A FASTER WAY TO SKATE

Welcome to "A Faster Way Skate"

We ask you only 1 thing as you read "A Faster Way to Skate":

There will be some ideas that may be new to you, and even some ideas that might be different than what you have been taught about skating. We ask you to keep an open mind while reading and make your conclusions at the end of the booklet.

A Faster Way to Skate

Who can benefit?

Those reading this probably fit into one or more of these categories:

1. You are looking to learn something that will improve your own power & speed.

2. You are a coach looking for ideas or benefits you can share with your team.

3. You are a proud parent or grandparent of an aspiring hockey player and would like him or her to have every advantage they can.

No matter what your involvement, the information found on these pages candramatically improve skating power and skill.

Simplicity

The most exciting thing about the principles that I am about to reveal to you is that they are simple.

For the purpose of introducing the principles that can change how you skate or teach skating forever, I will not provide too many detailed explanations or backgrounds or supporting arguments.

I believe that the key to these principles are in their simplicity. The purpose of this book is to have you feel it, not analyze it. I believe that once you feel it, you "got it" and once you "got it" you can recreate or help someone else create the feeling again and again.

OK, hang onto your hat, and be ready to start moving. This is a participatory book, so I hope you are not reading this on your laptop in the bathroom of an airplane. Here we go!

ELLIS METHOD

First let me describe to you what the ELLIS METHOD is ..

The optimization of speed, power & efficiency by maximizing the laws of motion through natural movement.

PURPOSE

The purpose of this book is to introduce you to principles that will allow any player, no matter their age or skill level to dramatically improve their skating skills.

By understanding and practicing these principles you will be faster, more powerful, and much more efficient.

Would you be a better hockey player if you could skate faster?

Would it be an advantage for you to have more power and acceleration?

What would the advantage be if you used less energy to have the same or greater speed?

This book will introduce to you the simple, yet critical, things that you must do to have these advantages when you skate.

The key is the effective movement of your body mass in the direction you want to go.

This may sound complicated, and kind of scientific, but the truth is it is really a very simple concept. So simple that we believe that any player or coach who reads and does the exercises in this book will understand and feel the power!

Traditionally we have been taught to skate with the focus being on the push, or on the leg movements. With this being the case, it has been very difficult to learn strong skating technique, as the majority of movements taught are not natural movements, rather learned.

Natural Movement:

Natural movement is movement that your brain does not need to tell your body what to do. It happens as a result of body structure, momentum, gravity, and the innate sense the body has to protect itself from injury.

Learned Movement:

Learned movement is movement that the brain has conditioned the body to perform. While learned movement is necessary to teach skills, it is much more powerful and efficient when combined with natural movement.

Also much of the focus has been on speed of movement vs efficiency and power.

Speed of Movement:

Meaning how fast you can move your feet to create speed. The truth is, it doesn't matter how fast the legs move if you are just spinning your wheels. Speed of movement does not necessarily translate to speed on ice.

Efficiency & Power:

Using natural principles of momentum to increase efficiency, and placing the body in the proper position to push from, gives a skater the raw power to increase speed and to hold that speed for longer periods of time. Hockey is a 60 minute game, and you want to be able to perform to the very last buzzer.

When a skater incorporates the key principle that will be revealed and explained in the next chapter, their skating (movements) becomes natural, efficient and powerful. (NATURAL meaning that the first movement causes the next and so on.

The ELLIS METHOD is about learning to optimize efficiency and power through natural movement.

The Key Principle

In order to maximize the effectiveness of the push, the body's center of gravity must be brought to an optimum point where the body's momentum and the force that can be applied in to the ice, are maximized for the direction we wish to go.

Boy, that sounds complicated! Read the following explanations of the key words and then re-read the previous sentence.

Center of Gravity:

The center of gravity (cog) in the body is located near the belly button. Center of gravity means having equal weight, meaning as much body weight above the belly button as below it, and as much weight to the front of the body as behind it.

Moving your center of gravity forward to the optimum point before pushing helps you to use the momentum of moving weight in efficiency and power.

Optimum Point:

Optimum point refers to the point where the body weight and the position of the body are in an ideal place to exert force to propel you in the direction you want to go.

To do this the ankle angle must close, moving the weight (cog) forward and to the side to create momentum. The momentum is maximized when the

body has almost reached a point of instability. In other words you let the body move forwards and to the side until you are almost ready to fall over before pushing.

Force:

To exert force against an object means we must press against the object.

In order to propel ourselves forward on the ice we must exert force or pressure in to the ice opposite to the direction of travel.

We know, however, that if we were to simply push in a backwards direction on a blade that the blade would simply slide backwards and no force is generated. To apply maximum force on the ice we must push to the side in order to maintain contact with the ice for the longest period of time to generate maximum power. The longer we can apply the force, the more power is generated.

Body Momentum:

The key to maximizing power in the push is the effective movement of body mass in the direction you want to go.

In order to fully maximize the effectiveness of the push, we must wait until the body weight has reached the point where the pressure in to the ice and the momentum of the body falling forward and to the side are at their maximum. The push must be delayed until the body has almost reached the point of instability for this to happen. This point of instability happens when the weight has shifted forward to the inside part of the ball of the foot and you are no longer in a balanced position.

So to repeat the Key Principle:

In order to maximize the effectiveness of the push, the body's center of gravity must be brought to an optimum point where the body's momentum and the force that can be applied in to the ice, are maximized for the direction we wish to go.

FORCE

The Body's Natural Power Point

The ball of the foot is where we naturally push (exerting force into the ground) from when we walk, run and jump. It is the natural power point of the body! So as you may have guessed this is the natural power point of the body when skating as well.

