Many players and coaches understand the importance of weight training in enhancing performance and reducing the risk of injury in ice hockey.  More and more players at all levels, including nearly all high level players (professional, olympic/national, division I college), weight train year-around to realize the well established benefits.  At the high levels of play, certified strength and conditioning specialists are hired to design programs and teach the most beneficial weight training exercises, allowing the players to effectively and safely get the most out of their time and energy spent in the weight room.  At the lower levels of play, however, many young players are either misguided by uninformed coaches, parents, or peers, or design their programs based on information that they gather from bodybuilding magazines or television fitness shows.  While properly designed hockey-specific weight training programs can significantly enhance performance on the ice, haphazard, misguided training can not only waste a lot of time and energy, but can also result in serious injury.

     Unfortunately, much of what the general public is exposed to in the way of fitness is geared exclusively towards bodybuilding.  Hockey players should be aware that there are tremendous differences between bodybuilding and weight training for athletics.  First of all, the goal in bodybuilding is to make the body look good.  This is accomplished primarily through significantly increasing the size of the muscles and significantly reducing bodyfat.  While having big muscles and a low amount of bodyfat are beneficial to hockey players, these are not the ultimate weight training goals.  The ultimate goal of hockey players in the weight room is to increase the strength and explosiveness of the muscles.  While big, "cut" muscles may look great, it is strong, explosive muscles that contract forcefully and rapidly, thereby enhancing performance on the ice.  Strong and explosive muscles stop quickly, start quickly, change direction quickly, shoot hard and maintain balance well.  Big muscles do not necessarily do these important functions.  Because of the major difference in purpose between bodybuilding and weight training for athletics, many of the techniques and methods used by bodybuilders are not beneficial for hockey players.

     One major difference between bodybuilding training and weight training for hockey is the type of exercises that are emphasized.  Bodybuilders perform a lot of isolation movements, or exercises that work only one muscle or group of muscles at a time.  While this method may be beneficial or necessary for bodybuilders, isolating muscles is rarely called for in optimal weight training for hockey.  Never during a game will a hockey player use only one muscle at a time.  Actions such as sprinting, stopping, changing direction, body-checking and shooting require many muscles in the body to work simultaneously.  Isolation exercises, such as crunches or tricep pushdowns, train muscles to act individually.  One of the most basic rules of training is specificity, meaning that the body should be trained the way it is required to perform.  Hockey players should perform exercises that require many of the muscles of the body to work together, such as the Military Press and Squats.  These exercises, because they involve many muscles in the body simultaneously, lead to improvements in coordination as well as strength.  Coordination is simply the ability of the muscles of the body to produce smooth, efficient movement.  Coordination is best improved by practicing a skill over and over, whether it be shooting, skating, or other movement.  Proper weight training, utilizing exercises that involve many muscles rather than isolation movements, can also improve coordination and thus hockey skills, by improving the ability of the muscles of the body to work together.  Performing isolation movements regularly may actually hinder the body from working together smoothly.

     Another reason that hockey players should not perform many isolation exercises, as is common in bodybuilding, is because they need to save time and energy for hockey practice and games.  If you work one muscle or muscle group at a time, you would need to be in the gym five hours a day, seven days a week to work the entire body.  While many bodybuilders spend hours every day in the gym, hockey players need also to have time and energy to practice the skills of the game, and have energy to perform at their best in the games.  By performing only the two exercises mentioned above, the Military Press and Squats, over 90 percent of the muscles of the body are being trained in a short time.  This allows athletes to have time and energy left for hockey.

     Another major difference between bodybuilding and weight training for hockey is the way in which  variables, such as intensity, rest between sets and repetitions, are set.  While the variables are cycled, or occassionally changed by both groups to prevent staleness and maximize gains, most often the repetitions used by bodybuilders are moderately high (10-12), and the rest period between sets fairly short (30 to 90 seconds).  This design will result in maximum gains in muscle mass, the primary goal of bodybuilders.  This set-up will not however result in major gains in strength and power.  To maximize gains in strength and power, hockey players should emphasize a design that calls for lifting heavy weight for a low number of repetitions (3-6), and a fairly long rest between sets (3 minutes) to allow the muscles to recover prior to the next set.  Hockey players who follow bodybuilding programs as described above will get big muscles, but will not become much stronger or much more explosive.  Bodybuilding (moderate high repetitions and short rest between sets) also results in a lot of musculature soreness, which limits performance and must be minimized by hockey players, especially during the season.

     Hockey players of all ages are realizing the importance of weight training in enhancing performance and safety in ice hockey.  Coaches, parents, and players should be aware of the major differences between bodybuilding and weight training for athletics.  Those interested in implementing and getting the most out of their weight training programs should be sure to either consult a certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS), or attain educational resources such as books and videos published by certified strength and conditioning specialists.
 
 

     Ed Kubachka is an exercise physiologist and certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS).  He currently teaches fitness classes at West Chester University, and runs a privately owned business, Optimum Performance Training.  He works with athletes and teams from the mite through professional levels in the areas of performance enhancement and injury prevention.  He currently lectures for USA Hockey, and has produced two videos and a manual on conditioning for hockey.  You can visit his website at optimumpt.com, or e-mail him at info@optimumpt.com.