Step By Step Guide to Breakaway Hockey Speed

Without a question, the number one message I get in my DM’s is “how do I get faster?” or some iteration of it. 

That's a tough question to answer because hockey speed has many factors and your individual needs likely differ vastly from other players. 

But there are a few timeless principles of hockey speed that I’m going to cover here today 

Most players struggle with speed training because they’re confused. There's too much information on the internet. 

One guy says you need to be strong, the other guy says sprint more.

So you end up going back and forth, program hopping and never seeing any progress so it's on to the next thing. 

I think the reason hockey players are so confused is because hockey speed is more complicated than any other sport. 

Its easy to train speed for something like football or baseball because it's very position dependent and top sprinting speed is really all you need. 

So the training in the gym is easy to see. If I want more sprint speed I should do things that resemble sprinting… pretty simple. 

That's not to say that sprinting isn’t valuable for hockey players. It certainly is, and as you will see later in this post it is one of the pillars of the Breakaway Speed Program

But hockey is a unique sport in that its generally all or nothing. You will go from gliding around finding open ice to being in an all out sprint on the back check to stopping and starting battling in the corners. 

So speed is not just speed in hockey - theres many variables to consider.

Lets break hockey speed down real simple. 

There's 3 areas we need to consider here: 

1. First Step Speed

2. First 3 Strides (acceleration)

3. Top end speed

Now I'm referring to top end breakaway speed here. The other aspects of hockey speed mentioned above like stops and starts and battling will be covered another day. 

Through my many years of coaching elite level hockey players, I can say that you probably have at least one or two of these qualities but the player that has all 3 is the player that really separates themselves on the ice (literally). 

If you have a good first step you’ll probably win a lot of puck races but you’ll be caught on the back check 

If you lack a first step but have the other two you’re likely not going to win any puck races. 

And it should be obvious to you that if you can’t gain control of the puck you’re probably not going to score many goals. 

Thats why its number 1 

First Step Speed

As the name implies, first step speed is how quickly you can put that first stride into the ice and how much distance you can cover in that first step. 

If you remember from my Breakaway Speed Guide, speed is about stride length and stride frequency. 

The first step is about producing stride length. 

For this you need mobility and power. 

Mobility being internal rotation of the hip and dorsiflexion of the ankle on the stance leg and external rotation of the push leg hip 

I talk about my favourite mobility drills for hockey speed in this video

As for power, you need to be explosive to produce a long and powerful stride 

The main components to having a powerful stride are powerful hip extension in both the horizontal and lateral direction as the stride push happens at a 45 degree angle. 

Banded drills like this and broad jump variations like this take care of the horizontal projection 

And bounds like this and this will take care of the lateral direction.

Mobility should be done daily and power work can be split up into a linear and lateral day. In the Breakaway Speed Program, we do linear work on monday with our squat dominant work and we do lateral/COD work on friday. 

Split it up however you want just make sure there is at least one day in between days 

Acceleration

Acceleration in hockey refers mainly to the first 3 strides you put into the ice. 

Hockey speed is uniques from other speed training because of whats known as ground contact times (GCT) 

GCT are generally how strength coaches will categorize their speed/acceleration training. 

In regular track sprinting - GCT decreases as sprint speed increases. In hockey it is the opposite. During the acceleration phase the skate spends less time on the ice than in the top end speed phase. 

This has implications for how we train it. 

Because this is opposite in hockey you need 3 things to have elite acceleration

• Good stride length & power (what we just covered)

• Stride recovery 

• Concentric power from deep knee bends 

Stride Recovery

Because ground contact times are shorter during the acceleration phase, stride frequency wins here. That is how many strides can you put into the ice over a given time or distance. 

Generally, the player that can put more strides and more powerful strides into the ice wins puck races. 

The easiest way to improve your stride frequency is by improving your ability to recover your push leg after a stride

The faster you can get that foot underneath you, the faster you can produce another stride which improves your stride frequency. 

The best way to train this quality is to train the hip flexors and groin - This not only improves your acceleration but it doubles as injury mitigation as a common injury hockey players suffer is groin injuries. 

Heres two of my favourite exercises for this

Deep Knee Bend Power 

Hockey speed is also unique in the muscle action that happens during the first 3 strides. 

The hockey stride as a whole is mainly concentric meaning you go from a static deep knee bend position to pushing into extension 

Theres no real eccentric load like there is in sprinting. 

As you can see in the above picture - Eccentric phase is the lowering portion - Concentric is the explosive phase on the way back up. 

If you want elite acceleration, get strong and powerful from this position 

Here is a great way to train this 

Top End Speed

Top end speed is everything that happens after the first 3 strides to max speed and beyond 

This is the speed you see with McDavid or MacKinnnon flying through the neutral zone

Again there are multiple variables to consider here 

• Reactive Strength Index 

• Cross under Mechanics 

Reactive Strength Index

This is an important metric for coaches to track if speed is the goal.

Im not going to go too into the weeds on this cause we will be here all day but just understand this. 

RSI is essentially your ability to stop momentum in the downward direction (eccentric phase) and produce it in the opposite direct (concentric phase) 

The reversal portion at the bottom is known as the amortization phase 

The fastest athletes have an elite RSI and thus, a short amortization phase. 

Any training that focuses on reversing momentum will have positive affects on your RSI 

There are hundreds of ways we train this in MPR Programs 

But banded rebound work is some of my favourite. 

Here are two examples 

The second aspect to top end speed has nothing to do with training (but we can train it)

It has to do with your stride mechanics 

McDavid and MacKinnon both utilize this technique very well 

And thats the linear crossunder 

Its easier for me to show you than explain here - So heres a video

But essentially, it involves using a crossunder while moving linearly to keep the feet moving and generating power. 

One way you can strengthen this position is by using sleds 

The last component of top end speed is nervous system output 

Essentially live by this rule - If you want to be fast, do fast things. 

Theres so many exercises I could list here but sprinting maximally will cover most of them. 

Sprinting has a huge place in hockey training - Sprint maximally at least once per week to improve your on ice speed. 

Essentially those are the main components to hockey speed 

To recap: 

• Work on your first stride by using mobility and power exercises 

• Improve your acceleration via concentric power training and stride recovery drills (at least twice per week)

• Improve your top end speed by improving your RSI and sprinting often (minimum once per week)

If you want to see the hundreds of other exercises I use with our junior and pro players and see how the week is structured, check out the Breakaway Speed Program 

That's it for today - See ya next week.

Morgan