Hockey

Athletes need plyometric training as well as endurance training to enhance their speed, strength and agility in the field. Plyometric exercise involves stretching the muscle immediately before making a rapid concentric contraction. The combined action is commonly called a stretch-shortening cycle (SSC). Similar gains of maximal strength have been reported with traditional strength and plyometric training, but the latter approach appears to induce greater gains in muscle power. The combination of balance and muscle strength/power exercises seems to be an appropriate possibility, since both modalities induced adaptation on the neuromuscular level. A blocked combination of balance and muscle strength exercises effectively improve physical performance, and improvements in performance are more pronounced if balance exercises are followed by strength exercises than vice versa.