Djurgården Hockey, Sweden’s most successful ice hockey team, is using the Monark LC2 ergometer to increase athletic performance. Monark’s collaboration with Djurgården Hockey is helping these elite players to achieve exceptional athletic performance.
Increase Athletic Performance
Because ice hockey places huge demands on the body, it requires a very high level of strength and physical conditioning. Furthermore, with ice hockey being a very challenging sport, a training program that will increase athletic performance is imperative. And, if each individual player’s athletic performance improves, the whole team will benefit. As a result, such a training program will optimise team performance.
Improve Aerobic Endurance
As Jimmy Ölvestad, former Swedish professional ice hockey right wing, says,
“A solid aerobic endurance base will help a field hockey player with the repetitive series of high intensity movements and exercise required to play at a high level. Explosive power and short bursts of quickness is required in field hockey to play at a high level.”
A program of high intensity cycle ergometer interval training, using the Monark LC2, will improve aerobic endurance and optimise performance.
Enhance Athletic Performance With Aerobic Testing
If there is no possibility for skating tests, cycle ergometer testing may be the most task specific laboratory test method related to skating. This cycle ergometer testing is invaluable when skating tests are not possible. In fact, coaches of team sports, such as ice-hockey, believe aerobic exercise testing to be a highly relevant component of performance monitoring.
This study into the effects of high intensity cycling interval training on endurance performance in ice-hockey players shows that,
“aerobic training in ice-hockey players can be optimized with a carefully planned high intensity cycling interval training program which is based on the individual training intensities determined from heart rate reserve without any concurrent strength interfering effects. Optimized individual training programs allow more time for high- quality training of the other important components in ice-hockey performance.“
This further study, using the Monark cycle ergometer 894E hypothesises that,
“more training sessions targeted at enhancement of aerobic fitness should be incorporated into training.”
Increase Leg Strength
One of Djurgården Hockey’s most promising players, William Eklund, uses the Monark to maintain good conditioning and leg strength, saying,
“During the season, I want to keep my conditioning and leg strength. I get help with that from our Monark bikes. I often use the bike before the regular training, and afterwards with a lighter load to get a good cool down for my body. I would say that the Monark bike is the single most important training tool we have because there is so much you can do with it, such as conditioning, strength, and also lactic acid training.”
In fact, the cycling group in this study improved performance in all strength tests.
For more about Monark bikes, you may like to find out How to Choose the Ideal Cycle Ergometer. See also how the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Swansea University are using Monark ergometers in their dedicated Biomechanics Lab.
