Complex and French Contrast Training are the best ways to boost your speed and agility. These two methods are excellent to do in the gym and transfer easily onto the ice.

Here’s an explanation of how each training method can benefit a hockey player’s speed.

Both complex training and French Contrast Training (FCT) are designed to enhance power and speed through post-activation potentiation (PAP). However, they are similar but different.

Complex Training

Complex training is highly beneficial for hockey players. It addresses the specific physical demands of the sport, which involves a combination of strength, power, speed, and agility.

Complex training is a method that uses heavy strength exercises with biomechanically similar but lighter, more explosive exercises.

Here’s how contrast training can be applied to hockey.

Program Set-Up

1. Heavy Strength Exercise (Neural Activation): The heavy resistance exercise, such as squats or deadlifts, recruits a high amount of muscle motor units and supercharges the central nervous system. This exercise is 3-5 reps, 85-90% of your 1RM.

• Examples: Squats, deadlifts, and leg presses.
• Purpose: Develop lower body strength, crucial for skating power and stability.

The heavy lift induces post-activation potentiation (PAP). PAP is a temporary increase of power in the nervous system. The idea behind the heavy resistance lift and PAP is to enhance the neuromuscular system’s ability to produce greater power.

2. Explosive Exercise: Immediately following the heavy lift is an explosive movement, like squat jumps or sprints. The second exercise takes advantage of the heightened neural drive from the first exercise, resulting in more powerful and explosive movement.

• Examples: Box jumps, kettlebell swings, and jump squats.
• Purpose: Enhance explosive power, which is essential for quick accelerations, changes in direction, and explosive skating movements.

Rest for 20 seconds – 2 minutes between exercises, depending on your performance.

Rest for 3 minutes after the set and perform as many sets as possible until fatigue sets in and your power diminishes in the second exercise.

By quickly transitioning to an explosive movement, the body can capitalize on this increased neural drive, improving power, speed, and force production more than normal.

Complex training helps improve the rate of force development, which is vital for actions like sprinting on the ice, making sharp turns, and taking powerful shots.

Complex Training- Sport-Specific Hockey Routine

First exercise- Plate Loaded Speed Skaters

Second exercise- Non-Loaded Speed-Skaters

French Contrast Training (FCT)

The key idea behind French Contrast Training is to take advantage of the PAP and progressively move from heavy strength work to lighter and more explosive exercises. The difference between Complex and FCT is the number of exercises, which goes from two to four. Furthermore, FCT focuses more on boosting neural capacity and Complex training can be seen as increasing neural power.

The FCT method enhances a hockey player’s speed, power, agility, and neuromuscular adaptations, and capacity. French Contrast Training is a more advanced and evolved version of traditional complex training.

It typically involves the following phases:

Heavy Resistance Strength Exercise: Similar to complex training, FCT starts with a heavy-strength exercise to supercharge the muscles, induce PAP, and enhance neural activation.

Explosive Plyometric Speed Exercise: Following the heavy lift, an explosive dynamic bodyweight exercise is performed to capitalize on the increased neural stimulation.

Strength Speed Movement: Following the plyometric exercise, use the same as or similar to the first exercise at 30-50% of the load.

Light Load, Plyometric, or Speed Exercise: The set concludes with a plyometric movement like the second exercise. Or, if needed, an assisted plyometric movement using a resistance band.

Sample Hockey FCT

First exercise- Plate Loaded Speed Skaters

Second exercise- Speed Skaters

Third exercise- Light Load (50%) of first exercise Speed Skaters

Fourth exercise- Speed Skaters or Plyometric Assisted Speed Skaters with resistance band

Rest for 20 seconds – 2 minutes between exercises, depending on your performance.

Rest for 3 minutes after the set and perform as many sets as possible until fatigue sets in or your movements slow down.

How Complex and FTC Improve Speed

Increased Force Production: Both training methods aim to enhance the neuromuscular system’s ability to produce force rapidly, which is crucial for quick starts, accelerations, and changes of direction in hockey.

Improved Rate of Force Development: By training the body to generate force quickly, hockey players can improve their rate of force development, contributing to faster and more explosive movements on the ice.

Specificity to Hockey Movements: The inclusion of sport-specific movements ensures that the training transfers directly to the demands of hockey, helping players become more agile and faster with their on-ice performance.

How to Use these Programs

The frequency of implementing Complex and French Contrast Training (FCT) for in-season hockey players depends on various factors, including training status, recovery capacity, game schedule, and individual response to the training stimulus.

In-season training should be carefully planned to enhance performance without causing excessive fatigue or compromising recovery. Here are some general guidelines:

Individualization

Consider your fitness level and response to training with time and recovery.

Recovery Time:

These training sessions can be demanding on the nervous system, so providing adequate recovery time between sessions is crucial. Allow at least 48-72 hours sessions to ensure optimal recovery for peak performance.

Listen to the Your Body

Monitor signs of fatigue, decreased performance, or increased injury risk. If you are showing signs of overtraining, adjust the frequency and intensity of the sessions accordingly.

Periodization

Plan the in-season training program with proper periodization. Consider incorporating higher and lower intensity phases to manage fatigue and allow for strategic peaking during important competitions.

An example could be incorporating complex training or FCT once every week during the in-season period.

How to Maximize Complex and French Contrast Training

It’s important to note that while these training methods are highly effective, they should be incorporated into a well-rounded strength training program.

If you have optimal and suitable strength, these training programs will take you to more incredible speed and performance on the ice. If not, you will experience the program’s negative drawbacks. This is often encountered: doing a speed program without optimizing strength.

If you want to be faster, develop lots of strength. Strength is essential for speed. It is crucial because speed training is trained at 50% of your strength. For example, if your squat is 100 pounds, your speed explosive training will be about 50 pounds. Now, if you can squat 150, your speed training will be 75.

This strength explanation is necessary because I want you to understand how to discover a better version of yourself to maximize your potential. It is also essential to perform complex and French Contrast Training.

Check out my INSTANT STRENGTH book for total strength, speed, and power programs.

To maximize stability, mobility, and flexibility, check out my book, THE BALANCED BODY.

To see great exercises, methods, and techniques videos, subscribe to my YouTube channel, BALANCED BODY.