For hockey you need to be more than just fast. You need to be able to repeat your fast performance on the ice again and again. Most players will play between 10-30 shifts in a game with each shift lasting 30-60 seconds. During each shift, you may reach top speed 2-5 times. Many players I have trained have good speed on a one-time blue line to blue skating test. When we make them repeat the test 10 times, however, their performance rapidly deteriorates as fatigue sets in. For these players, we focus on speed endurance training.

Speed endurance is the toughest aspect of fitness to train because the training hurts. You have to push until your muscles are loaded with lactic acid. Speed endurance training produces a hockey player who can go hard every shift of every period. A player with high levels of speed endurance becomes extremely valuable toward the end of each period, especially the third, and for overtime. One of the best ways to train for speed endurance is with interval training on the track in the off-season.

Interval training consists of short bouts of activity followed by short bouts of rest. For example, the athlete would run the straight away and walk the turn on a 400-meter track. We call this the variable acceleration 400-meter and the players hate it! For pro players, we will repeat this 5-10 times asking the players to try to repeat their performances as consistently as possible. This type of training requires the athlete to train with a lot of lactic acid in their muscles. Lactic acid is a by-product of the anaerobic metabolism required to do the variable acceleration 400-meter drill.

Dr. Chad Moreau is the President of HockeyOT.com, an online training site dedicated to improving the fitness level of hockey players of all levels. He was the former Strength & Conditioning/Nutrition Consultant for the Edmonton Oilers (NHL) and the Long Beach Ice Dogs (ECHL). For more information please visit hockeyot.com