I’ll say this until I am blue in the face – off-ice training is absolutely critical to taking your game to the next level. My commitment to working out when I was in high school was what helped me to get noticed by the university scouts. And it was my focus on getting stronger and faster throughout my college career that helped me to go from the 4th line to the 1st line in three years.

You know that off-ice training is mandatory for increasing performance. But sometimes it’s just hard to get motivated to do the work. I’ve been there before – you are so tired from trying to juggle school, sports, social life and family commitments – that it is hard to find the energy to do your off-ice training.

The key to getting motivated is…

The key to getting motivated is having an end goal in mind.  I am sure that you have heard of and thought about setting goals before and may even have some set for yourself and your team now.  

The problem is that most people set goals that are way too general and too far in the future.  For example, a lot of young players say, “I want to be the best player possible”.  That’s a huge and awesome goal, but there are a lot of steps along the way to getting there and you need to have smaller goals in place along the way.

When it comes to your off-ice training plan, you might set a goal of doing 10 push-ups a day.  Or being able to hold a wall sit for 2 minutes straight.  Or warming up for 5 minutes before each practice and stretching for 10 minutes each night before going to bed.  These goals are smaller and more measurable – and are the “little” things that you can do every day that will make a huge difference in your performance. 

What “little” things are you doing off the ice this season to take your game to the next level? Share your secrets below.

~ Coach Kim