Importance of Child Specific Off-IceTraining for Young Hockey Players
Your child is not a small adult – simply following an adult program with less reps and weight is not going to be effective or safe. Their bones, connective tissues, and joints are developing, and this changes how they should train.
Children have open growth plates. These are soft areas primarily consisting of developing cartilage, located at the ends of long bones. Unlike fully developed bones, these areas are more susceptible to damage, particularly from repetitive and heavy lifting, improper exercise technique, or high-volume programming that is more suitable for adults.
If enough growth plate damage accumulates, it can affect a child’s long-term physical development (1). But this does not mean they should not train; it simply means the training needs to be constructed to account for the fact that children are growing.
When done correctly, off-ice training builds a strong foundation in strength, conditioning, agility, and mobility, which is necessary before a young hockey player ever considers training like a college-age or pro player.
Part of a good off-ice workout plan involves controlled resistance training. This idea is supported by research found in the Journal of the Pediatric Orthopaedic Society of North America. In one paper involving 300+ children, supervised resistance training was shown to improve strength, balance, and dynamic stability. The best part? It was shown to reduce the risk of leg injury by 50% on average (2).
Other research also supports resistance training for children, provided it is well programmed and supervised (3). This brings us to the importance of the actual trainer:
Given the complexity of hockey, younger players need to develop a strong foundation in the basics of fitness before training like their on ice heroes. This includes using a long term athletic development strategy for strength, mobility, agility, and body awareness, the last of which is sometimes overlooked.
Any coach can push the intensity and volume. But it takes a good trainer with a specific educational background and experience working with children to understand developmental stages.
A trainer with both academic training and applied knowledge of the specific needs of children and youth fitness can prioritize proper mechanics, apply progressive overload intelligently, and program variety (strength, cardio, and mobility) into a sustainable plan.
Teaching body awareness and proper form over reps and weight helps develop a foundation and build good workout habits that carry over to safer, more productive training throughout the teen years and into adulthood.
Lastly, a good coach knows how to make sessions engaging, create a sense of improvement, and teach patience. Elite athletes are built over years of consistent, age-appropriate training that focuses on the right things at the right times.
The foundation you help them build now, through good training, qualified guidance, and a focus on fun, is what carries your child’s game forward.