My 7-Day Training Plan to Increase Your Slap Shot Speed by 10 Mph

Let’s cut right to the chase. Most beer leaguers and youth coaches think adding ten miles per hour to a slap shot requires six months in a squat rack and a brand-new, two-hundred-dollar composite stick. They are dead wrong. I’ve spent the last fifteen years analyzing shooting mechanics, tearing down video reels, and working with USA Hockey coaching education standards. Here’s the ugly truth: your lack of velocity isn’t a strength problem. It’s a kinetic chain problem. You are leaking power everywhere.

When I first started tracking my own shot speeds using radar, I plateaued hard at 72 mph. It felt like hitting a brick wall. No matter how hard I swung, the radar gun refused to budge. Then I stopped focusing on arms and started focusing on physics. Once I fixed my weight transfer and load timing, that number jumped to 83 mph in a single week. Today, I’m handing you the exact, no-BS blueprint I used. It’s intense. It demands focus. But if you follow this 7-day protocol down to the letter, you will hit harder than you ever thought possible.

Day 1 and Day 2: Rewiring Your Kinetic Chain and Stick Loading Mechanics

Forget shooting pucks for a second. If your foundation is trash, launching a puck is just an exercise in frustration. Day one and two are all about teaching your nervous system how to store and release energy. The biggest mistake I see? Guys try to muscle the shot with their upper body. Your arms are just cables; your hips and core are the engine.

Start with off-ice stick loading drills. Take your stick, put the blade against a immovable wall, and practice flexing the shaft while driving your bottom hand into your hip. You need to feel the carbon fiber store potential energy. According to biomechanics research often highlighted in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, rotational velocity precedes linear velocity by milliseconds. If your hips don’t open up first, your stick can’t whip.

• Drill 1: Wall-flex isometric holds (3 sets of 10-second max effort loads).
• Drill 2: Slow-motion phantom windups without a puck, focusing strictly on weight transfer from back foot to front foot.
• Drill 3: Ten-repetition sets of heavy medicine ball slams against a concrete wall to wake up your fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Day 3 and Day 4: Overload Training and the Weight Transfer Matrix

Now that your nervous system understands the sequence, we add resistance. You cannot expect your body to handle explosive speeds if it hasn’t felt heavy loads. On days three and four, we bring out the heavy training pucks—specifically the six-ounce and ten-ounce variants.

Take twenty shots with a heavy puck, then immediately drop down to a regulation six-ounce puck and take ten. Your brain gets completely tricked by the contrast. The regulation puck will suddenly feel like a feather, and your swing speed will naturally accelerate to compensate for the missing weight. Pay close attention to your follow-through. Where your stick points is where the puck goes. If you are slicing across the puck, you are losing miles per hour to spin instead of forward momentum. Drive through the ice, not just through the puck.

Day 5 and Day 6: High-Velocity Reps and Target Accuracy Under Fatigue

Speed without control is useless. By day five, your muscles are going to be feeling the fatigue. Good. That’s where real adaptations happen. We shift focus to quick-release mechanics and snapping the snapshot off a heavy, fatigue-induced state.

Set up twenty pucks along the blue line. You have exactly ninety seconds to unload all twenty while hitting a tire hung in the top corner of the net. This forces you to eliminate unnecessary windup movements. Elite shooters don’t do a baseball windup; they use a compact, violent snap. Shorten your backswing by three inches. Trust me, the extra whip from the stick will more than make up for the shorter draw.

Day 7: The Active Recovery and Radar Test Protocol

Day seven is judgment day. No heavy lifting. No grueling shooting marathons. Your central nervous system needs twenty-four hours to fully recover so your fast-twitch fibers can fire at 100% capacity.

Spend twenty minutes doing light mobility work, focusing on thoracic spine rotation and hip openers. Warm up thoroughly—get a light sweat going. Then, step up to the radar gun or fire up your shot-tracking app. Take ten warm-up shots at 75% effort. Then, let loose five absolute rockets. Watch that radar gun tick up. You’ve earned every single one of those new miles per hour.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does stick flex really matter for slap shot speed?

Absolutely. If you weigh 160 pounds and use a stiff 105-flex stick, you aren’t flexing the shaft at all—you’re just pushing a heavy broom handle. As a general rule of thumb, your stick flex should be roughly half your body weight, though personal preference and playing style play a huge role.

Can I really gain 10 mph in just one week?

Yes, but with a caveat. You aren’t building brand-new muscle tissue in seven days. What you are doing is correcting massive inefficiencies in your kinetic chain, optimizing your weight transfer, and utilizing post-activation potentiation. Most players leave at least 5 to 10 mph on the table simply due to poor technique.

Should I use a different curve for slap shots versus wrist shots?

Generally, a mid-to-heel curve with a slightly more open face gives you better control on slap shots because it helps keep the puck down when you lean heavily into the shaft. However, modern composite sticks are designed with variable kick points to accommodate hybrid shooters.

How often should I repeat this 7-day training plan?

Don’t run this intense protocol back-to-back without a break. Your wrists, shoulders, and core need recovery time. Run this cycle once a month during your off-season or maintenance phase to keep your mechanics sharp and your shot velocity trending upward.