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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