5 “MUST DO” Plyo Exercises for Hockey Players

Plyometrics or jump training should be an essential piece to every hockey players program…but what are the best bang for your buck exercises to take your performance to the next level? There are a million different exercises or training programs out there but we’re going to break down the 5 most important plyo techniques for hockey players!

Depth Drops

Depth drop variations are an essential exercise to master before progressing your plyos. These help you understand your landing mechanics and absorb into your landings better. Reducing wear and tear on your joints while improving speed and power production!

Here are our top 2 exercises to focus on to master you landing mechanics. Depth drops and single leg depth drops. Focus on loading the hips and ankle mobility.

Multi- Plane Jumps

Mastering your weight transfer in all planes of motion is essential to becoming an elite hockey player! This includes movement forward/backwards, side to side and rotationally. Master your flow in all planes to truly unleash your potential!

Here are our top 3 exercises to master your movement in all planes of motion. The L-skater is a multi-directional movement working on all planes, the 1-2-1 box jump focuses on side to side movement and the Backwards/Forwards box jump focuses on the sagittal plane or movement forwards and backwards.

Single Leg Landings and Stability

Single leg stability creates a more stable foundation leading to improved power and speed production on the ice! If your glide leg isn’t stable your knee will collapse in reducing the power you can create which leads to inefficiency of movement wasting more energy and reducing stamina!

Here are our top 2 exercises to work on single leg stability and single leg landings. Single leg bosu strides to maximize single leg stability and the airex skater to vertical to maximize single leg landing stability as well as explosiveness!

Quick Ground Contact

Ground contact time is the amount of time it takes you to jump off the ground again after a landing. Reducing your ground contact time will help you be more explosive, get to the puck quicker and be speedier in and out of the corners!

Here are. out top 3 exercises to get you quicker off the ground and more explosive! Depth drop to tuck jump, 90 degree box jump speed, and lateral single leg box jump speed. All great exercises that focus on speed and explosiveness right off the ground.

Add Kettlebell Flow

Adding a kettlebell to your plyos is quite an advanced movement and only should be done after proper progressions. This is the ultimate progression we use with our athletes as it helps you master your weight transfer and movement flow while moving weight! The kettlebell is an extension of your body so you should be able to flow in and out of movements with it without hesitation. Plyos with kettlebells should always be done with a light weight until understanding of the movement is mastered.

The end all be all of weight transfer development! Kettlebell plyo flow exercises! Here we have a kettlebell 90 degree jump snatch SL land, Skater cleans, triple hop skater, and ballerinas to master weight transfer and explosiveness in all planes of motion!

Some of these movements can be advanced and take a lot of technique and proper practice! If you have any questions or would like to get in for a movement assessment to see where you should start on your plyo journey don’t hesitate to reach out, we’re always here to help!

Written by:

Rob Jost – ACE-CPT, NSCA-CPT

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