Start of the hockey season advice

Its the start of the hockey season and we’ve just had our summer holidays, perhaps there have been some summer camps but its certainly been more low key than term time. Getting back into exercise at any level needs to be taken slowly at any level of play. The two most common times of injury are either at the start of the season or towards the end. This is because our bodies become used to the level of activity we do and we always need to make sure that any step up needs to be slow to avoid too much strain on your body.

• Remember that feeling after going to training for the first time in ages and how stiff your body feels the next day. That feeling is your body fatiguing and needing to recover to allow you to slowly be able to do more. If you do too much too quickly then you are at risk of injury.
• If you have just gone up an age group, remember the amount you may be exercising in a week may be more than last season and so make sure you monitor how quickly you up your training.
• You may be training with an older group and we will a sudden increase in how hard you are working.
• You may have grown over the summer and not been stretching and so your muscles may be tighter and less flexible. If we think we can sprint and move as we did 6 weeks ago we may be in for a surprise, start with gentle running and slowly build up the pace.

All these changes have to be steady so:

• Have a look at your schedule and diary for this week.
• Work out what is new to this season and what may be harder.
• Look at what you are doing at school and at the club.
• Make sure you’re not doing something every day
• watch how many hard sessions you are doing in 1 week
• Don’t do a hard session two days running especially if you are feeling stiff.
• Make sure you stretch this week
• Make sure you warm up.

If you feel really stiff after a work out take a day to recover. Finally, this season starts to train smartly, think about gradually getting stronger/ faster and more flexible and monitor how tired you are feeling so by the time you reach the important matches you’ll be at your peak… Not tired out! Need some help staying injury free?