After consistent ass-kickings....

S

Spack

0
I'm a junior hockey player in Australia. I am confident that my base aerobic fitness level is higher than the players I am competing with, and my speed, acceleration and change of pace are well above the hockey average.

However, when I'm competing in the open leagues, I'm finding that as the game drags on it is getting much harder to keep reaching and maintaining my max speeds. I'm training for 2-3 hours a day, working on fitness, skills and strength and it has been suggested to me by coaches that I look into understanding and improving my lactate tolerance threshold.

I've been looking through hockey training sites, and found a few training drills and the one I'm looking towards is

I was wondering if this was the type of drill to be looking at, or if there are any tweaks I could make to improve it.

Cheers.
 
Seems like an okay drill, but it'll be the duration of each round, and the recovery thereafter, that will potentially be of greater importance. All exercise produces some lactic acid, and your body is constantly working to clear out the lactic acid. Your lactic threshold is simply the point at which your body produces lactic acid faster than it removes it. The total course you'll be running in this drill is a little over 200m, which is a good distance to cover for your lactic threshold. I'd perhaps remove the 2x25m jogging and just try get the full distance as fast as possible (while maintaining speed as much as possible). Try to get through the course in 45sec, then give yourself 2:15 rest and start again, doing it every 3min. If it takes you longer than 45sec to get through the course, then you don't get as long to rest between rounds. Remain lightly active during the rest period -- leg swings, walking around in circles, etc. Do 6 rounds of it and see how you go.
 
That sounds good, and I'll give the changes a go and see how I manage with the 45 second circuits.

From what I've read, I understand that Lactate threshold training is 2 fold. It is about training your body to be more efficient at removing the lactic acid build ups, and becoming more trained at actually competing with lactic acid in your system. Though, there seems to be a lot of disagreement on the issue, and it is pretty hard to get a concise answer. My understanding is basically 2 fold, because there are 2 different camps and I'm fence sitting right in the middle.

Do you have much knowledge / understanding of what the purpose of the training is to help clarify it a little bit?
 
The way I was taught, the goal with lactic threshold training was to increase the %MHR at which your lactic threshold sits, build the ability to maintain skill under duress, and improve lactic acid recovery. Admittedly, I've been rather slack at personal research on the cardiovascular side of things, so I wouldn't take my own word for it :p
 
That's fairly similar to what I've picked up on the process. Though it seems to be fairly hit and miss with finding nay reliable evidence in the way of journal articles or published pieces. Loads of it seems to be a lot like what you've just said, with no one really knowing with enough certainty to confirm, or provide evidence either way...

Painful process.
 
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