How To Increase your On-Ice Endurance In Just A Few Minutes Per Week

A close friend of ours has asked us to help him out with his on-ice cardiovascular endurance. As an intermediate level hockey player, he’s been having trouble keeping his wind during games and he told us he gets tired quite quickly.

It’s not because he’s out of shape; he works out on a regular basis and plays soccer frequently as well. He told us that in soccer he’s able to run around for the entire duration, so he’s definitely in good shape.

The real problem here is that hockey is different than soccer. In hockey, you’re not running around at 50 or 60% intensity for a long period of time. Hockey consists of short bursts of 30-60 seconds at MAXIMUM intensity.

With that being said, how can one train to be able to last a full 30-60 second shift at max intensity during a competitive hockey game? It’s what separates the good hockey players from the great. If you can’t last that extra 10-15 seconds at maximum intensity, there’s likely to be a guy on the other team that can and he’s beating you to pucks, out-skating you wide, and making you look like a big orange pylon.

There are many ways to increase your on-ice endurance, and HITT is one of the most effective. So for our friend and everyone else who’s looking to increase their on-ice staying power, give this simple yet effective workout a try:

HITT stands for High Intensity Interval Training. In short, this means putting out maximum effort in a short period of time. This mimics the exact scenario of a hockey game, and allows you to increase your on-ice cardiovascular endurance. You might be huffing and puffing now at around the 30 second mark during your shifts, but after a few weeks this workout will allow you to last longer and be able to give your 100% even at 45+ seconds. If that isn’t enough, HITT burns more calories than regular old steady cardio, along with keeping your metabolism sped up for a longer period of time after working out, in turn making you burn more fat. If you’ve never done interval training before, i really urge you to try it out.

Here’s how it works…

First off, you can pick any type of cardio you wish. I suggest sticking to running or cycling, as they are the best for hockey. If you wanted to, you could switch it up once in a while and throw in a swimming session for variation.

Let’s assume you’ve chosen running. Outdoors and even on the treadmill will work fine. Now, take a 10-15 minute period to warm up and get the blood flowing. You don’t want to go into this cold and maybe pull a muscle.

When you’re all warmed up, it’s time to start. Here’s what to do.

1 – Run for 30 seconds at 75% of your maximum intensity.

2- After step 1, continue jogging at a slow pace for 90 seconds.

3- Repeat the process for a total of 5 times, increasing your intensity each time.

That’s all there is to it really. It’s very simple yet extremely effective in increasing your cardiovascular endurance. Just remember to increase your intensity for every repetition. If your first repetition was done at 75% intensity, aim for 80% for the 2nd, 85% the 3rd, and so on and so forth.

This will keep your body guessing, never knowing what’s coming next. This allows you to keep improving your endurance and also to keep burning more fat than a regular cardio session at a constant pace.

You can also increase the number of repetitions as you get better. I usually do a maximum of 7, as this is just enough for a hard and intense workout.

We usually run this workout twice a week with a few days in between. Monday and Thursday works really well for us as it allows us to recuperate plenty.

It’s a simple workout, but the gains a hockey player can get from it are huge. Make sure you check out or article on how to last even longer on the ice!

Thanks to our friend who inspired us for this week’s article! We love hearing from you guys and it really helps us give you the stuff you want to read and learn about,so leave us a comment below or send us an email at info@builtforhockey.com

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Look forward to hearing about your results!

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