Mid Season Activity

After the first couple weeks of the ice hockey season I reduced my off-rink training and conditioning to zero, relying on regular games and practices to keep me in shape for the next two months.  When you look at my performance stats (to be included in a later post) you will see that this wasn't a bad approach, indicators of fitness and conditioning continued to improve up until the three week long mid-season break.

I recalled from last season that the return to the ice after xmas/new year was a terribly painful experience, weeks of sloth and feasting will do that to a person.  I had resolved not to do that this year.  So, I took a week off of all non-festive activity over xmas, and then returned to a brief program tailored to keeping a minimal degree of conditioning for the return to the ice.

Thus, despite traveling over the countryside (everywhere from a week in the South East of our state, to a long weekend in the mid north) I have been disciplined enough to make the most of what opportunities have presented themselves and, in two weeks, have been for three decent runs and had four sessions each with the core exercises and the weights, mixing it up with long walks with our pup and sports sessions with the kids (eg. an hour of soccer here, a bit of cricket there).

A couple observations leap to mind when I look back at these two weeks:

1.   I seem to have picked up where I left off from the pre-season.  Thus, although the weights I am lifting and the techniques used are geared to muscle endurance rather than mass, they are what they were when I peaked and tailed off in into the season.  Also, the times and heart rate / VO2 data from my runs have continued to improve over what I was achieving prior to the start of the season.  In other words, I maintained strength and gained in conditioning over the first half of the season and am probably better prepared now than I had been at the start for what is to come.

2.  It was tremendous fun, and added a bit of structure to what otherwise could have been three weeks of guilty sloth.

The plan is, subject to on-rink training schedules, to continue to push it with the off-rink training for the next three weeks (tailing off in the third as playoffs approach) with an emphasis on improved endurance with the upper body muscles (perhaps pushing out to a third circuit if I can be regular enough), increased strength in the core (with the continued introduction of new exercises to the routine) and continued anaerobic development and increased VO2 through my running (primarily through the routinisation of fartlek training techniques).

For the record, in my core exercises I have introduced single leg balances and forward planks.

Also for the record, I had lost almost four kilograms over the first half of the season and will have to monitor this more closely so I can take corrective action as required.  I am pretty lean at the moment, but there isn't much more to lose!