Drilling

Power skates start next Monday. "What?!?" my son exclaimed indignantly. "Aww maaannnn, I hate power skates."

In addition to the regular practices the hockey club we play for does a weekly power skate. The purpose of the power skate sessions is to work on skating and stick handling skills. This way the regular practices can focus on learning how to play hockey instead of learning the mechanics of hockey. The power skate sessions are fifty minutes of drills. Because he doesn't yet understand the purpose of drilling he finds the sessions boring and tedious. He doesn't understand the why part - he only sees the what part.

"I already know how to skate. Why do I need to go to power skates?" Good question. "I already know how to swim." I explain. "But no matter how much I swim there is always something to improve on. If you don't focus on your weaknesses you will fail to reach what your capable of." He eyed me skeptically. "Do you do drills?" he asked. "Sure - every week and at least at some point during every single workout."

I explained to him the why part - I do it to train my body how to do things correctly. Not to do them quickly or strongly, but to do them correctly. If you learn to do it correctly, speed and power will follow. I also explained the how part - during each drill I pick a single point of focus and I place all of my attention and awareness there. Some days an entire swim session will be dedicated to feeling my stroke from my back. The other day while out of the saddle during spin class my entire focus was on pulling my knees up towards the handlebar stem. During hard running sprints I focus on hitting with the ball of my foot and pulling the pavement past me.

I explained these things as best as I could but as an eight year old he doesn't quite grasp deep focus and full awareness yet. He's growing up fast though. He'll be nine in a few weeks. Maybe I'll try again then.

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Workout Summary (Tuesday)

2160 yd continous swim - 40 minutes ( 360 hard + 360 easy ) * 10.

45 minute spin - intervals

5.5 mile run - 2 long and 2 short accelerations in to zone 5.

30 minutes circuit/core/stretching

Workout Summary (Today)

Swim drills - 45 minutes skills and drills

45 minute spin - endurance

6 mile run - tempo

30 minutes circuit/core/stretching

For Tuesday's workouts I felt surprisingly strong so I went harder than normal. The run felt especially good and I felt very strong during circuit training - moving up in weight on nearly every machine.

Today's workouts also went well. I'm finally beginning to get the hang of single arm swim drills. This has exposed a problem with my left side pull which I believe is what is preventing me from breathing to the left side comfortably. I held back a bit on the run - keeping it at tempo levels. Need to start tapering down for next weekend's race.