Young hockey players dream of playing like the pros they idolize.  They spend hours practicing the same moves and ask their parents to buy them the same equipment.  If they are emulating their hero's on the ice, should they try to do the same off the ice?  If a young player wants to ‘play like a pro’, should they ‘train like a pro’ as well?

A few years back, when I was still relatively new to training young athletes, my answer to that question would be ‘No’.  Intuitively, it seemed like a bad idea to have developing players doing the same workouts as elite players, as they lack the athletic experience and lifestyle patterns conducive to high-level training.

Although my first instinct used to be to say that young players should not train like the pros, my mind has been changed.  In fact, when talking about certain aspects of player development, my answer is unequivocally ‘Yes’.

So what changed my mind?

In my final year at university, I realized that I wanted to work with developing young athletes.  As the captain of my college hockey team and a strength & conditioning All-American, I considered myself to be somewhat knowledgeable about proper off-ice training for on-ice success.  But I also figured that training 10 year-old players would be completely different from the training I did with my college-aged athletes.   I wanted to make sure that I was training my young athletes in a way that was appropriate to their age and ability.  So I did some research into who was training young hockey players and getting great results - and the same name kept popping up - Mike Boyle.  So I applied for Mike’s summer internship program and was elated to be selected. 

On the day after my college graduation, I started my internship with Mike.  In addition to having the chance to work with the young players for upwards of 10 hours a day, I had the amazing opportunity to watch Mike train group of professional players every morning.  I not only got to learn about the advanced training techniques that allowed these athletes to reach the highest levels of success in their sport, but I got to see a true strength and conditioning guru in action.

On the first day that the summer training program began, a group of professional players that I had been watching on TV for years walked in at 7a.m ready to train.   There was a distinct air of familiarity among the group - Mike had been working with some of these athletes since they were in high school!  With over 10 years experience working with the same coach, I expected to see these athletes perform complex exercises and drills that I had never seen before.

You could imagine my surprise when these professional athletes began doing the EXACT SAME workout that the group of 10 year olds would be doing later that afternoon!  Sure, the speed and precision with which the exercises were executed was greater by the pros, but the exercises were fundamentally the same as those done by the young players!

I was amazed.  These players had been working Mike coach for over a decade, and yet they were performing some of the most basic training exercises around.

Why were all the players doing the same exercises, irrespective of age and ability? 

They were building and reinforcing a solid foundation of strength and stability.

I realize that every player is unique and has individual needs that must be specifically addressed in order to reach their full athletic potential on and off the ice.  That being said, all players must use the same muscles and movements to play hockey and will therefore have very similar needs in terms of building a solid foundation of strength and stability.   Every player must be strong and stable through their shoulders, core, knees and hips.  Young players must put that solid foundation in place in order to progress to elite levels of performance, and the pros must constantly reinforce these strength and stability needs throughout their careers in order to maintain an elite level of performance.

If NHL players are diligently performing the same basic fundamental exercises year after year, shouldn’t every aspiring player do the same?

Maybe ‘training like the pros’ isn’t such a bad idea after all.

About The Author
Kim McCullough, MSc, YCS is an Athletic Development Specialist and founder of Total Female Hockey.  In addition to training and coaching girls at all levels of hockey, from novice to the National team, Kim has also played at the highest level of women's hockey in the world for the last decade.