Common Problems in Hockey Players - Part II

In Part I we discussed common muscle imbalances found in hockey players. This week we will be focusing on muscle tightness and core imbalances.

#2 – Muscle Tightness
As I mentioned before, skating is not a naturally occurring movement for the human body, and therefore can cause some functional problems to occur.

When skating, a player spends a lot of time bent over at the waist causing the hip flexor muscles to become shortened. This is very problematic to an athlete because a shortened hip flexor muscle causes the pelvis to rotate anteriorly (forward). This in turn can exaggerate back curvature all the way up to your neck. So you see how one small problem creates a snowball affect in your body. We use several stretches and exercises such as split squats to help alleviate the problem. You will not catch one of our athletes riding a stationary bike because the body position on the bike will cause further tightness in the hip flexors.

Secondly, when skating your feet are turned out when you push off. This creates strong, but tight muscles in the glutes and biceps femoris muscles. It is important to stretch these muscles in order to decrease the potential for injury. Tight muscles affect the way your body moves naturally. If you do not take care of it now it can really hamper you later.

#3 – Core Issues
Finally let’s take a look at your “core” or abdominal muscles. These are very important in athletics as they bring together you upper and lower limbs. In order to generate power your core must be strong, yet we see how most athletes do not train them properly. Hockey players shoot either right or left and therefore you may find imbalances in the internal/external rotators which are responsible for torso rotation. A good exercise to correct this is Upper Russian Twists performed on a Swiss Ball. You start by sitting on the ball and then walk your feet forward while leaning back. Your shoulders should be on the apex of the ball, and your hips are up. You raise your arms straight above your chest with fingers clasped. Now you drive your shoulder into the ball while rotating your torso side to side in a controlled motion. If one side is noticeably stronger, do the weaker side 2-3 times more, ie. 12 left and 6 to the right. Eventually you will gain balance.

Many athletes have poor lower abdominal strength and co-ordination. When performing exercises such as leg raises you must keep your lower back flat on the ground. If your back is arching up you are using too much hip flexor strength. Try bending your knees slightly, once you can perform several leg raises without having your back arch up progress by straightening them.

In these articles we looked at several problems that occur from playing your sport. It is important to fix these problems early in the off season and then progress your training to improve strength and power for your next season.

Coach Steve Bodanis, SST Director of Strength Training and Program Design