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Choosing Exercises for Hockey Performance

By Dan Garner, Hockey Training, 12/13/18, 12:00PM PST

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Real program design experts equip themselves with as many tools as possible, and then only use them within the correct context in order to help hockey players progress in their performance outputs.

When it comes to choosing exercises for hockey performance, it’s somewhat of a conceptual idea (albeit still highly scientific) in comparison to choosing exercises for sports like powerlifting or Olympic lifting. In weightlifting sports, the movements you are doing are perfectly “specific” since that is exactly what you will be doing on competition day.

But, in hockey, they don’t allow barbells and dumbbells on the ice (which is totally dumb), so in a very real way everything you do in the gym can be considered General Physical Preparation (GPP) rather than Specific Physical Preparation (SPP). Yet, you’ll still hear arguments all the time:

Goblet squats are the most functional.

Incline close grip bench press transfers better to sports.