Six female collegiate ice hockey players (age=20.2 yr. ± 2.1; ht=170.18 cm ± 3.23; wt=68.85 kg ± 10.48) volunteered to participate in this study.  Maximum voluntary contractions (MVC) of the rectus abdominis and external obliques were recorded twice for each subject using the BIOPAC MP 35 surface electromyography (SEMG).  Subjects performed maximal contractions of the two muscles while using a StairMaster Ab/Torso/Oblique weight machine. The second MVC was used for analysis purposes. During a third session, subjects performed five slap shots at a designated target from a distance of 40 feet while being videotaped from the side with a Canon ZR850 Mini DV video camera.  The third and fourth shots were digitized using Kinematics Analysis Video (Schleihauf, 2004) to determine the average puck velocity.   

Strong correlations were found between shot velocity and both external oblique and rectus abdominis strength. However, these were negative correlations suggesting that as core strength increased shot velocity decreased.  Only the P-Value for rectus abdominis strength proved to be statistically significant with a P-Value of .05.