The Backward Stride of Hockey Powerskating

Eileen Peerless: I am Eileen Peerless, hockey power skating instructor and coach. I have today with me Joe Ducat (ph), one of my students who will demonstrate the backward stride. So we will ask Joe to demonstrate the backward stride first. In the backward stride, the body goes from one foot to the other, back and forth, the knee extension, there is the bend extend. When you do backward skating, you are very wide; you bend one knee, the other leg is extended. We are going to talk about the elements involved in the backward stride. This is where you need to know where the body belongs. You are going to bend one knee and the other knee will be extended straight. Then as you shift the way you extend the knee all the way out to the side and you bend the other knee. This is where you get your power. The bend extends out, back and forth, bend extend, bend extend, bend extend. This is the backward stride.

When you push into the backward stride, that push is slightly forward. So you push and you push with the other leg, push with the other leg, push with the other leg. You do not want to have any movement on the ice if the leg going backward. That leg go straight out and back as you push with the other foot. As you push with the other foot, the other foot will automatically come back in. So you want to make sure that you do not drag the toe backward in a backward movement. That will get your body off balance. You want to make sure that it is up side by side with the other foot, it goes slightly forward then you push out with the knee, straight it out, push with the knee, straight it out, push with the knee, straight it out. Those are the elements of the backward stride. Next, we are going to talk about the backward crossovers, straight on the ice and on a circle.