January 2016 Hockey Training Programs | Ultimate Hockey Training

January 2016 Programs:

I hope you and your family enjoyed a relaxing holiday week. Below you’ll find the next phase for all of our youth teams and our junior team. January is a pivotal month in the season, as it’s a time to make a final push from an off-ice training perspective before tapering coming down the home stretch of the season. Unfortunately, it’s also a time when players start to get sick and feel run down. With this in mind, it’s important that you put an emphasis on getting enough water and sleep, and also do your best to eat clean.

The Junior program is sub-divided into two groups based on our testing findings and the players’ training goals so there’s one program with more of a strength emphasis and one with more of a speed/power emphasis.  I didn’t post all of these here, but I also created a variation of this phase with no overhead movements for our players with shoulder issues, an idea I’d encourage you to explore if you or one of your players has a history of shoulder issues.

As a reminder, our youth teams are divided up as follows: Group A  (U-10-U-12); Group B (U-13-U-15); and Group C (U-16-U-18).

A few notes:

  • In almost all cases, our teams train two times per week , either Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday. If you’re on your own, do your best to train twice, leaving one day between training days and one day between your last training day and your next game.
  • A 0-3-0 tempo (or 3s pause) means down under control, pause for 3, then up as fast as possible with no pause. The goals here are to take out the stretch reflex and stretch shortening cycle, as well as develop strength in what is typically the weakest part of the motion. A “3s negative” means going down in 3 seconds, then coming up as fast as possible.
  • The percentages in the youth programs are meant as guidelines, as we don’t test these age groups. You can think of them as “effort levels”. A 50% load should be a 5/10 difficulty if lifted once. The kids pick this up pretty quickly after a phase or two.
  • Our junior team has individualized conditioning and corrective work that they perform on a separate day. Because it’s all individualized, I haven’t included it here. Many of them will perform 2 x (10x:10/:20)/5:00 at around an 80-90% effort level on an airdyne (or anything low impact) for the next 4 weeks between their two lifting days. If you’re new to my programming, this means two rounds of 10 sets of 10 seconds on (@~80-90% effort) and 20 seconds off, with 5 minutes between the two rounds. If you’re a junior player, you can add this into the attached program.
  • With the junior programs, I plugged in “100” for all of their testing results so you can see the percentages used for the lifts. The tests used as references are 1-Leg Goblet Squat, Front Squat, 1-Leg DB SLDL, Chin-Up, and Bench Press. All are estimated 1-RMs from either our testing or from Phase 1 of their program. We regularly make adjustments based on how the guys are feeling, so use some judgement if you’re going off of those numbers. The Speed & Power lifts for this phase are intentionally very light (50-65%) as the goal is to get as many reps as possible within a specific time period.
  • With our youngest players, we’re continuing to shift toward more game-like environments and emphasizing exploratory movement and fun over “rigidity” in our programs. While we don’t put this on paper, a lot of our locomotion warm-ups will be performed “chaotically” (e.g. the athletes can move wherever they want within a confined space, but they won’t be set-up in lines and told to move straight ahead). If you work with youth teams, and have the patience to try it, I’d encourage you to do so. Taking this approach doesn’t make it look organized, but it is more fun.

Enjoy!

Get the programs here:

    1. Group A: Warm-Up
    2. Group A: Phase 4
    3. Group B: Phase 5
    4. Group C: Phase 6
    5. Juniors: Phase 5 (Strength)
    6. Juniors: Phase 5 (S&P)

*If you don’t have equipment referenced in these programs, use Ultimate Hockey Training to guide you in making substitutions. If you’re still stuck, I’d encourage you to post your question to my Facebook Page here: Ultimate Hockey Training

Download Instructions:

1) Point your cursor over the highlighted program text above
2) Choose “Save Target As” or “Save Linked File” (Mac Users)
3) Save the file anywhere on your computer you’ll remember (Desktop Preferred)