The Athletic Republic training center in Clifton Park, NY is helping hockey players in Update New York improve their skating mechanics, and increase foot speed and on-ice performance.

Ice Hockey Treadmill Increases Skating Speed for Saratoga County Athletes  ~by Stan Hudy

CLIFTON PARK — Parents have yelled at children for decades for putting their feet up on the coffee table and the furniture.

Now, imagine their reaction if their young, skate-wearing hockey player decided to jump on mom and dad’s treadmill at home?

Jack Bartoszek, owner of the Athletic Republic franchise in Clifton Park doesn’t see a problem in that and actually encourages it.

Bartoszek teamed up with Athletic Republic and provided the ideal training for hockey players with a need to increase speed — the ice hockey treadmill.

Introduced as part of each Athletic Republic location the skating treadmill allows skaters to lace up their ice skates and work on their strides on a treadmill designed just for them.

“It’s a synthetic surface, kind of like if you were to compare it to the cutting board in your kitchen, the white board that you cut vegetables up with,” Bartoszek said. “It’s similar to that in that the skates will make a mark in it, but they won’t really cut it too badly.”

Instead of a single piece of running surface or mat stretched across two rollers, the ice hockey treadmill utilizes synthetic slats, attached to the mat surface and then pulled across the rollers.

“We replace the slats every couple of years,” Bartoszek explained. “Youth athletes, Olympic athletes and professional athletes come in and they skate on this.”

The unique treadmill — the only one in Upstate New York — provides a workout in from the cold for a number of athletes during a training session and provides unique challenges when the treadmill, like its running cousin, is lifted up at an angle.

“They are improving their skating performance by skating uphill at different various speeds and angles all controlled by a computer,” Bartoszek said. “You come in here and skate, become a better skater and that translates directly onto the ice when you are skating on flat ice.”

With a safety system for each skater, the overhead beams, rope and harness gives the ice skating treadmill a feel of a ride at an amusement park, but these rides are much shorter and more strenuous.

“When you are skating uphill, incline training recruits muscles at a rate of three times more than skating or running on flat ground,” Bartoszek said. “When the athletes come in here, their longest time on the treadmill is 45 seconds and that’s a warm-up at a very slow speed and very low angle.”

Professional hockey player and Clifton Park resident Peter MacArthur pushed himself to the limit on the treadmill earlier this week, stepping on for a few strides at its highest point.

“When you go 30 degrees like that, five or six seconds is the longest time you are going to be on there,” MacArthur said. “Usually we’ll go through that three or four times and be really, really difficult by the third time. The first time isn’t bad and you get through it. The more you do things — the repetition — that’s what really gets you.”

Even for a professional athlete, the treadmill wins every time.

“If you go for 20 seconds you’re done, you need at least a minute break to get your heart rate down and the lactic acid out of your legs,” MacArthur said. “It’s really tough. You’re just not used to using those muscles for that period of time at that quick of a rate.”

The skating treadmill isn’t limited to high school, collegiate or professional athletes as Jack’s daughter, Mandy Bartoszek, jumped on for some stride work and family friend David Wehrlin took his first strides on the synthetic surface.

“When I started it felt kind of weird, then the second time I got on it I felt really good about myself and it was really fun,” she said.

Her interaction on the treadmill stirred a return to the slippery flat surface for Bartoszek. “I played when I was 5 and then I stopped for a little while because it didn’t feel right for me,” she said. “Then when I started on the treadmill I just wanted to try again for a while, just me and my dad, to have some fun on the ice.”

Twelve-year-old David Wehrlin wasn’t intimidated by the unique treadmill.

“Since we were harnessed I knew if we did fall I would just swing back,” he said. “Really it wasn’t that scary. It was just weird.”

With a full life on the ice for MacArthur, skating for Shenendehowa, Boston University and the AHL’s Rockford IceHogs, the professional hockey player knows what it takes to be successful on the ice.

“The game is all about confidence and skating. If you can’t skate now you can’t play,” the AHL free agent said. “Even the big guys who are fighting they can all fly. It may not look like it, but when you’re out there next to them they can all fly.

“Skating is the number one thing if you want to be a hockey player,” MacArthur said. “If you want to be a successful playing hockey you have to be a good skater, otherwise it’s not going to work out.”

Through the years MacArthur has learned that his success has to do with the center of his body as much as his legs to propel him up and down the ice.

“A lot of things that young players and athletes don’t understand that your core is essential,” he said. “If you don’t have a strong core, strong legs, strong muscles in your stomach you can’t do anything. It’s your base. It’s like having a good center of gravity.”

“We do a lot of things with the core balls, the weights down on the floor, working on our core to make our center muscles as strong as possible and in return makes you a better skater,” MacArthur said. “Even if you don’t think it’s going to your core is number one.”

Currently back home during the off-season and fielding offers from different professional ice hockey clubs, MacArthur is taking advantage of the local skating treadmill.

“This is the only place that I have ever seen one and the only place I have ever trained on one,” MacArthur said.

“I’m sure other places have them, I think Cornell has one and a bunch of the pro teams have one, but this is the only one I have used. It’s pretty convenient. It’s nice.”

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