For years you probably have been taught to skate pushing from center of the blade, or from the toe. Remember what I asked earlier, for the duration of this book I ask you to try not to judge whether the middle of the blade, the toe or the ball of the foot is the optimum place to push from, rather leave your mind open as you continue to read and do the exercises, drawing your own conclusions at the end.

Exercise:

- Walk forward noticing where on your foot you are putting the force into the floor as you push yourself forward.

- Now, as you walk forward notice where your center of gravity is (or weight) is on your foot as you are pushing.

- Just for fun try walking forward with your weight staying over and pushing from your heels.

Does this feel powerful or efficient? No, penguins are not great runners or skaters either!

- Now try walking with your weight over and pushing from the middle of your foot.

- Now try walking on your toes.

What if you tried to run from one of these three positions, would that be fast, powerful or efficient?

If we were to increase our speed of movement we probably could learn to be quite fast, but would it be efficient?

So, just as we walk, run and jump, when we skate for maximum speed, power and efficiency we are going to move our center of gravity over and push from, our power point - the ball of the foot.

Natural Power Position

If you were to jump as high as you could, what would your movements be?

I think we have already concluded that we would move our center of gravity over and push from the balls of our feet. But how will we create maximum force into the floor?

Exercise:

- Try this; bend your knees and waist and jump. The results would be pretty good I think. But are they optimized?

-Now try this; bend your ankles as much as you can, then bend your knees and waist, with your center of gravity over and pushing from the balls of your feet, jump as high as you can. Optimized!

Just as when you run or jump closing the ankle joint is the ultimate key to power when skating!

Traditionally we have been taught to focus on bending our knees when we skate and its true, if you skate with straight legs you will not be too fast. But knowing what you know now, if you were to bend your knees only, will you always get your weight over the balls of your feet?

- Try jumping with your knees bent only!

How high was that?

- Now bend your ankles first. What happens? The weight moves easily to the balls of your feet and your knees bend automatically (naturally).

By bending your ankles, you have allowed the body to move the weight to the power point, have recruited additional muscles to push with, and increased the time and distance that you can apply force into the ice.

Additional Muscles

With no extra explanation, everyone will understand that by bending the ankle, you now can use the ankle muscles to push with, as the ankle opens at the end of the push. This results in the ability to increase the force into the ice.

Increased Time and Distance

The opening of each joint in sequence; the hip, the knee and now the ankle, increases the time and distance that the force is applied to the ice.

Power = Force x Time

Momentum

Moving the Center of Gravity Forward, Down and Across

Forward

When you run you land on your heel and your body's momentum continues to shift your weight forward. The knees and ankles bend, the weight continues to move forward to the ball of the foot until you reach a point of instability and you then push off and land on the heel on the other foot.

If you wanted to stop this forward momentum to stop running, you would have to shift your weight backwards and not allow the ankles and knees to bend.

Across

In skating we do not want the weight to go forward beyond the ball of the foot as the blade will not allow us to create any significant force into the ice and we will fall on our face. In skating we actually want to push to the side. To create speed, the movement of our legs must be similar to running in a zigzag pattern. The weight must move forward from the heel diagonally across to the inside part of the ball of the foot.

Exercise:

- While walking slowly, take a left and then a right zigzag step so you can feel the weight moving from the heel to the inside ball of your foot.

- Do it one more time noting that the weight moves from the heel forward and across to the inside part of the ball of the foot as the ankle compresses. Optimized Momentum!

Down

As the ankle compresses, the momentum of body moving downward assists in the compression of the ankle joint resulting in the recruitment of even more muscle fiber for the push, increasing the amount of force that can be created. Optimized Force!

Creating Maximum Body Momentum

You will note that as you close the ankle and move the weight forward and across to the inside part of the ball of the foot, the momentum of the body is now moving in the direction that we want to go. There is one more natural movement that we can take advantage of at this point that will allow us to maximize both the efficiency and the effectiveness of the push.

Maximum Efficiency and Effectiveness

This exercise should explain it all!

Exercise:

- Start by standing with your feet together. Place your right foot one step back, toe and thigh pointing straight down to the ground. Now move your center of gravity forward by leaning your upper body forward. Keep leaning until you reach the point of instability and you lunge forward. Try not to bring your right foot forward to catch yourself until you absolutely must in order not to land flat on your face. That's the power of gravity.

- Repeat the exercise noting the speed of the right leg as it moves forward to break your fall!

- Repeat the exercise noting the extension of the back leg and foot!

As the body passes the point of stability there is an incredible increase in momentum of the body forward! The speed at which the body naturally accelerates the right leg is truly amazing. We want to access that acceleration and momentum when we skate.

Exercise:

- Now do the same exercise but this time moving the weight forward and across to the inside ball of the foot by closing the ankle angle until you reach the point of instability and the right foot lunges forward in approximately a 45* angle to break your fall.

- Repeat the exercise noting the speed of the right leg! (Naturally) Try to

duplicate that speed without reaching the point of instability; in other words, don't bend the ankle or let the weight come to the ball of the foot.

- Repeat the exercise noting the extension of the back leg and foot! (Naturally)

Optimization

When the you bring your weight forward and across to the inside of the ball of the foot by compressing the ankle angle and then waiting to push until the moment just prior to the point of instability you will create the most effective and efficient push. This will maximize both the body's momentum and force in the direction you want to go.

That acceleration of your body mass coupled with maximizing pressure into the ice will create the greatest speed and power!

Burning of energy

Efficiency is critical in the game of hockey.

For maximum power, speed and efficiency you must:

- Close the ankle angle and move your center of gravity over the ball of the foot to obtain maximum power behind your push

- Push from the ball of the foot to create maximum power in the direction you wish to move.

- Push from the ball of the foot to allow you to reach a point of instability in the direction you wish to move.