Yeah, I know it is weird to have a picture of Will running in an article about bike workouts for hockey players…but for starters, I don’t have any pictures of our athletes biking and secondly…Will is a downhill ski racer anyway.

If you have trained with me, you know the the bike is not my favourite mode for conditioning athletes (unless you are a cyclist or triathlete), particularly hockey players.

I won’t go into all the details – but most of our athletes are so chronically tight in their hip flexors, from sitting, playing hockey, sitting more… you get the idea, that the last thing they need is to have a seat with their hips flexed for their conditioning.

At RevCon we run, do agility drills, slideboard, etc.  We very rarely bike, unless there is a reason to…like an injury where you are not to put load through your lower body.

And this is the case with one of our young hockey goalies, he can’t run for a while, so I put together these bike workouts for him so he is all ready for camp.  I figured I would share them with you too 🙂

ESD #1 – Tabata extravaganza

  • Warm up for 3-5 minutes, nice and easy
  • Go as hard as you can for 20 seconds, then go very, very, very easy for 10 seconds.  Repeat 8 times. This will be VERY, VERY hard – if it is easy, you are doing it wrong.  Keep a garbage can nearby, you might need it.
  • Rest for 3-minutes – spin very slowly without any resistance
  • Repeat the 20s on: 10s off x 6
  • Rest for 2-minutes – spin very slowly without any resistance
  • Repeat the 20s on: 10s off x 4
  • DONE!!

ESD #2 – Up and Over the Pyramid

  • Warm up for 3-5 minutes, nice and easy
  • Go hard for 30s on: 30s off (this will not be full out, but it will be hard).  Repeat that 6 times.
  • Go hard for 60s on: 60s off.  Repeat that 3 times
  • Go hard for 90s on: 90s off. Repeat that once.
  • Go hard for 60s on: 60s off.  Repeat that 3 times
  • Go hard for 30s on: 30s off.  Repeat that 6 times.
  • DONE!!

ESD #3 – Category 2 (yeah, no sexy name here)

Go for 20-40 minutes at an easy pace, it will feel too easy, your heart rate will stay below 130bpm – the idea is to build up your infrastructure that delivers blood to the working muscle and removes waste products – capillary density, get more energy producing organelles in your cells (mitochondria).  I also like it as an easy recovery ride.

That’ll get you started.  Do one of each, each week.
Enjoy 🙂

M

PS – we are running a few youth groups this summer for athletes 11-13 years of age.  There are a few spots remaining, so just call 519-645-6161 or email info[at]revolutionconditioning.com if you are interested and I can give you the details.