Hockey, Dot Drills and Agility

Every person involved in the hockey world knows that agility is something all players should aim for. Being agile means being able to move quickly and deftly on the ice. And, while there are plenty of drills out there that, along with regular practice, can help to improve agility, dot drills are not one of them. Some coaches think dot drills will help with agility and thus use them repeatedly, not knowing they could be doing more harm than good.   

Dot Drills Don’t Teach the Right Skills

The thing to understand about agility is that it comes from strength. A person can’t be agile if he’s not also powerful. And, it’s hard to have power without strength. Thus, to create agility, you have to first create strength, balance, and thorough mobility. None of these are things that dot drills focus on, thus rendering them ineffective when it comes to improving agility.

Dot Drills May Teach Bad Habits

In fact, not only are dot drills not effective when it comes to teaching agility, but they’re not really the best choice for hockey players in general. Dot drills focus on long, frequent strides and pattern repetition, neither of which are likely to come up in a real game of hockey. If players do these drills too often, they can actually become too used to moving in this forced, repetitive way, which can keep them from reacting naturally and quickly on the ice. Obviously, this is the last thing you want, especially if your beginning goal was to achieve agility.

As you can see, dot drills are not a great choice, There are other, much better ways to teach agility, the best of them being regular strength training and regular practice. Thus, leave the dot drills alone and focus on things that actually build agility, instead of stunting it.