Seasonal changes in various performance measurements in ice-hockey players

Abstract: Aim: Ice-hockey is an intermittent team sport that requires a composite physique of the players throughout the entire hockey season. The purpose of this study was to examine how a novel 20 minutes intermittent all-out cycling test (20MIAO), simulating a period of ice-hockey, correlates with an on-ice Skating Multistage Aerobic Test (SMAT) and other off-ice test results, and how the performance changes through the competitive season in an elite Norwegian ice-hockey league. Method: 15 elite male ice-hockey players (19±1 yrs. age; 81±8 kg; 181±7 cm; 13±3 yrs experience) from the local senior and junior (U20) elite teams were recruited and tested at pre-, mid- and post-season.  Subjects were initially tested pre-season by their respective teams on the 3000 m run, 40 m sprint and 1RM squat strength, before being tested pre-, mid- and post- season on the 20MIAO test, the SMAT (60 s work/30 s rest), a continuous incremental V̇O2max test on cycle ergometer and vertical jumps (squat jump (SQJ) and countermovement jump (CMJ)) as an indicator of lower body strength. The 20MIAO test consisted of 10x35 s all-out Wingate tests interspersed by 100 s of passive rest.  Information on matches and training during the entire competitive season was collected. Results: The 20MIAO test showed very high correlation with both V̇O2max test (r=0.88), 3000 m performance (min/kg, r=-0.86) and SQJ (r=0.75). When comparing to the estimated V̇O2max of the on-ice SMAT, the 20MIAO (r=0.88), V̇O2max (r=0.92) and 3000 m performance (r=-0.88) displayed a very good relationship at pre-test. 1RM squat (r=0.76) and CMJ mean power (r=0.77) correlated very well with skating speed. Performance of the SMAT was the only test showing significant seasonal changes when analysed by corrected repeated measures ANOVA. Post-hoc analysis found skating speed to improve only in the first half of the season (p=0.00, d=2.43) . The 20MIAO was the only test showing a decrease in the second half of the season, but only in the senior group (p=0.03, d=1.3). The decline in performance in the senior group was related to indications of less time spent on training and more on matches compared to the juniors. Conclusion: The 20MIAO was very strongly related with on-ice and off-ice tests of aerobic capacity as well as vertical jumps, showing the mixed properties of the test. The 20MIAO test found a decrease in performance in the last part of the competitive season that was not measured by other tests. The use of an intermittent all-out test could be valuable to include as part of the teams test batteries as it appears to display other factors than incremental or continuous on- or off-ice tests. Special attention should be given to maintaining high-intensity intermittent exercise as well as lower body strength throughout the season.