Camps

The Edmonton Female Hockey Association (EFHA) is proud to introduce our EFHA Summer Program, a 16-week training experience designed for athletes aged U13AA to U18AA. This program combines on-ice and off-ice training to help players refine their skills, build strength, and prepare for the upcoming season.

What makes this program unique? This summer, we’ve partnered with SPARK FITNESS to deliver the off-ice programming, while elite coaches from USPORT, ACAC, Junior, and AAA teams will be leading our on-ice sessions. Together, we’re offering a comprehensive development experience that will help female hockey players take their game to the next level!

EFHA 16 Week Off-Season Hockey Program

Program Highlights:

Off-Ice Training by SPARK FITNESS SPARK FITNESS will be conducting 16 weeks of off-ice training to help players develop strength, speed, and agility. This off-ice program will complement the on-ice portion, focusing on building the foundation for improved performance throughout the summer and the season ahead.

U13 Girls Program – (Two 1 hr sessions)

Monday & Thursday: 6–7pm (Thursday, May 15, will run from 5–6pm)

*U15/U18 Girls Program – (Two Sessions per week)

Morning Workouts: Monday: 6:45–7:45am and Wednesday 6:45–7:45am (if needed)
Afternoon Workouts Monday: 8:00–9:00pm & Thursday: 7:30–8:30pm

Spark Fitness Program Structure

All 16-week programs follow similar progressions. The small group program will be more advanced due to additional training time and smaller group sizes.

Weeks 1-5: Accumulation Stage: This stage emphasizes general physical preparedness, developing proper movement patterns, and tissue building. The primary objective is to prepare the body for the demands of the upcoming intensification phase.

• Power: Learn sprinting and jumping mechanics
• Strength: Build movement patterns, build tissues, improve balance and coordination
• Conditioning: General conditioning, isolate aerobic and anaerobic power/capacity

Weeks 6-9: Intensification Stage: The focus in this stage aims to build on the foundation established in the first five weeks. Once movement patterns have been learned, we can begin to push them and use them to build strength and power. A secondary goal is to prepare the athlete for the demands of the specificity stage.

•  Power: Dynamic and closed-chain reactions when sprinting, introduce single leg landings, build power with two bilateral jumps
•  Strength: Increase neural drive and strength levels, improve rate of force development, prepare for realization/sport-specific phase
• Conditioning: Target sport-specific metabolic qualities/weaknesses

Weeks 10-13: Specificity Stage: This stage begins to incorporate the specific demands of the sport, such as unilateral vs. bilateral movements, different planes of motion (frontal, sagittal, transverse), and varying plyometric demands (reactive, high vs. low impulse). The emphasis transitions from building maximal strength to sport-specific strength and maximal power.

• Power: Train for sport-specific power, introduce open-chain reaction when sprinting
• Strength: Maintain strength, transfer strength foundation to explosive sport-specific movement patterns
• Conditioning: Target metabolic qualities that reflect intensity, duration, and recovery patterns of sport

Weeks 14–16: Realization/Capacity Stage: The final stage is the shortest and aims to cultivate peak performance. The overarching goal is to enhance power capacity. Power capacity ensures that we can still maintain power in a fatigued state. A secondary goal is to ensure the athlete is in peak condition in time for training camp.

• Power: Train for sport-specific power capacity
• Strength: Maintain strength, muscular endurance
• Conditioning: Power capacity and taper