A Review Of A Recreational Ice Hockey Player's Training Program And Necessary Recommendations

Ice Hockey as a Physically Grueling Sport

Discuss about the Exercise Delivery for Strength and Conditioning Journal.

Ice hockey is a complex and physically grueling game that requires high activity and complete core endurance as within fraction of minutes the players are required to move or stand, change directions and receiving and delivering body checks (Nightingale 2014). With endurance, it also requires players to be extremely fit so that accelerations, balance, agility, power and strength can be maintained and utilized properly while playing (Manners 2004). Due to such reasons, the players require extensive muscle strength, endurance so that they can lift up their performance in the ground. In this assignment, discussion is related to a 35 year old female recreational ice hockey player, who is injury free and having aerobic fitness of VO2max 45 ml.kg.min-1, which according to Morris et al. (2014) is the appropriate aerobic fitness for any hardcore strength requiring sport (Nightingale et al. 2013). She has the height of 1.72 meter and weight is 61.2 kg with no current injury.  She has a schedule of one game per week. The primary focus of her training is on building her lower body and core strength, increasing overall body power and increasing strength or endurance (Park and Carmont 2013). In this assignment, a review of the client’s last six weeks performance will be evaluated and reviewed and few necessary recommendations will be provided.

While going through the exercise plan for the client it was seen that throughout the weeks, the focus of training was on leg strength and core as exercises such as broad jump, box jump, barbell squat (for legs) and farmers walk, planks, seated rows, dead lifts and bench press (for core strength and endurance) was included in the exercise chart (Haff and Triplett, 2015). Throughout the weeks, the client followed the excursive chart and worked out for three days a week. The only variation noted in the exercise was modification in core and back strength related exercises that provided a variation in the workout plan (Witard et al. 2013). This workout plan is appropriate as all the leg related exercises included in the plan such as MB rotational through, split and barbell squat, box and broad jump has been proved to improve the hamstring and gluts strength, as well as increasing the pressure taking ability of the knee joint. Further it also enhances the endurance of calf’s muscles that helps to run faster and for longer time. Besides the workout plan, the exercise order was also critically correct as Barres et al. (2012) mentions the need of muscle recovery and rest within exercise. As the client performed different jumps and rotational through in the first warm up session, the second movement should be the barbell squats and seated rows so that overall body power and endurance can be increased.  Further the rest period of 2 minutes was included within the exercise so that the client can regain her strength and intensely perform the next session. However, as per José de et al (2017), the rest periods was critically incorrect as for high intensity active work schedule (playing intense ice hockey with grueling workout schedule), each muscle of the body starts producing blood and muscular lactate, that affects the bone strength and delays recovery. Further it is also shown to be decreasing the strength of the person. Therefore the researchers suggested 3 to 4 minutes rest which is known as HIIT or High Intensity Interval Training, which is scientifically known to increase strength and ability (Witard et al. 2013). It is important for athletes to perform work out with enough rest as their basal metabolic rate is already much higher than the normal or less active person and hence, if they workout intensely without any rest of breaks, they will lose their muscle instead of gaining lean muscle mass which ultimately will result in loss of strength (Areta et al. 2013).

Assessment of Client's Exercise Plan

To understand the effectiveness of the past 6 weeks of the training program of the client, it should be noted that the client only trained for three days a week and therefore endurance or increase in strength should be noted as per the training program of the client. In this section the data of relative volume will be assessed and will determine the workouts, which do not contribute towards the goal or target of the client as well as the trainer (Barres et al. 2012). The first analysis will be done on the leg strength related workouts, which the client performed all the three days of the week with little or no variation and performed workouts such as barbell and split squats, medicine ball rotational through and box and broad jumps as warm ups. The volume increase will be proportionate to the increases weight and repetition of the workout. The workouts will be compared with other workouts in the different session and then their ability in increasing strength and endurance will be determined (Witard et al. 2013).

In this above-mentioned graph the volume or the total amount of work done by the client has been plotted for using that the volume done by single leg deadlift and slit squat has been provided. Single leg deadlift and the split squat was performed by the client in 9 sessions of three days and a steady increase in the volume has been observed in case of the split squat exercise, However, in case of one leg deadlift the client was not being able to pull much weight and hence, endurance related to single leg deadlift was not much overwhelming that can enhance the ability of the client to lift more and increase her body strength. 

