Hockey Performance | Ghost Athletica | Grand Rapids Hockey Training
The Skill Most Hockey Athletes Skip, And Pay For Later
Why force absorption is the foundation of durable, powerful movement on the ice, and how to train it
Dr. Jamie Phillips | Ghost Athletica | Grand Rapids, Michigan
Everyone loves to train the "go" side of movement.
Jumps. Sprints. Power output. Explosive first steps.
But ask any high-level hockey strength coach and they will tell you the same thing: the ability to stop, land, and absorb force is just as important as producing it.
If you cannot control your momentum, you cannot control your performance. And you cannot control your injury risk either.
Force absorption is the foundation of durable, powerful, efficient movement on the ice. It is also one of the most consistently skipped areas in youth and junior hockey training, including right here in the Grand Rapids area.
Why Force Absorption Matters in Hockey
Every explosive movement in hockey ends with an absorption moment.
- A quick stop transitioning out of a sprint
- Controlling weight shifts through edge transitions
- Absorbing a T-push or lateral bound
- Taking contact along the boards without losing position
Without proper force absorption mechanics, the energy from those moments does not get absorbed by your muscles and redirected into your next movement. It goes directly into your knees, hips, and lower back as uncontrolled stress.
That is how ACL tears happen. That is how groin strains develop. That is the mechanical origin of hip impingements that show up gradually over the course of a long season.
Good landing and deceleration mechanics protect your body and set up every subsequent movement more efficiently. The two goals are inseparable.
What the Research Says
Studies consistently show that improving eccentric strength and neuromuscular control during landing tasks significantly reduces lower extremity injury risk in athletes competing in high-speed, high-change-of-direction sports. Hockey sits squarely in that category.
Teaching your body to absorb and redirect force does not just make you more durable. It makes you faster and more reactive, because your next movement initiates from a position of control rather than from a position of managed collapse.
How to Train Force Absorption for Hockey
Focused Landing Mechanics
Before you can jump higher, you need to land better. This is the starting point for all force absorption work, and it is non-negotiable.
The cues that matter most:
- Land quietly. Pretend you are trying not to make a sound on impact.
- Absorb through your hips, knees, and ankles together, not just your knees.
- Keep your chest up and your core engaged through the landing.
Key drills:
Drop landings: Step off a box and focus entirely on the quality and control of the landing. The height matters less than the mechanics. Start low and earn your way up.
Jump to stick: Vertical jumps with the emphasis placed entirely on the controlled, quiet landing rather than the height of the jump. This retrains the habit of treating the landing as an afterthought.
Lateral Force Absorption
Hockey is a lateral sport. Your force absorption training needs to reflect that.
The focus here is controlling lateral bounds and side-to-side stops with the same quality of mechanics you are building in vertical landing work. Stick landings and balance holds after lateral movement are the key habit to develop.
Key drills:
Skater bounds with holds: Lateral bounds from one leg to the other, holding each landing for two to three seconds before the next bound. The hold is what builds the stability and control that transfers to edge transitions on the ice.
Lateral shuffles to stick stops: Controlled lateral shuffles with a hard stop on an audio or visual cue, emphasizing quiet landings and stable base positions at each stop.
Band-resisted lateral deceleration drills: Adding light resistance to lateral deceleration forces greater muscular engagement through the stopping phase and builds the eccentric strength needed for controlled edge work.
Eccentric Strength Training
You cannot absorb force effectively without the underlying strength to do it. Eccentric strength, your muscles' capacity to control force while lengthening, is the physical foundation everything else is built on.
Incorporate slow lowering phases of three to five seconds into exercises like split squats, Romanian deadlifts, and Nordic hamstring curls. The eccentric phase is where the force absorption adaptation happens, and most athletes rush through it without realizing what they are leaving on the table.
What Good Force Absorption Looks Like
When you are assessing your own mechanics or watching an athlete you coach, here is what controlled force absorption looks like in practice:
- Smooth, quiet landings with no jarring or crashing into the floor
- Knees tracking over toes without caving inward on impact
- Hips and ankles flexing together as a coordinated system
- Controlled stops without wobble, collapse, or a need to take a recovery step
If you are seeing the opposite of these, force absorption mechanics are worth addressing directly before adding more load, more speed, or more volume to any other part of the program.
How This Fits Into a Complete Hockey Training Program
Force absorption is not a standalone drill category that gets scheduled once in a while. It is a foundational movement quality that should be present in every phase of a hockey athlete's training, from early offseason through the competitive season.
At Ghost Athletica, we build landing mechanics, eccentric strength, and lateral deceleration work into the hockey training programs we run for players and goalies across the Grand Rapids area because the athletes who develop this foundation early stay healthy longer, perform more consistently, and make better physical decisions under pressure.
If you are a hockey player or goaltender in West Michigan looking for a training program built around this kind of complete, intelligent approach to development, learn more at ghostathletica.com.
Dr. Jamie Phillips, DPT Ghost Athletica | Ghost Goaltending | Grand Rapids Hockey Training Byron Center, Michigan | ghostathletica.com
