Basic Strength and Conditioning

Basic Strength and Conditioning

To give your athletes some simple off-snow physical training tools!

Firstly, any strength and conditioning should be relevant to age the physical development of the athlete.

For 6-12 year old boys and 6-11 year old girls, it is best to encourage lots of crossover training rather than specific strength and conditioning drills.

For athletes over this age, specific strength and conditioning exercises can be encouraged at home. This is particularly important pre-season.

Goblet Squats

What: Squats holding approximately 20% of body weight in between the forearms, ensuring that your knees bend to 90 degrees.

Why: This helps with eccentric control of the quadriceps, i.e. explosive pop!

Planks and Side Planks

What: Maintaining a completely straight body, holding a plank position on the forearms or one forearm, for a period of 30-45 seconds depending on the athlete.

Why: This builds core strength to help with spins.

Hamstring Bridges

What: Squeezing the glutes and lifting the hips off the mat into a bridge.

Why: Helping to build strong hamstrings and protect the ACL when landing.

Neck Strength

What: Strengthening the neck isometrically by resisting against your own hands for a period of 4x 10 seconds in each direction.

Why: To help prevent concussions.

Crab Walks with a Band

What: A series of sideways steps with a resistance band.

Why: To improve hip stability to prevent knees collapsing inwards.

Press Ups and Horizontal Rows

What: Typical push ups and horizontal pull ups.

Why: To help with upper body robustness and ability to withstand impact.

Single Leg Stands and Presses

What: Standing and balancing on single legs, with or without a balance ball. Progress on to raising and lowering.

Why: Balance and lower leg strength.

Z

Physical Robustness

These strength and conditioning exercises should be encouraged to help your athletes minimise the likelihood of injury and maintain their on-snow abilities. It also helps athletes to maintain consistency, move more efficiently and therefore able to perform better and learn faster.
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