Slideboard Technique For Skating Efficiency and Patterning

Hockey Slideboard Technique Video Transcript:

Hey guys I'm Mike Potenza, The director of strength and conditioning for the San Jose Sharks. Today I want to show you a slideboard technique. The sideboard is an amazing tool for the offseason or anybody in a return to play situation for frontal plane, lateral movement-type work to get them in that skater position but also to keep the hip musculature and the abductors working in that plane of movement. 

Now, a lot of the coaching cues I'm going to use are adapted from speed skating. So first and foremost I'm going to the credit that's due there. With our slideboard work we're very specific about maintaining *this* position as we slide across board. And you'll see when I demo it. But we gather against the railing with our knee to our calf to keep us deep and then we're pushing off and sliding to keep the knee in line with our chin and underneath our chest, a relationship that you want in skating on the ice.

I mentioned in my last video with the band-stepping exercises, we take a concept from there and apply it to here and that's casting out. That reaching first will put our knee in a vulnerable position. And that knee you have to slide it over to get it underneath you again to push off.

In skating sometimes you see railroad skaters who keep that wide space and don't have that foot underneath them to return and push off. That correlates well with our single leg work that we do. That foot is underneath us, we're down and we're pushing up. 

So we want to pattern and develop this relationship and teach them to get down. Then I'm loading, pushing, getting across — not overextending or reaching — push and glide, fight to keep that foot going to far. To do that you need your adductor and that glute med to stabilize that leg and not overreach. 

It's an efficient way to teach them how to be low and that position to teach them how to to get that pattern on the ice and to NOT teach them a bad pattern.

Let me know what you think, let's get a conversation started on the forum. For more check out prohockeystrength.com