Quick answer. Fitness for hockey means training the way the game actually loads a player: short, repeated, high intensity sprints, with sharp accelerations, decelerations and changes of direction, followed by a little recovery, and then again. The coaches on The Hockey Site build that on a base of running and simple strength, but they shape the work around match demands rather than steady laps around the pitch.
Getting the heart rate up matters, but the coaches on The Hockey Site would tell you not to stop there. A player who can jog all day and still fades in the final quarter has trained the wrong thing, and running laps rarely fixes it on its own.
Start with what a game actually demands. In his masterclass Mastering Physical KPIs in Field Hockey, Belgian strength and conditioning coach Wouter Blondeel describes hockey as a running based power sport that is, in his words, repeated and intense. He notes that a lot of games are decided in the last fifteen minutes, when players can no longer hold that repeatedness. On his reading, fitness is the ability to produce high speed running and explosive changes of direction over and over, not simply to cover distance. He tracks this as high speed running plus explosive distance, the accelerating and decelerating that comes with every change of direction.
Laps build a base, but they miss the pattern. Glenn Turner is clear that hockey is first and foremost an aerobic game and that, as he puts it, you have to be able to run. In Hockey Conditioning Made Simple he even worries that running conditioning has been slipping in parts of the game. The point is not to abandon steady running, it is to see the gap between being able to jog for an hour and being able to repeat sprints when tired. Laps develop the first, but the game asks for the second.
Train the repeated sprint, not the single one. Mick Beunen, physical performance coach for the Belgian men’s team, makes the case directly in Physically Game Ready. As he says, strong athletes can continue to fire at high speeds up until the last quarter, or the last game of a tournament, which is usually the one that matters most. Hockey, in his description, has become a sport of physical duels, explosive sprints and fast changes of direction. Conditioning, then, should rehearse exactly that shape: accelerate, decelerate, change direction, recover briefly, and go again, rather than one long continuous effort.
Build the engine inside the hockey. Beunen’s preference is to integrate physical work into the hockey session rather than bolt it on afterwards. He talks about focusing on movements and not muscles, and about adding what he calls dual tasks, so that the running comes with decisions, agility and game context attached. For most club and youth coaches, that points towards small sided games, shuttle based drills and repeated efforts with the ball, where the sprinting is real because the situation is real.
Put strength underneath the sprints. Turner argues for getting the foundation and movement right first, and warns against overcomplicating it. Bodyweight squats, push ups and lunges can be done on any field, and he would rather see a player do fifty good bodyweight reps than three heavy ones they cannot control. Beunen frames strength the same way, as the foundation that lets a player accelerate, decelerate and withstand contact repeatedly, but always combined with speed and movement rather than trained in isolation.
Know which efforts matter for which player. Blondeel individualises the demand by role, watching his midfielders closely because so much of a team’s play runs through them. In his framework a midfielder needs sprint distance combined with explosive distance, while an attacker leans more on explosive metres and short bursts. Beunen splits it a similar way, adding that defenders need robustness and goalkeepers need explosivity in several planes. Both are keen to stress that you do not need expensive GPS to start, simple observation and a few honest tests will tell you plenty.
Protect the body that has to repeat. Repeated sprinting only helps if players stay available. In Injury Reduction Training Methods, strength and conditioning specialist Matthew Eyles works through how to build that robustness, and Turner is candid that he has seen too many careers dented by programmes that loaded players before they could move well. The message from both is to earn the right to sprint hard by owning the basic movements first.
Periodise so the fitness peaks when it counts. Beunen builds his year in cycles, roughly three weeks of overload followed by one lighter week so the body can adapt and come back stronger. For coaches wanting to map that across a season, Periodisation for Club Coaches lays out how to plan the phases without needing a full time sports science department behind you.
None of this is a fixed prescription, and the coaches above would be the first to say so. The value is in seeing your own team through the lens of the game’s real demands, then borrowing the ideas that fit your level, your time and your players. The masterclasses below are the place to think it through in more depth.
Go more in depth here
Read next: Injury Reduction Training Methods, Periodisation for Club Coaches, Smart Pre-Season Planning for Field Hockey Coaches, Physical readiness isn’t optional for field hockey players, Tips for physical preparation and avoid injuries.
More coaching questions: How do I build field hockey fitness without taking players off the ball?, What is the best field hockey warm-up to get game-ready and cut injuries?, How do I know if my players are actually fit, and what’s a good score?, My players are fit but slow to turn. How do I train change of direction?. All of them are in Field Hockey Coaching Questions.
The experts mentioned in this article
Glenn TurnerFormer Australian international player
Mick BeunenPhysical trainer for the national men’s team of Belgium and a former international player
Wouter BlondeelStrength and conditioning expert from Belgium
Matthew EylesStrength and conditioning expert who has worked for Hockey India and the Dutch national teams
Join us for more on this
Free coaching ideas from the world’s best, straight to your inbox.
