Cossack Squat Hold
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 in a wide stance, feet roughly 1.5× shoulder width, toes slightly turned out. Shift your weight onto one leg, dropping into a deep side squat. Opposite leg is straight, toes pointing up (heel may rest on floor). Working leg: heel stays planted, knee tracks over the toes. Torso stays tall — chest up, not collapsed forward. HOLD at the bottom. Stand under control. Switch sides. That's one rep per side.
Why It Works
The cossack squat hold places you in the deepest lateral position the human body trains — one leg deeply flexed, the other extended straight out to the side. It's an adductor isometric in the lengthened position (rare and valuable), a hip-mobility-under-load drill (rarer still), and a glute med/quad iso for the working side all at once. For hockey players, this directly trains the bottom of a crossover position — that moment when one skate is deeply loaded on an inside edge while the other is fully extended pushing off. The transfer to skating mechanics is immediate, AND the lengthened adductor iso is one of the only off-ice ways to keep groin tissue tolerant to the stretch loads of an aggressive change of direction.
Hockey Transfer
Deep lateral-squat isometric — adductor lengthened-position hold plus hip mobility under load. Direct carryover to the deepest part of a crossover and the recovery phase after a hard stride. Tight ankles or hips will limit depth — go as deep as you can keep the heel down. Don't cheat onto the toe.
Coaching Cues
- "Wide stance"
- "Toes slightly out. Shift weight onto one leg"
- "Drop into a deep side squat — opposite leg straight"
- "Toes up. HOLD at the bottom. Tight torso"
- "Heel down. Switch legs."
Common Mistakes
Working heel coming off the floor — limits depth and ruins the position; if you can't keep it down, you're too deep. Torso collapsing forward — defeats the iso for the adductors of the straight leg; chest stays up. Knee caving inward on the working side — push it out toward the toes actively. Forcing depth you don't have — ankle and hip mobility limit this exercise; respect the limit and progress over weeks.
Progression / Regression
Weighted cossack hold (goblet a kettlebell at the chest). Or full-depth cossack with butt-to-heel position.
Supported cossack hold — light hand on a pole/wall for balance. Or shallower depth as you build mobility.
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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