Starting Off On The Wrong Foot

For a few years now, we've been witness to Alex Ovechkin, all 6'2" and 212 lbs of him, zipping down the left wing and firing wrist shots past some of the best goalies in the world. The thing that makes him nearly impossible to stop is the way he shoots off the wrong foot. The picture on the right shows it perfectly: Ovie, on his right foot, driving through a shot. He drives his left leg back to create the same weight transfer as a correct-footed shot. Goalies hate this because it's unpredictable.

Now take Ovechkin's teammate, Alexander Semin. Semin is quite a bit smaller than Ovechkin, at 6', 180lbs. He's a different player (Ovie has 210 hits to Semin's 17), but he has something in common with his Russian friend: he possesses an amazingly hard wrist shot. How? It's that whole 'wrong foot' thing again, but I'd never noticed the extent of wrong-footedness until just recently.

As Semin starts his shot, he torques his body in such a way that while his torso is facing the net, his feet are aiming to the left. When he uncoils, his weight shift is incredibly pronounced. His legs are still pointed off to the left, forcing his torso and arms to accelerate to catch up. This also causes him to be off balance, resulting in a high left leg kick that acts as a counter balance. By using this technique, Semin is able to get more weight on his stick even though his wind up is shorter than a traditional wrist shot. This shot allows him to fire the puck in tight spaces and just after his famous toe-drag.

Biomechanics of the Wrist

Every joint in the human body is designed to flex in a certain way based on the structure of bones, tendons, ligaments and cartilage in the joint. Knees and elbows are designed to flex in one particular direction. The joints of hips and shoulders provide nearly full freedom of movement in all directions. The wrists and ankles allow for motions unique to the joints’ needs. Today we’ll talk about the wrist as it relates to hockey.

The wrist is a Condyloid joint and is constructed from several small bones that are surrounded by a capsule and strengthened by ligaments. This construction allows for three degrees of movement (Up and down, left and right, and axial rotation) of the joint.

Holding your arm out in front of you, palm down, rotate your hand as far as you can in one direction and the other without moving your shoulder. You should notice that rotation in one direction allows your palm to face up but does not allow for much more rotation past that (about 180 degrees of motion). In the other direction, your hand can move to a sideways position (about 90 degrees) before stopping. Attempting to rotate your wrist past these limits is not a natural motion and can end up causing some pain. These ‘hard stops’ define the limitations of the joint, or the ‘freedom of movement’.

In hockey, whenever you stick handle, pass, receive a pass or shoot a puck, you are rotating your wrists; sometimes slightly, sometimes severely and usually quite quickly. Holding your stick in the correct position allows your wrists to rotate freely without ever hitting a ‘hard stop’, decreasing the chance of causing wrist pain or injury and improving the accuracy and speed of the shot, pass, or stick handing move.

We’ll talk about the proper way to hold your stick in a bit. Just remember to stay within your body’s range of motion and you’ll find the proper technique based on how it feels to your body.