Most Common Hockey Training Mistakes To Avoid At All Costs

Hockey is a very special and popular sport with millions of fans worldwide. It is exciting to watch and follow, but to actually play it at a higher level takes immense amounts of dedication. Apart from mastering the ice skating, without which you can never be good at the sport, there are all sorts of intricate moves and delicate elements with the stick. With hard work and devotion, you too can become a better hockey player, but only if you avoid common mistakes many players tend to make while practicing. 

Every single hockey trainer passionate enough for their players improving agrees that the biggest hockey training mistake one can make is to not perform training off the ice. Fortunately, this is something that most athletes are aware of, and taking into consideration the inability to always practice on a hockey court, off the ice sessions become that more important. However, the problem is that this is also not enough to guarantee the peak training performance needed by most athletes. 

At the moment, we have access to all the training information we need to go through any type of routine and meet any goal. To find out more about improving your practice routines, you can so easily visit websites like motify.com and find professional trainers that can help you train and become a better and more ready hockey player. However, to repeat what was said earlier, nothing will really help you if you do not make sure to always avoid the mistakes presented below because. All of them are really common and are actually the cause of numerous injuries or inadequate development of skills. 

Using Workout Machines

There is a reason why most athletes spend time at the gym, no matter what sport they practice. The biggest appeal of all workout machines in the gym is that they are a lot of fun to use and they make you improve and try harder. What is more, they are attractive because you can use them to lift more weight than when you just use free weights. The problems is right there, because of the fact that your joints do not have to be stable in place as you move. Such a lack in your training routine can easily lead to huge problems in the long run since the body ends up vulnerable in real-world scenarios. Although you are lifting weight and strengthening parts of your body, you are also weakening other parts which will become less ready for sudden movements when you play the sport. Think of this as doing the right thing but not the right way.

For example, take the leg press machine. As you sit and you push hundreds of pounds, the torso literally does nothing and only your legs are active. However, when you are on the ice, you never use just your legs without the torso to move around and stabilize yourself, you use your whole body. The body gets used to unnatural movements so you are more vulnerable when you play hockey. Instead of the workout machines, it is better to perform exercises like pull-ups, chin-ups, standing cable rows, and standing cable presses. You can use some of the machines, but make sure you have the right advice on how to properly use them to your advantage.

Focusing Too Much On Speed Training

Speed is very important in hockey but every professional athlete needs both the aerobic and the anaerobic parts of fitness. In order to become faster, you have to train at the highest possible speed. The problem is that many believe that it is impossible to do great workouts if they are not brought to the brink of nausea, delirium, or exhaustion. This is of course far from the truth.

Speed practically disappears when you reach the point of exhaustion. That is why most hockey speed drills actually hurt you when it comes to improving performance in the long run. Your best and safest bet is to perform combined drills that can help you to improve at both an anaerobic and aerobic level at the same time, strengthening the right parts of your body specifically for hockey. Once you have increased your overall and speed, you will be faster and stronger, and more importantly injury-free. If you are looking for more sports, visit airhockeygeek.com and discover more available for you.

Training Like Bodybuilders

If you get most of your training info from a website that focuses on aesthetics or from magazines, it is very easy to make this mistake and suffer serious, often irreversible injuries. When you train for hockey, your focus needs to be put on the performance in the sport and not much else. The same goes for any other sport. In order to become better, stick to what works for the athletes of that specific sport. Training for appearance is great for bodybuilders and it does make you look good and feel better about yourself. But think about the athletes of any sport. Most of them look strong and healthy despite not having as much mass or as much muscle definition as bodybuilders. If they are among the best in their sport, they must look whatever they look like for a reason, because it works. Bodybuilding is bodybuilding, and it has nothing to do with hockey. The same goes for the training regime and the diet. 

For a bodybuilder, it is normal to have a day when you train your shoulders and a day when you train your chest. When you play hockey, this is not a good approach. You will not find bodybuilders playing in the NHL, the reason for which is crystal clear. To be better at hockey and avoid common mistakes, you need to organize your training so that the entire body is challenged at the same time with the goal of becoming greater at hockey. This is so much easier said than done of course,  but when you play hockey, it is a necessity because you use most of your muscles while you play, your arms, your legs, and your whole core. Therefore, do not isolate it in practice.

Takeaways

By avoiding these three training mistakes, you will become a much better hockey player in no time. Remember that it is all about improving at one specific sport, meaning you should not pay attention to what others do on workout machines, during speed drills, or with their bodybuilding training.