Our early off-season conditioning (April & May) with Women’s Hockey has evolved a little bit this year with more focus being put on aerobic work, mostly on the Assault Bike via longer rides like a 3 mile as well as tempo runs, aerobic circuits, and slideboard work for a handful of reason;

• Aerobic system is responsible for maintaining power output for long periods of time (like a hockey game).
• A strong aerobic base will help to delay the fatigue and enable a hockey player to recover better between shifts, between periods, and even between back to back games on the weekend
• Aerobic conditioning gives an athlete of any kind some time away from the strenuous high intensity conditioning and/or training that they go through
• Aerobic conditioning can actually help increase para-sympathetic tone and as a result improve recovery

As the off-season moves forward we will continue to tax aerobic qualities but also add in more alactic power and alactic capacity work (June & July), building towards primarily lactic power and lactic capacity the final 4-6 weeks (August) prior to the pre-season.