- Hey hockey player.
Coach Garner here from HockeyTraining.com.
In this video I'm gonna be going through
a no equipment needed,
total body workout for youth
hockey player, right from
our youth off season program.
Let's get into it here.
First exercise we're
gonna be rolling through
is a front foot elevated split squat.
Your front foot elevated split squat,
we're gonna be doing this for
four sets of eight to 15 reps
per leg, with one minute rest in between.
You're gonna have one foot planted up.
You always want this to
be lower than your knee
and ideally only about
halfway up the shin,
especially to start.
This exercise is
excellent for what's known
as structural integrity and
structural integrity is actually
one of the key focuses
of this phase two workout
that's in the youth off season program.
You're going to be here, you're
gonna have a great posture,
you're going to have
one knee up, hands up,
all the way down and back up.
Don't touch the ground
but get very close to it.
Nice and controlled
tempo, keeping my posture.
The front foot elevated
split squat is great
in that earlier phases of the
off season 'cause you can see
the degree of hip
extension that I get here.
There is a lot of hip mobility
aspect to this exercise
and beyond this, this is
one of the best exercises
to reinstate knee stability
post season for hockey athletes.
So the structural integrity and when I say
structural integrity I mean
creating a balanced body,
from the left side to the right side
and the upper body to the lower body.
Complete those front foot
elevated split squats,
to be the first exercise of this workout.
Your second exercise is
going to be the bird dogs.
The bird dog exercise is a great exercise
for hockey athletes and
it's specifically good
for training the posterior muscles,
so all the muscles in the back,
in a body weight only workout.
It's pretty hard to hit your back muscles
unless you have barbells,
dumbbells, something like that.
But a bird dog is a great
way to hit the back exercises
for posterior and overall
athletic structural integrity.
So you're gonna be here on all fours
and with a bird dog you're
gonna raise your right arm
and your left leg, so
diagonally I'm gonna contract
hard at the top, bring them back down.
Same one, up, down.
All the way up, contract
at the top, I'm contracting
my shoulder blade and my glute here
and I'm bringing them back down.
The bird dog you're gonna
perform this for three rounds
of 15 to 20 reps per side,
with one minute rests.
But always do one side completely
before moving on to the next.
This is great for hockey
athletes 'cause one thing
hockey athletes run in to
is some posture issues.
When you're out on the ice,
you are constantly in a
state of hip flection.
When you're always in hip
flection and holding your stick,
it means you're in hip flection
but also shoulder flection.
So you've got internal rotation.
A lot of hockey players are pretty tight.
If they do something
like this they feel a lot
of tension here and that's
'cause they're always
internally rotated but they're also always
in flection at the hip as well.
Bird dog helps reinstate
structural balance for your posture
so that you're a more balanced athlete
without movement inefficiencies
that might be holding back
your speed or conditioning out on the ice.
So it's a great exercise by
any standard of measurement.
Next you're gonna move on
to the classic push up.
Honestly one of the most
underrated exercises in the game.
People talk about exercises
like very fancy ones
as if they're for some reason
better because they're fancy.
Look, new and improved hardly
ever beats tried and proven.
So push ups are always thrown in there,
especially for youth
athletes who do really well
with body weight only
resistance based workouts.
Push ups you're gonna be doing
three rounds, sets of eight
to 15 and you're gonna take
one minute rest in between.
I'm gonna be in my normal push up stance.
Nothing fancy here.
Chest and chin to the ground and back up.
Keeping my elbows nice
and close to my body.
Do those for eight to 15 to build
the upper body strength
and power that's important,
that you need for keeping
people off the puck,
staying strong in front of the net,
keeping people away from
you because of the tricep
strength that you gain from push ups,
and of course building
up the anterior deltoids
of the shoulder as well.
Push ups are a very very good
exercise for hockey athletes,
especially in these youth years.
Next you're gonna move on
to the sprinter step up.
Now the sprinter step up,
you're gonna need an implement
that is roughly around knee
height or just under knee height
but higher than what you
did for the split squat.
Now the sprinter step
up you're gonna perform
for three rounds of
eight to 15 reps per leg
and you essentially
wanna take on the stance
and the explosive power of a sprinter
but do it step up style.
So I'm gonna drive this leg forward
but since contralateral,
cross body power is needed
in athletic performance, I'm
gonna drive up this hand.
So I'm gonna be here, here, here.
And if you get a little
bit more advanced with it,
you can start lifting this heel up
and being a little bit
more explosive with it.
So that's how you perform
a sprinter step up.
You're gonna be doing those sets in reps,
which is three rounds
of eight to 15 per leg
with one minute rests in between.
For that exercise now
the sprinter step up,
it's great because it
builds strength, power,
and muscle mass in the lower body
but it does it in a way that's
a little bit more balanced.
This is all structural integrity.
Does it in a way that's more
balanced for hockey athletes.
Why is it balanced?
Because it's unilateral,
we're not just doing both legs
pressing at the same
time where a dominate leg
could make up for the
slack of a weaker leg.
You can do that in bilateral movements
but in a unilateral movement
you are strengthening the legs
so if there was any strength discrepancy
from right to, from left to
right, or from right to left,
if there's any strength
or size discrepancy
they get solved very
early in the off season
by doing unilateral drills.
So this helps structural
balance, strength, power,
and then it also helps
hockey athletes develop,
essentially a state of balance
where they don't have one dominate leg.
So I don't want you to
only have to take off
on your right leg in order to
be explosive out on the ice.
You should be able to take off
on your right and your left
and be equally as explosive
so that you're explosive
from all angles out there on the ice.
Next exercise you're
gonna be performing here
is the last one and it
is the bicycle crunches.
Bicycle crunches are an
exercise that are ground based
and we're gonna be rotating
and it's one of the rare
exercises that will hit
your lower abdominals,
your upper abdominals, and your rotators.
So I'm gonna be here.
I have one leg close to the
ground but not touching,
one leg up and then I'm
gonna be touching my elbows
to my opposite knee, here.
Alternating back and forth,
back and forth, back and forth.
Since my leg is extended
in the bottom position,
my lower abs are being
targeted to hold it up
but since I am twisting up at the top,
my upper abs are being targeted as well
but my rotators are since I'm going
as far as touching my knees.
So you're getting a very well
rounded core effect here.
And also a core stabilization
effect by needing to keep
that leg up off the ground.
And the core is something
that all hockey athletes
should be including in their programs
in some way shape or form, at all times,
because core is something that
allows you to transmit power
from your lower body to your
upper body out on the ice.
If I'm taking a slap shot,
I am loading my lower body
before I go in to it.
If I'm skating, I am
loading my lower body.
But the way in which I am
able to transmit that power
in an athletic setting
depends entirely on if my core
is able to handle it and
transmit it properly.
This is an exercise that
doesn't just improve
core strength, it's an
exercise that improves
total body athletic movement.
Especially if you have a
weak core to begin with.
Especially so.
So you're gonna be doing
that for three rounds
of 15 to 20 per side,
with 60 seconds rest.
And that is going to be
the end of the workout.
That is an example
workout from the the youth
off season program, specifically phase two
of the structural integrity
work, in our program.
If you want more information
on how a youth athlete
can become a better hockey athlete
and do everything that they need to do
in order to be that go
to player out on the ice,
youth players and youth
parents, you gotta click
on the link in the comment section below
and download the free
MVP Youth Hockey Package.
It's got everything you need.
I'll see you in there.
