Friday, December 21, 2018

How to Improve Balance on the Ice


To be a good hockey player and to be good on the ice requires all kinds of skills. However, one of the most important of these skills is balance. Without good balance, a player cannot skate fast. He cannot make explosive movements, and he won’t have good agility.





The good news, however, if you have a player struggling with balance is that balance can easily be improved with a little work. Here, we’ll detail a few simple drills you can do to better your balance.

Try a One Foot Glide

An early move that figure skaters learn is called a one foot glide, and it’s exactly what it sounds like.

In it, a skater starts off in a two foot glide. Eventually, he sends the weight down to one foot and lifts the other slightly. This simple drill is a wonderful way for hockey players to improve their balance.

Plus, as they grow more comfortable, they can rapidly lift one foot and then the other or even change feet at each line to further improve balance.

Push Off From the Boards

 This next drill might sound overly simplistic, but we swear it helps.

Your player simply goes to the boards, gets in the proper hockey stance, and then pushes himself backwards.

That’s it. Let the player learn to glide across the ice backwards to get used to that feeling and motion of going backwards and also to properly learn to balance on the blades.

Do Some Lunges

One final drill to try is some simple lunges.

Have the player skate, gain some speed, drop to one knee, and then come right back up.

Eventually, the player can progress to dropping to both knees before coming up, learning balance all the way.

As you can see, it doesn’t have to be super difficult to learn better balance on the ice. All it takes is persistence, practice, and a few simple drills.

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