52-Week Hockey Training

Anyone can play ice hockey by learning to perform the skills of the game...but you can only play at your peak performance if you get in shape. If you want the power to move quickly and the stamina for sustained hard skating, you must condition the muscles and cardiovascular system to build strength, power, and endurance. This book takes you to that peak level with a year-round physical conditioning plan specifically for hockey.

52-Week Hockey Training is a day-by-day conditioning program that will get your team in shape for more powerful skating and shooting. It's a complete schedule for hockey fitness. The book is coauthored by an exercise physiologist and a former professional ice hockey player with more than 25 years of coaching experience—including stints with the Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers, and Ottawa Senators organizations. 52-Week Hockey Training teaches the essential components of fitness as they relate to improved hockey performance.

The 52-Week Hockey Training program is incredibly easy to implement. It gives you detailed workouts with specific exercises and drills, and it tells you exactly when to perform them. The book divides the calendar into four primary phases of training:

- Preseason
- In-season
- Postseason
- Off-season

Each season reflects a change in priorities as the hockey year progresses. The easy-to-follow layout clearly presents the goals and emphases for each season, and it outlines daily on-ice and off-ice conditioning workouts for every season.

The book explains how to perform all of the drills and exercises included in the workouts, with detailed descriptions and 160 photos and illustrations to show the proper form and technique. You'll find drills and exercises designed to improve flexibility, muscle strength and endurance, aerobic endurance, speed, and power and quickness. An exercise directory at the back of the book makes it easy to find any of the exercises used in the book.

The book includes alternate exercises that you can use to add variety to your program, to work on specific weaknesses, to work out when ice is not available, or to take advantage of special equipment. It also lays out specific conditioning goals for players by position.

The 52-Week Hockey Training program has everything that high-performance athletes need to get in shape—and stay in shape—for top-level hockey. It's an all-in-one, ready-to-go, full-season training guide to get your players in peak form for the competitive season.

Serious hockey players and coaches make a 12-month commitment to the sport. How they prepare physically during the off-season directly affects their performance during the season. 52-Week Hockey Training provides a four-phase annual conditioning plan that is proven to get players in shape to excel technically and withstand the physical rigors on the ice.

The book presents a wide selection of workouts containing specific exercises and drills designed to improve flexibility, muscle strength and endurance, aerobic endurance, speed, and power and quickness. Detailed descriptions explain and accompanying photographs and illustrations show the proper form and technique for each drill and exercise. Goals and plans for developing each of these performance features are outlined for each phase of training: preseason, in-season, postseason, and off-season.

52-Week Hockey Training has everything you need to get in shape-and stay in shape-for top-level hockey. It's a proven full-year training approach that gets players in peak form for the competitive season.

Colorado Avalanche - Shjon Podein

Half the battle of conditioning is staying motivated, especially in the off-season. Don and Gail's program will help you keep your focus and meet your conditioning goals all year long!

Don MacAdam is head coach and director of hockey operations for the Charlotte Checkers. A former professional ice hockey player himself, MacAdam has more than 25 years of coaching experience at various elite levels, including teams in the National Hockey League (Detroit Red Wings), the American Hockey League (Edmonton Oilers and Ottawa Senators Farm Teams), the IHL (Milwaukee Admirals), Major Junior(500 Greyhounds), and the Japan Ice Hockey League (the Nippon Paper Cranes), as well as several minor-league teams. He has also served as a consultant with Canada's world championship team, evaluating NHL players as candidates for Team Canada and coaching the team during the Bauer Cup.

MacAdam is the coauthor of three previous hockey conditioning books: The Hockey Conditioning Handbook, How to Make the Best Use of Your Ice Time, and Hockey Fitness: Year-Round Conditioning On and Off the Ice. With a special focus on conditioning for the sport, he lectures at hockey clinics throughout Canada and the United States.

MacAdam earned his master's degree in physical education from the University of New Brunswick. He currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. His interests include home renovation, carpentry, reading, biking, hiking, and playing golf.

Gail Reynolds is an exercise physiologist who has been developing training programs for amateur and elite hockey players and teams over the past 22 years, including NHL stars. A former professor of exercise physiology at the University of New Brunswick, she currently runs her own fitness consulting company.

A member of the committee that developed Canada's coaching certification program, Reynolds has also spoken at several Canadian Amateur Hockey Association Level 4 and 5 clinics and lectured at the York symposium for elite coaches. Her articles have appeared in Coaching Review and the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Reynolds earned her master's degree in physical education from the University of Western Ontario, where she specialized in exercise physiology and psychology. She lives in Ingersoll, Ontario, where she enjoys hiking with her dogs, writing sports fiction, and renovating and landscaping her home.