The Armstrong Cooper Youth Hockey Association values the importance of a strong off-ice development program for their players. We strongly encourage the integration of an on-ice and off-ice development program for all our teams and players at the traveling levels.

ACYHA has once again teamed up with Charleston’s Overspeed Hockey Training (COHT) for the 2018-19 season.   The goal is to have each traveling team assigned approximately two Monday night on/off ice skills sessions per month along with one additional off ice training session per week.  These sessions are run by COHT staff.  

Ingredients to a successful hockey training program

Age and sport specific training is essential to develop a base for improvement in all the skills required for hockey.  It is not a supplement to be added to your hockey program. A player will never develop to his or her potential without off-ice training being a central focus.

The laws of sports science tell us that whatever training activity  looks and feels like the actual competitive movement of a particular sport will more likely enhance performance in that sport. So applied to hockey, whatever off-ice training looks and feels the most like skating, shooting, stick handling and so on will more likely help a player improve. So the majority of training should mimic game situations.  This applies to strength training, plyometrics, endurance workouts, core stabilization, anaerobic training and so on.

 Our program will meet the demands that are necessary for super compensation in the sport of hockey.  Below is a summary of some of the areas that are essential to develop.

1. Hockey specific power/postural endurance on the Russian box.
2. Hockey specific endurance and stride length on large slide boards.
3. Hockey strength/power training on the plyo-press designed for hockey.
4. Hockey specific core stabilization on the slide board and Russian boxes with medicine balls.
5. Hockey specific plyometrics on the port-a-pit that mimic stride joint angles and movement.
6. Strength training and balance in skating positions on the port-a-pit
7. Core stabilization on the port-a-pit.
8. Strength training on benches with plyo-tubes that build hockey muscles and movement
9. Plyo-tubes to develop power which enhances speed and power and movement.
10. Stick handling and multi-tasking stations.
11. Multi tasking on the slide boards, Russian boxes and port-a-pit.
12. Timing system for motivating sprint speed and hockey speed.
13. Strength training equipment to develop a base for power, endurance, strength and speed.