Deceleration training is all the buzz. So much so, that the NSCA has been talking about it for years. The basic premise is that we, strength coaches, have been and continue to focus on concentric actions of muscle groups. These are the actions that result in say, your bicep contracting, flexing or otherwise reacting to neuromuscular signals that tell it to create force. Yet, we continually focus on the former. Why is this? However, we understand that there are two phases to contraction: concentric and eccentric. Concentric force is necessity in sports, but how do we counter that force? By decelerating the process, known as eccentric contraction.
The buzz is primarily in football. I’m honestly shocked that it has taken this long to develop a needs based understanding. They’re just now getting the idea that a man weighing 250+ lbs needs to understand how to stop without injuring himself. So, how can we apply these principles to hockey?
Well, first most hockey players don’t weigh that much. So in general, one would think they might be slightly more agile by nature, right? True, in some cases, but not all athletes are agile and weight is not a clear indicator. Muscles and their connective tissue dictate how we quickly we move. Imbalances, both muscular and skeletal, affect this process. In hockey, we focus our efforts on agility in different forms, aka Plyometric. But how would off-ice deceleration training assist a hockey player to decelerate while on skates, on ice?
That’s ultimately the reason why I’m writing this article. Essentially, off-ice deceleration would better prepare the muscle through agonist muscular activation via limiting reciprocal inhibition by way of neuromuscular adaptation. What does all that science talk mean? Basically, that you want your muscles to work together in a way that creates quick reactive forces that will slow you, but ultimately not slow the process of reacceleration. How we reaccelerate is dictated by the speed and force that our legs can put into the ground. The quicker we do so, the quicker we start. The goal is to create ultimate movement efficiency. Remember the glide through the neutral zone, sprint to goal line drill? Yeah that one! That’s a primitive and poor method of deceleration training, but that transition itself is trying to create movement efficiency.
If we slow slowly, then we speed up slowly. This theory, sort of, ties into the “read and react” style of play that every coach would love to see out of his players. This all got me thinking. If we take a look at the video of NHL guys, stopping and changing direction, what can we see? What do you notice about their form? Knees bents, hips in line ready to prime with the body leaning in the opposite direction as they stop, they begin to lift the outside leg to cross over and start accelerating again. So, what’s my point?
What we considered to be learned skating skills actually apply well to the principles of deceleration training. Many of these guys have reached what is referred to as “sport mastery”. Once you’ve mastered your sport, then you can fine tune the details that will ultimately give you increased performance. But, we can’t train Sidney Crosby the same way in which we train Zac Rinaldo. How so?
Every hockey player has developed his own level of mastery and efficiency. His stride, form, and anatomical adaptations make his stride work efficiently for him, there’s no true one resolution to optimize deceleration and re-acceleration. So what we teach off the ice could be overkill to what is learned on the ice, as skating skill development. By taking one look at a hockey player in stride, changing direction, stopping and re-accelerating, any strength coach can assess his biomechanical efficiency. It may well turn out to be counterintuitive to train for deceleration off-ice, because it doesn’t fall into the sport specific aspect of skating.
If other sports took a page from hockey, it may be clear that hockey players, while they have significant imbalances, perform some of the most effective movement patterns in sports. I’m sure there are plenty of arguments against that theory, but if we are focused on sport specific performance, it may be a hard nut to crack.
This does not mean that deceleration training serves no purpose for them. Simply, that it’s possible, that training for deceleration off-ice may not produce an on-ice product that unequivocally performs better. If you can replicate the skating stride off-ice and incorporate deceleration training, then not only are you implicating the problem, but your also re-training the muscle memory movement patterns. However, better choices may prevail by spending time training other aspects of human performance, such as energy systems, multi-planar movements, combined with strength, power and agility that may produce higher results. Simply leaving deceleration training for on-ice workouts may be sufficient.
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