Further, while determining the lower body endurance related relative volume, it was observed that deadlift was the only exercise, where increase in intensity and frequency decreases the relative volume. Other than that all the other workouts such as split leg squat, split squat and to some extent single leg deadlift also increased the level of endurance and volume in the client as she was able to lift much heavier and was able to retain enough endurance to complete the entire workout with compliance to the exercise plan. 

In this graph the increased intensity and strength of the client was determined with the preformed workout and it was seen that single leg deadlift was able to increase the endurance of the client, however deadlift is the workout again that showed limited endurance as due to high intensity the repetitions were less and hence, strength increased slowly and steadily. Therefore, from above mentioned discussion it is evident that more than negative aspects of the workout plan in the client, using the plan the client was able to gain core and lower body strength and hence, the future exercise plan should also competent the plan and make improvements so that more focus on endurance can be achieved.

Evaluation of Client's Performance in the Last Six Weeks

In this section, based on the data generated in the abovementioned paragraphs changes in the exercise chart of the client will be implemented. The modified workout chart has been mentioned below.

In this above mentioned detailed exercise chart, all the planned exercises has been included for the next two weeks session. In this the primary changes has been introduced in all the sessions and introduction of several core and endurance related workouts such as battle ropes, spot running with resistance, back extension and strength building workouts such as bend over rows, pull up and leg press so that from upper body to lower body, the strength can be properly distributed and the client can build up a higher level of endurance and agility while working out in the session (Haff and Triplett 2015; Park and Carmont 2013). Further, with such recommendations, some exercises has been retained as they were able to create a strong base for the sportsperson. Therefore, this way the strength and endurance of the individual will be developed. Further, the number of sets and repetition has been set to a repetition range which is proved to increase strength and endurance as per the research of (Trombetti et al. 2016). Heavy weight workout has been limited for minimal repetition range, whereas workouts with body weight and moderate to little weight has been provided with little higher repetition range so that muscle hypertrophy can be achieved and strength can be increased (Stark et al. 2012).

References

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Barres, R., Yan, J., Egan, B., Treebak, J.T., Rasmussen, M., Fritz, T., Caidahl, K., Krook, A., O'Gorman, D.J. and Zierath, J.R., 2012. Acute exercise remodels promoter methylation in human skeletal muscle. Cell metabolism, 15(3), pp.405-411.

Haff, G.G. and Triplett, N.T. eds., 2015. Essentials of strength training and conditioning 4th edition. Human kinetics.

Hedrick, A., 2002. Training for high-performance collegiate ice hockey. Strength and Conditioning Journal, 24(2), pp.42-52.

Manners, T.W., 2004. Sport-Specific Training for Ice Hockey. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 26(2), pp.16-21.

Menezes Junior, Francisco José de et al. Is the combination of interval and resistance training more effective on physical fitness? A systematic review and Meta-analysis. Rev. bras. cineantropom. desempenho hum.,  Florianópolis ,  v. 19, n. 5, p. 618-629,  Oct.  2017

Morris, C., Grada, C.O., Ryan, M., Roche, H.M., De Vito, G., Gibney, M.J., Gibney, E.R. and Brennan, L., 2013. The relationship between aerobic fitness level and metabolic profiles in healthy adults. Molecular nutrition & food research, 57(7), pp.1246-1254.

Nightingale, S.C., 2014. A Strength and Conditioning Approach for Ice Hockey. Strength & Conditioning Journal, 36(6), pp.28-36.

Nightingale, S.C., Miller, S. and Turner, A., 2013. The usefulness and reliability of fitness testing protocols for ice hockey players: A literature review. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 27(6), pp.1742-1748.

Park, D. and Carmont, M.R., 2013. Mountain, Sky, and Endurance Running. In Adventure and Extreme Sports Injuries(pp. 273-301). Springer, London.

Stark, M., Lukaszuk, J., Prawitz, A. and Salacinski, A., 2012. Protein timing and its effects on muscular hypertrophy and strength in individuals engaged in weight-training. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 9(1), p.54.

Trombetti, A., Reid, K.F., Hars, M., Herrmann, F.R., Pasha, E., Phillips, E.M. and Fielding, R.A., 2016. Age-associated declines in muscle mass, strength, power, and physical performance: impact on fear of falling and quality of life. Osteoporosis international, 27(2), pp.463-471.

Witard, O.C., Jackman, S.R., Breen, L., Smith, K., Selby, A. and Tipton, K.D., 2013. Myofibrillar muscle protein synthesis rates subsequent to a meal in response to increasing doses of whey protein at rest and after resistance exercise–. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 99(1), pp.86-95.