All of the above PLUS training at an extremely high level from a young age. Like... training way more and way harder than his peers. And not just strength training... technique as well.He's nuts.
Is it his technique? Leg strength? Leverage? Diet?
Why he is so fast isn’t a big mystery - he is a freak at doing linear crossovers which makes it a nightmare to defend him compared to conventional skating.
He can bang out like 14-18 linears on a rush when most players can do half that.
Why he does it better than anyone to ever play is I assume a combination of leg strength, mobility, training and genetics.
I totally agree, but he's also straight-line faster than anyone else I can remember. Last night's OT shift was an example where he started shoulder-to-shoulder with a defender and gained like 10 feet from blueline to blueline.
I suspect that if we could access the specs of his brain, we would find that he has some really incredible perceptive abilities. Things like incredibly fine-tuned motor coordination and a top-tier sense of balance, which would feed into the ability to get the absolute most out of his edges on every stride.
I assume he also has insane core strength. Like really insane.
So true sprinters in the Olympics are not just born and run 100 m in under 10 seconds without training extremely long hours and chopping off 1000th of a second per week for years before they can achieve it. McDavid like Gretzky lived and breathed hockey as a child. Gretzky trained with pylons atAll of the above PLUS training at an extremely high level from a young age. Like... training way more and way harder than his peers. And not just strength training... technique as well.
There might be some genetics involved but I don't think they are the MAIN reason for his advantage.
You could give 1000 random newborns an identical upbringing as McDavid and you’re not getting another McDavid.So true sprinters in the Olympics are not just born and run 100 m in under 10 seconds without training extremely long hours and chopping off 1000th of a second per week for years before they can achieve it. McDavid like Gretzky lived and breathed hockey as a child. Gretzky trained with pylons at
a young age over and over why he was so elusive with his dekes and his angle cuts was sublime. McDavid set out at a very young age to accomplish what he wanted to achieve in the NHL, he has hit them all but 2 1000 points and a cup are the two that are left.
No, you got it right off the bat.He's nuts.
Is it his technique? Leg strength? Leverage? Diet?
No, you got it right off the bat.
It’s his nuts.
I don't believe he's that much faster than everyone else. His credentials let him get away with an insane amount of floating (and rightfully so because he has proven times and times that he is splendid at his role). No effort in D zone = More energy on the counter.
McDavid is not only fast. He is quick. He is efficient. Doesn't waste energy grinding through the ice. Your right He does float. Float on the ice like no one. Barely touching the ice. Got to love some of these fans man. So out of touch.I don't believe he's that much faster than everyone else. His credentials let him get away with an insane amount of floating (and rightfully so because he has proven times and times that he is splendid at his role). No effort in D zone = More energy on the counter.
There was an article not that long ago that referenced how when McDavid was growing up teammates would bust his balls because he didn't look athletic enough to do the things he does. I'd imagine that he is deceptively strong but also has some intuitive understanding that allows him to process what is happening on the ice a bit faster than everyone else.Ya I remember reading how Mcdavid’s mom said he would be bewildered/angry in Pee Wee when kids would talk about video games and such on the bench during games.
He thought they should be talking about strategy and what they were seeing out there, etc.
Kind of like how Gretzky would watch HNIC and map out where the puck would go so he could find patterns.
There was an article not that long ago that referenced how when McDavid was growing up teammates would bust his balls because he didn't look athletic enough to do the things he does. I'd imagine that he is deceptively strong but also has some intuitive understanding that allows him to process what is happening on the ice a bit faster than everyone else.
There's some people that are just genetically predisposed for some things. McDavid is fast, what makes him great is that his hands are just as fast and his perception is also crazy fast.
We've seen players just stand above everyone else before, Crosby and Gretzkys mind, Lemieux and Lindros's physical tools, Ovi shot and Orr and McDavids speed. The first two are harder to recognize, I reckon, and that's why we hear a lot of people say that McDavid and Lemieux are the most impressive players they've seen. It is tangible, this guy goes faster than the other.
A combination of passion, genetics and work ethic made these guys who they are.
McDavid isn't really "faster" physically than the really fast player we've seen before. Think Barzal, Larkin, Mackinnon, Cournoyer, Bure, Gartner, etc. There's a physical cap on how fast a human can be. (In running it's 4.20 seconds on a 40 yards dash, you can assume something a tad slower on the ice, I guess ?) What we can't really measure though is how McDavid can play at the speed he plays.
TL;DR: I don't think McDavid is that much faster than the fastest skaters in the history (Technology, nutrition and technique not included.), I think he's better at it than the fastest evers though, and he learned to apply this with great results.
Fast people are going to be fast. I ran a 4.64 40 yards dash as a 5'11/220 Lbs teenager after training very little, my friend Hakim ran a 4.4 and he wasn't an overly sporty guy, we were just good in all sports because we were athletic. McDavid is the same, if he was a slacker like me, he could brag about the sub 5 40 he ran when he was 17 in football camp. Note that not unlike me, McDavid has long ass legs, thats a great factor in speed, just like Usain Bolt too.
You can’t teach speed: sprinters falsify the deliberate practice model of expertise
This article is a good read on speed.
This is more general but also a very good read on "experts"Experts are born, then made: Combining prospective and retrospective longitudinal data shows that cognitive ability matters
Does cognitive ability matter in the development of expertise in educational and occupational domains? Study 1 reviewed prospective longitudinal data …www.sciencedirect.com