It’s this time of year at Endeavor where our hockey players are slowly coming back for the off-season training.  During the next 2 months or so, we’ll progressively welcome back our players, and by the time June rolls around we should be at full capacity and be extremely busy throughout the summer.

In the meantime, the current phase of the off-season is what we call “the early off-season” for the guys that are already back with us.  These guys have the advantage of having a long off-season and plenty of time to not only improve their performance, but undo the damage they’ve put on their body throughout the season.  And God knows how much damage a long hockey season can put on your body, especially on your hips.  That’s why our early off-season phase focuses a lot more on re-establishing balance than it is about improving performance.

Hockey is a rotational sport, just like baseball, football (for quarterbacks), lacrosse, tennis and golf.  One thing to understand is that the rotational movements occur almost exclusively in one direction.  Over the course of a season, this accounts for many rotations when making passes and taking shots during all the practices and games the athlete takes part in.  Rotations in the opposite direction are almost non-existent, and if you want to ensure better symmetry and balance throughout the body, there is definitely a need for rotational work on the non-dominant side.

The core exercises in a training program can be a good tool to help re-establish better balance.  Even though our exercises are not purely rotational in nature (actually they are just the opposite; anti-rotation), the movement pattern and the muscles recruited are the same; they just happen to work in an isometric fashion.

That being said, instead of working both sides equally, we’ll double or triple the volume on the non-dominant side for all the anti-rotation core exercises we’re using.  Just about any anti-rotation exercise can be used, but 2 of my favorites are the Belly Press and the Chop, both in the 1/2 kneeling position.

I really like the 1/2 kneeling position, especially in the early off-season because you get some lengthening of the hip flexors and some hip stability in the end range of motion.  We’ll usually do 3 sets on the non-shooting side, and only one on the shooting side.

The concept can also be expanded with the rotational power work, with medicine ball throws and the like.  Adding more sets on the non-dominant side will help re-establish some sort of balance around the hips, the shoulders and the core.

The early off-season is a good time to work on major imbalances and the damage done during the season before getting into heavy strength and power work throughout the summer, so it’s important to take advantage of it.

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Three of the most common and effective power training methods in my opinion are:

- Plyometrics

- Olympic lifts

- Medicine ball throws

There is no doubt in my mind that all 3 methods are extremely effective, and I’m not willing to say that one is superior to the others.  The way I see it is there are different situations in which one method could be superior to another, depending on the training goal.

You might have heard of the speed-strength continuum before.  It is a fairly simple concept that helps define the different types of power.  Power being the product of the maximal amount of force you develop in the least amount of time.

Power = Force  x  Velocity

Although the equation is pretty simple, the outcome can be pretty different if the emphasis is put on either force OR velocity during a pre-determined exercise.  The speed-strength continuum represents different levels of force production and velocity of movement.  It could be represented as follow in a chart:

Power could arguably be defined as anything between max strength work and speed work.  If you haven’t seen it already, Eric Cressey posted the following video explaining the speed-strength continuum in a previous blog post:

The terminology is a little different, but it’s basically the same concept as I explained above.

All of this to say that depending on what your emphasis may be in a training program, or with a specific exercise, there might be a more appropriate choice than another.  Plyometrics are usually done bodyweight, which allows one to perform the movement quicker, although the total force production might be lower because there is no additional external load.  This would put plyometrics more towards the speed-strength end of things.  An Olympic lift like the hang clean on the other hand will use a bigger external load, but the speed or the velocity of the movement might be a little slower.  That would put the hang clean more towards the strength-speed end of things. As far as medicine ball throws are concerned, they would be a little more towards the middle because they are loaded, but always with a low to moderate weight and the velocity of the movement is pretty high, but not quite like a bodyweight power exercise.

The other thing to take into consideration when choosing which power development method to incorporate is the segments of the body involved.  To me, one of the main differences between plyometrics and Olympic lifts and med ball throws resides there.  Plyometrics use only the lower body (or upper body if you’re using an upper body exercise) to develop power; as for the Olympic lifts and the med ball throws, they use a force transfer from the lower body to the upper body in the execution of most their variations, which in the end involves the whole body.

Total body power exercises should not be ignored from a program design standpoint because they will bring a lot of benefits for sports that require such force transfers.  Tackling, blocking, pitching, swinging a golf club, taking a slap shot and throwing punches are only a couple examples of the athletic movements that require some sort of power transfer from the lower body to the upper body.  To me this is a crucial component to sports performance and being able to transfer the gains from the weight room to the field or the ice.

And lastly, another component that is worth mentioning about power exercises is the plane of movement in which the exercise and/or the sport skills take place.  Without going into too much details with this conversation, I’ll simply say that medicine ball throws offer a rotational component to power development, which is extremely important in rotational sports like baseball, hockey, lacrosse, golf and tennis.  And you don’t find that same rotational power development component with Olympic lifts or plyometrics exercises.

Hopefully I broke things down enough so that now you understand better the differences between the 3 main power development methods, and that you’ll be able to make a better choice based on your training goals!

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