Off Season - Take 2

About a month ago I realised that there was only about four months before the beginning of the C Grade Ice Hockey season and that I was running out of time for a full off/pre-season training and conditioning program.  I had started with a few sessions of upper and lower body strength training, was wary about commencing serious work on the core.

Then I went to Knight's training, followed by a five point game with the Wheelers.  In both of these activities I came out of it comfortable with where I was at in terms of skill and ability (considering that I've not been ice skating in months, this was a forgiving assessment), but intensely aware of my lack of necessary strength in my core if I am to at all be competitive in strength battles on the ice, and the relative weakness and lack of power in my right leg (attributable, of course, to the PCL injury I incurred in the first game of last season).  With this as incentive I returned to my strength training program with a new sense of urgency, commencing with a short circuit of core stability development that Sunday night.  I felt good.  And then I came down with a nasty head cold, which pretty well wiped out a week.

By which time, the calendar told me, there was about three months before the beginning of next season.

So, from 1 July I have been back to it.

1 July Core / Legs
2 July Upper Core / arms
3 July Core / Legs
4 July Rest
5 July Core / Legs
6 July Upper Core / arms
7 July Core / Legs
8 July Rest
9 July Core / Legs

I seem to have achieved a routine of exercise time.  The first cycle of three sessions, I took about twenty minutes each time.  The second cycle, thirty minutes.  Tonight, at the beginning of the third cycle, a long thirty minutes.  I have built the intensity of the sessions (amount of recovery time, number of drills, duration and number of repetitions).  The aim is to get to maximum 'density' and 'extent' that is practical for me considering outside commitments, physical limits, etc.

I have been playing around with different combinations of core exercises, choosing routines that work on upper or lower body sets of muscles on alternating nights.  Staple drills that I use on each occasion include my standard set of weights for the arms (ie. curls, curl and raise, outstretched on the side, outstretched out the front, dipping behind the head (for the deltoids)), and 10 squats followed by 10 lunge steps, and repeat, then 2 static sumo squats for the legs.

To these basic exercises I have tried the following at least once, plank, side planks, reclining raised leg, swedish ball raised leg plank, swedish ball overhead lift, large ball circles, russian seated half twist, quadraped, raised legs, inverted cycles, bridge, raised hip leg lift.  I'm correlating what I am learning of these exercises from my anatomy book with what I am feeling in my body, driving myself a bit harder and a bit further each session.

I am eating more, presumably adding at least some muscle mass.

If I keep it up for the coming month I'll be setting up myself well for the higher order training that will ultimately culminate in me starting the season in better shape even than I was last year (which gave me a taste, but little more I suspect, of an idea of the life enhancing benefits that this will bring in its wake).

Also, the training I do now is my best chance at reducing the risk, severity and recovery time for the injuries that are bound to happen in any ice hockey season.

Gotta love it...