Any ice hockey player can benefit from slide board exercises (goalies and players). It is a great off-ice representation of an ice hockey stride, T-push, shuffle, or lateral adjust that can be practiced at home! Secondly, it is a great conditioning workout! Lastly, it will help younger players work on their body control and trust in themselves when on a slippery surface. Slide boards are expensive to buy but are worth the investment if your kid/you will use it to train. There is a link below to a well-known slide board company. Hockey shot has a much cheaper one and there are many very cheap versions on Amazon. I have no idea how well they work though.
However, if you like DIY projects you can make a slide board for under $50 and it isn’t difficult. Here is a link to a DIY slide board.
I plan on making my own, but I am going to use a plastic material for the slide board instead of a slick composite wood.
At the bottom of the DIY link, there are a couple training videos. There are a lot of exercises you can do as a goalie. You can work on your lateral adjust, butterfly slides, and T-pushed (just wear volleyball knee pads and pull hockey socks over the top of them. The hockey socks slide better). To make the slide board exercises more difficult incorporate hand-eye drills while moving, using tennis balls.
As a player, you can work on stick handling while working on your stride, shooting, and many more exercises.
I will write another post on slide boards when I finish my slide board. That post will have a video to show how mine works and provide links to great drills for players and goalies.
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