Foot speed or force?

[berzark]

Which is more crucial ; Foot speed, or force applied to the ice? I know the best is both but if you had to chose which is more important ?

I used to have really quick foot speed but didnt seem to catch up to people. I notice when I slow down my foot speed but concentrate on the force of the push, I seem a bit quicker.

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[r3cc0s]

Which is more crucial ; Foot speed, or force applied to the ice? I know the best is both but if you had to chose which is more important ?

I used to have really quick foot speed but didnt seem to catch up to people. I notice when I slow down my foot speed but concentrate on the force of the push, I seem a bit quicker.

I think its both...

You gotta dig deep and hard with your stride, but you also gotta return your push foot to glide fast

Its not like running, even sprinting... both anerobic but more about proper extention and strength I'd say

 

[berzark]

I know both are key, but obviously if you're really pushing hard into the ice you wont be able to have as much strides as if you were pushing at medium strenght. That's why I need to know which is most crucial.

 

[BadHammy*]

Easy, foot speed benefits acceleration more but force wins in terms of top speed because you must have a full heel to toe and drive powerfully into the ice. E.g. you need both.

 

[noobman]

Which is more crucial ; Foot speed, or force applied to the ice? I know the best is both but if you had to chose which is more important ?

I used to have really quick foot speed but didnt seem to catch up to people. I notice when I slow down my foot speed but concentrate on the force of the push, I seem a bit quicker.

Different guys are more naturally inclined to different things depending on their skating style.

Matt Duchene sticks out as a guy to me who has a very short, chippy stride. Go watch him skating in the fastest skater competition at the ASG. He's a quick guy with a short, chippy stride. It seems like his feet never stop churning.

Then you can look at a guy like Marian Gaborik who is super quick as well, but has a longer, slower stride. Boyd Devereaux is my favourite example to use for describing this... the guy could skate like the wind but he had a very slow stride.

I might not be impartial b/c I'm a guy w/ a long, slow stride myself, but I find that most of the time you'll be encouraged to use a powerful stride w/ a full extension. The short, chippy stride *is* important for acceleration and is vital when making your transitions.

 

[Pittsburgh Proud]

I'm choosing to focus on both this offseason. Lifting legs again is gonna suck but I have to get back into it for that power. I never do squats and I'm gonna start doing those.

I'm also purchasing a floor ladder or whatever to work on all aspects of feet quickness.

Not to mention 8 weeks of long distance running (5 miles), 8 weeks long sprints (once around a standard track), and 6 weeks of short sprints (50 yards or so). Gonna be fun.

I've been out of competitive ice hockey for 2.5 years. Stop playing after high school, now sophomore in college I'm trying to play for my school's only team which is D1 Club. In between that time I played a lot of adult league inline, started lifting (1.5 years ago) and lost 60lbs. I was 5'7" 215lbs (didn't look it, had a decent bit of muscle, but nonetheless was much larger than should have been) at the end of my high school career. Still was decent at that weight , had 10g 6a on a 20 game season. Now I'm same height 170lbs. Just gotta get rid of the bottom gut, doing a lot of lower ab workouts for that. You can actually see my top 2 sets of abs, then a gut it's weird.

 

[ponder]

When accelerating rapidly from a low speed (first few strides) a short stride is best, you actually can ignore a normal stride entirely for the first couple pushes and really just dig in your toes for extra power and really hard pushes. As you get to speed it's more about minimizing friction, and a longer, smoother, speed skater type stride with a good toe flick at the end seems to be more effective.

To a certain extent though you can (and should) get the best of both worlds - a long, powerful stride when at full speed, but the moment the stride is finished you want to be returning that leg back underneath you as soon as possible to get ready to stride again. Reducing that return time while keeping your push long and powerful can really boost your speed.

Finally, being fast in hockey is more about your ability to conserve speed when turning than it is your straight line speed IMO. The guys who seem really fast tend to be conserving more speed in general, so when they really need to get to the puck fast they've already got a good amount of speed and don't have to start accelerating from a virtual standstill. Quick starts and efficient turns are key.

Watch this vid from 8:50 on, really shows how pretty much everyone uses toe starts at first, then transitions into a longer, more powerful stride, but still with an incredibly quick return. Grabner (at the end) especially has a very long and powerful push, but after the pushes returns his foot to its starting position so quickly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE8ym9qMICc&feature=related