what some would believe. During the off-season, this is a big one that is often focused on. Most guys are trying to put on some size and gain some good weight for the upcoming season. But if we don’t continue to strength train during the season, players will lose what they gained during the off-season because being on the ice every day is not increasing, let alone maintaining strength. With a smart implementation of in-season strength training, players can go into playoffs as strong if not stronger than early on in the season. This could almost be considered the “peak” for which most individual sports would train for. In-season strength workouts should be quick and simple, with a focus on compound movements. In-season strength training and off-season strength training will be different in reps, sets, and frequency, but both are still very important buckets to fill and continue to fill throughout the season.
Bucket #3 – Power
Power training is another bucket that can and should be worked on during the season. Improving the rate of force production will help with things like stride power and shooting power. The motor unit adaptations achieved with power training in the off-season need to be stimulated with overload in order to continue to remain powerful on the ice. Power training in-season can be done during off days, after practice while the body is still warm or post game. Like strength training, power training should be quick and simple, compound movements focusing on being explosive.
Bucket #4 – Agility/speed
The speed and agility bucket is a big one for the off-season. During the off-season, we work on foot speed, change of direction, acceleration and deceleration while players aren’t on the ice. But this is one bucket that doesn’t need as much focus during the season as players work on this stuff on the ice. Whether it’s with power skating drills, game simulated drills, or actual games, players are constantly working speed and agility. This bucket is pretty full during the season, so we can focus on other areas.
Bucket #5 – Energy systems
Conditioning during the season is again another bucket that doesn’t need as much focus as players are unintentionally working on conditioning while on the ice. There doesn’t seem to be an added benefit of pushing more conditioning off the ice, especially with some of the grueling schedules some teams have. Instead, we could be focusing on this like movement, strength and power. During the off-season, energy systems are a huge bucket to fill since players aren’t on the ice nearly as much. We want players to show up to training camp ready for high intensity practices, hard workouts and fitness testing.
Buckets #4 and #5 may change throughout the season if players get injured or are healthy scratched. For these players, if they are not on the ice every day or are just practicing, extra agility/speed and conditioning work will be necessary to keep them in game shape and ready to go on any given night.
Thanks again to Mike Boyle for the great analogy.
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