Backward Skater Squat
The Elite Hockey Drills app builds drills like this into your personalized off-ice program, week by week. Your first week is free.
How to Do It
Stand on one leg. Extend the other leg slightly behind you. Hinge at the hip and bend the standing knee, lowering your body backward and down. Reach your arms forward for counterbalance as you descend. Lower until the rear knee nearly touches the floor. Drive through the heel of the standing foot to return — feel the glute fire. Complete all reps one side, then switch.
Why It Works
The backward skater squat isolates the glutes and hamstrings in the exact hip-extension pattern of backward skating — a critical skill for defensemen and all players retreating in the defensive zone. Most players are quad-dominant; this exercise corrects that imbalance and builds the posterior chain strength that drives backward stride power.
Hockey Transfer
Mimics backward skating mechanics — essential for defensemen. Defensemen: this is your single-leg pattern. Forwards: still useful, but lower priority than Bulgarian split squat.
Coaching Cues
- "Single leg"
- "Lower into squat position while mimicking backward stride reach"
Common Mistakes
Collapsing forward at the trunk — keep a proud chest, hinge and squat simultaneously. Letting the knee cave inward — push it out over the pinky toe. Only going halfway — full range builds full-range strength. Rushing the reps — slow and controlled builds the pattern that matters.
Progression / Regression
Add a dumbbell or hold a weight plate to increase demand as bodyweight becomes easy.
Reverse lunge to a box — reduces the balance demand while building the same pattern.
Primary Muscles
Energy System
Strength/neural
Put it to work
on the ice.
The Elite Hockey Drills app builds exercises like this into a personalized off-ice program — created by a sport scientist and former national-team coach. Your first week is free.
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