Small Area Movement

SAM Program

Win every loose puck, dictate your skill. While movement pattern perfection is always at our core, the focus of our Small Area Movement program is to challenge the speed and timing of the movement pattern and applicable stick skills in a confined area or space. While challenging athletes in their most dynamic and explosive form, athletes are trained to re-map asymmetrical movement and skill patterns to improve their in-game performance. Read and react is slow, anticipate and dictate to your performance goals. 


Our Small Area Movement Program was designed in 2012 to complement our athletes movement success in our Perfect Skating Program.  Formed through our research while working with the NHL's Nashville Predators, our SAM program focuses on training the receptor feedback in the nervous system in areas of 10 foot on-ice radius.  In our research, movement patterns and skills within this radius map dominate game play, total puck touches and possession frequencies.  

While movement pattern perfection is always our core, the focus of our SAM program is to challenge the speed of the movement pattern and associated stick skills within a confined area or space. Movement patterns that coordinate high speeds of limb velocities and Center of Mass distribution propose unique and interesting challenges in contrast to managing joint mobility, stability and whole body alignment in our Perfect Skating Program.  

In 2014, we again set out to push industry standards and improve the transferability of our movement patterns to further impact in game performance.  Going back to our R and D roots we piloted a project within the analytics community to track Movement Patterns specific to position and in 2015 we officially launched our SAM program specific for Forwards and Defencemen. 

The Small Area Movement Program for both Forwards and Defencemen are an essential pillar for athletes looking to improve the speed, quickness and decelerative capabilities of their dynamic movement and stick skills specific to their position.