How to? Quick Feet

How to? Quick Feet

Off-Ice Training for Speed and Foot Quickness

Pro Ambitions Hockey has partnered with Edge Performance System (EPS) to deliver strength and conditioning training. Brian McDonough creates all off-ice curriculums for the camps and contributes articles, video tutorials and advice on off-ice training and development.

Brian started his career as a physical education teacher and strength and conditioning coach before opening EPS. Like many elite coaches, Brian is a forever student of his own expertise and values technology in sports. Brian regularly trains professional athletes from the NFL/NHL/AHL as well as thousands of youth, high school, prep school and collegiate athletes. Brian also coaches Junior hockey in the USPHL to stay current with elite hockey and their off-ice training needs.

What Brian McDonough Says About Quick Feet

"Athletes and parents need to understand there aren't any 'magic drills'. It is important for athletes to play other sports and participate in strength and conditioning off-ice training in order to be quicker on the ice. Acceleration, deceleration and changing direction on the ice with speed happens by training your quick twitch muscles, and training your muscle memory and nervous system. This training is off-ice training. A comprehensive and progressive plan should be put in place. No quick fix, the kids need to do the work.

We have designed age-specific plans for hockey players. A 7-minute work age-specific plan for youth players is realistic given the busy, over-scheduled way of life we all live in now. These 7 minutes will be game changers on the ice. The strength they gain will create more force against the ice or the ground enabling them to accelerate at a greater speed. We can start this young, this involves no weights. Players can do simple drills in the yard with their mom or dad charting their time on a stopwatch. We will be streaming age-specific acceleration and muscle memory drills to be done at home. This data has helped me comprise strength and conditioning plans that work for everyone.

Hundreds of hockey players describe areas of their game they would like to improve, speed and foot quickness tops the list. Eight year olds up to elite players say the same thing. If you look at great skaters, please note that their ability to make their stride appear to be effortless is in fact an acquired skill. They worked for that stride off the ice as well as on the ice.

Skating fast and explosively can be broken down into two skills: Power and Turn Over. To improve these skills, kids need to start training for them off the ice.

Stride Power

Being able to put more power into the ice is deadly. Athletes that have strong legs and the proper form can push themselves forward faster. To work on the power of your stride, basic strength drills will give you a greater ability to produce power. Working on speed can put you in a position to apply this power into the ground more efficiently. Try adding single leg balance drills into your training for strength. When sprinting think about pushing the ground down and behind you—move the earth don't let it move you.

Stride Turn Over

Applying power to the ice is all good, but when said and done, skating is really the ability to repeatedly put one foot in front of the other. If you cannot turn your legs over quickly then you lose the ability to move faster. When training for stride turn over, you need to focus on movements that happen on the ice. Doing a bunch of random patterns in a ladder, or working on quick feet isn't optimal training. While these drills have a place, they are not the most effective for developing stride turn over. Try doing tennis ball sprints or racing someone that is faster than you. The goal is to replicate skating as much as possible while turning your legs over as fast as possible in a short distance.

When it comes down to it, keep it simple! Some of the world's best track athletes are not fancy in training yet they are some of the fastest in the world. Focus on the quality of the training you are doing and don't get lost in the glamour of cool drills. Usually if the drill looks cool, it's not the most effective way to accomplish your goal. Keep it simple stupid: Run fast, push hard into the ground and try to get as many foot strikes in a short distance."

Jeff Serowik on Training for Speed

Training your nervous system to become a fast twitch machine is part of dry land training. When training for speed you are training your nervous system along with your muscles. Think quality vs. quantity. When training to get fast you must train fast. Push yourself to the limit every time or don't train that day. Fully recover between bursts; don't just go through the motions. You are training your nervous system to react faster and remember.

The ladder is still a good training tool and something simple to do at home and is better than doing nothing. A 7-minute daily workout focused on quality training will make a difference for youth players. Time and chart your progress once a week throughout the season.

Another effective training method is to find very large sets of stairs. Don't skip steps. Quick steps up. Quick steps down. The work involved in training for quickness is why it's called WORK not FUN. The fun will be the fruits of your labor in your game.

One powerful reminder: "Keep it simple stupid". Another useful practice is to write MYF on your glove—MOVE YOUR FEET. This is a reminder to keep moving when on the ice. Don't stop from the minute you jump onto the ice; your feet should always be moving out there. Kids often stop when they get the puck, but you can't do that. Keep your feet moving at all times. This is easier said than done, but writing it on your glove helps reinforce the habit.