Hockey Goalie Needs Advice

[zephyr_words]

Hi All,

I've been searching all over the forum and a little overwhelmed with all of the information. I know I didn't find anything specific to goaltenders so hopefully this isn't a repeat post. If someone could take the time to read and help me via post or PM I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm a hockey goalie in the semi-pro pro level at looking to get in much better shape and follow a diet.

I'm 6 foot, 185lbs, and male. Core strength is extremely important in goaltending and I want to up that while cutting fat over my entire body. Cutting fat is more important to me initially than building a lot of muscle especially because I am focusing on flexibility so much at this point.

I have the mentality to push myself so I want the best and most effective routine not the easiest...your words won't be wasted

 

[goaler]

Zephyr,
I can understand your question being a competitive adult hockey goalie with 20 pounds of fat to lose before the season. I have asked a similar question in another forum (steroid discussion), and the body building guys were very honest about cutting out the beer and cleaning up the diet. I swear hockey players drink as many calories as we burn off. I would say keep lifting and working on your flexibility in the gym, and clean up the diet and go a few weeks without drinking. I'm a goalie coach as well for ages up to 18, and would reccomend overall body workouts, with an emphasis on squats, lunges, ham string and calf exercises and don't forget the groins and the core as you suggested. Good luck, one of my students is a semi-pro goalie and two others play college hockey.

 

[fortunatesun]

Not a hockey player here, but I can give you some links to basic physical conditioning ideas from the strength training world that are applicable to a sport specific program:

Medleys for Conditioning
General Physical Preparedness
Constructing a Strength and Conditioning Program for College Ice Hockey
Primal Ab Circuit

Check out the Training Information sticky in the Weight Training forum for other sources and ideas.

goaler is totally right about cleaning up your diet. It's at least 50% of the picture. The diet forum has alot of info. on this one. Here's a quick rundown on some basics to consider:

7 Habits of Effective Nutritional Programs

There's lot's of other good articles on nutrition here ranging from the simple to the complex if your interested.

 

[zephyr_words]

Cool, thanks for the information guys. My diet is pretty clean right now but I know I could make it a lot better than it is.

I've been trying to piece together foods that will add up to the calories I want every day so my next grocery trip will be my second good step. This has really been the hardest part for me just because I have never paid much attention to nutritional value before.

I'm actually at 175lbs since I made the post just by switching to eating about 5 times a day from eating twice.