Explain the need of speed and agility in hockey game.
Answers
Explanation:
Nowadays improvements in speed and agility could make a huge difference on the hockey field whether you are a field player or a goalkeeper… The pace of the game has increased massively over the last few years and regardless of your skill, if you are not quick enough you could be left behind.
An effective field hockey player possesses three speeds. All these speeds are important in a quality athlete. Elite level athletes possess a high degree of all three speeds.
Speed of foot/hand: This is overall quickness, explosive power, speed over a short or long distance, and agility of foot and speed of hand
Speed of ball: This is the ability to quickly move the ball on the stick, maintaining possession, receiving, and passing quickly and effectively. These are an athlete’s hockey skills.
Speed of thought: The ability to think an react to all situations as they arise. The quick and controlled responses to the when, where and why of ball and player movement. Speed of thought is the ability to react quickly through anticipation, deception, clue reading, visual skills, and the use of width and depth.
Speed is the intersection of many different qualities within an athlete that are placed in the correct balancing act so that one may not overpower another. One of these qualities that contribute to speed development is agility.
Although top speed can help on the ice, agility is more important for hockey players. Your starting speed, explosiveness, deceleration and high-velocity direction change are dependent on how agile you are. Agility in and of itself heavily involves both physical and mental qualities within an athlete. Agility demands you have a strong mental game, and when it comes to hockey this requires both mental agility, comfort, and confidence.
Put another way, if you have a blazing fast 5th gear but it takes you forever to reach that gear, how many times will that be of value out on the ice? Rarely, if ever.
The game of hockey moves incredibly fast and it’s not so often you have open ice in front of you to skate straight ahead and try and find your top gear. More often than not there is a ton of external stimuli going on with the play – the position of the opposing players, the position of your players, the position of the puck and what’s going on in your mind – that will almost always break up this straight away course.
This is why the development of agility is a highly desirable trait out on the ice. If you can move swiftly, you have a distinct advantage over those who can