A personal note and some advice that I can offer from experience is about looking after your knees. Sadly with bad knees prevents you from functioning 100% and reduces the amount of physical preparation that you will be able to do to keep on top of your game.
A couple years ago a group of us senior players were preparing for World Champs just as we are now. With an offer from the Lagoon Beach Hotel in Milnerton to make use of their gym facilities we trained as much as possible to ensure that we were fit for the upcoming tournament.
In our preparation we focused on squats, both with and without weights. Sadly we pushed for quantity and not quality and due to the intense week of training (approximately 10 000 squats) it is now years later and I have added knee problems to my list of disadvantages.
My only advice can be to ensure that you do not over train your legs, ensure that when doing leg exercises your knees do not protrude over your toes and that your legs are in alignment for every repetition.
Luckily I dont have to say "bye bye" to the sport that I desperately love just yet, but it does make keeping up with the rest and off-ice training rather tricky. In my research of leg training almost ALL exercises are detrimental to the prolonged life-span of my knees.
Cycling (interval training) has proven to be one of the suitable options (just not too often) otherwise good old sports-specific PowerSkating is again and again the winner.
I hope that you look after your knees and enjoy a long hockey career. I will post some on-ice skating training exercises soon.
i'm 14 and i play hockey on a travel team. i don't do alot of exercise with my knee's but i do notice it feels like they hurt when ever i go into a low squat and stand back up.
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