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Notre Dame Hounds’ Acceleration Program Progression Adaptation and Skating Mechanics The skating treadmill is the off-ice tool that most resembles skating on ice. However, there is an adaptation to skating on the treadmill that must take place. The athlete is forced to have better balance on the treadmill and constantly stride in order to keep up with the movement of the skating treadmill. After adaptation, the proper mechanics of skating must be applied to each athlete. Visual aids such as a mirror, videotape and computer analysis as well as auditory feedback from the Strength and Conditioning Coach will aid each athlete in improving their skating mechanics. These improvements will lead to increases in stride length, frequency and efficiency. Skating Speed and Power Once each athlete has obtained proper skating mechanics the speeds and elevations of the treadmill will be increased. These increases in treadmill speed combined with will lead to improvements in the athletes’ top forward skating speed and ability to reach that top speed in a short period of time (acceleration). An increase in elevation of the skating treadmill will put more load on the athlete leading to increases in strength and power in the skating stride. Puck Control with Speed Many hockey players tend to slow down or have poor mechanics while handling the puck. Stickhandling while skating on the treadmill will help to erase this problem. Visual and auditory aids available to the athlete as well as computer biomechanical analysis will ensure that proper skating mechanics are used. The athletes will be required to skate as fast with the puck as without. Multi-Tasking During competition in the sport of hockey an athlete is required to perform many tasks at once (for example: skate with the puck while looking for an open). This skill can be trained using the skating treadmill. Performing drills such as performing complex stickhandling patterns while maintaining a proper stride, passing or shooting the puck while skating, and skating with external stimuli (suck as a rubber band pulling on the stick) will help to improve this skill. When going through this process with the skating treadmill the next step is not performed until the current step is mastered. However, a step is never mastered. Corrections to the athlete’s skating mechanics is continuous as these mechanics will be challenged throughout the program. There are also no limits to the areas of skating speed and multi-tasking. No athlete in the world is able to skate at the highest speed at even a medium elevation. Also more complex stickhandling drills can be introduced and speeds while performing the multi-tasking activities can be increased to maximum. |
