Reply To: Good Habits at Practice? The Art of Coaching!

[Kai K]

I like how Kai outlined his weekly template. I wondered what he thought of it?

His question, “What is your opinion, should the practice after the game reflect the game you had?" I see this as a “what comes first – the chicken or the egg" big picture question – i.e.: what comes first. I certainly think that there is a great inter-relationship between performance in games and what you do in practice (both before and after the games.)

Dean

The main principles in our YTP and week schedule are:

Long term player development. we want to give to our players good set of tools to future (especially off-ice). With U18 players who have sensitive period on strength, endurance and elasticity. So we really want to set up good base for future training. With skills you work with details and perfect the skill base that players have. So it’s heavy physically template. On ice we work with game sense

Diverse off and on ice training. on off-ice we want to keep it diverse (play basketball, soccer, ultimate etc.) and train the skills off- ice (agility, coordination, elasticity). We try to keep the endurance training diverse and fun.

Themed and focused practices on ice and off -ice. In our training 80%-90% is focused on offensive skills and playing. The YTP is chopped in five week periods each week has its own theme or focus.

How did work? Well I believe the Monday's recovery / skill training served three needs: recovery from the weekend games, work on aerobic endurance, and train individual skills. Players liked it too.
It’s a big challenge to fit the things you need to do in one week. That's why good planning and themes and focuses help. So that you your not trying to do everything every time. According to Harri Hakkarainen with youth players you should have two speed trainings and two strength trainings in week template.

I don't know if this post gives any answers or does it make any sense to anyone (I'm trying to wacth the Jets game at the same time)

Kai