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Regular exercise can trim down your physique, increase strength and stamina, prevent disease, and improve your overall fitness.
One of the best things a lacrosse goalie can do to boost their save percentage is to get their body in shape. This is possible by doing a lacrosse goalie workout specifically designed to handle this unique position’s demands.
The concept of just putting the fat kid in goal does not apply to lacrosse. All-American lacrosse goalies are the best players on the team.
While designed for lacrosse goalies, keep in mind that this workout would benefit any athlete, not just lacrosse goalies.
Lacrosse Goalie Needs
Playing as a goalie in lacrosse is a unique position. To get your bodies in the condition to be an All-American goalie, here is what your weight training and exercise program needs to consist of.
- Injury Prevention – You won’t be able to make saves if you aren’t healthy. Muscle imbalances can lead to injuries, so lacrosse goalies need to use a program that concentrates on a full-body workout. You might think that ladies love pecs, but we have to incorporate the entire body. As goalies, your legs and shoulders are the extremely instrumental muscle groups in the movements we make. That’s why they are hit regularly on your program.
- Strength and Power – There is a contrast between strength and power in this program. But you need to focus on both. Power is required for the athletic movement that is involved in lacrosse save. Lacrosse goalies require strength and power in both their upper and lower bodies. Workouts can incorporate both power and strength training for optimal athletic performance.
- Plyometrics – Plyometrics, such as box jumps, jumping rope, and lateral hops, teach the body to generate force rapidly, which is precisely what a goalie demands as they react with their entire body to save a shot.
- Posterior Chain – The back, butt, and hamstrings, which include your posterior chain, are crucial for explosive sports. Playing lacrosse goalie is undoubtedly an explosive sport and, thus, in your workout program. You’ll be focusing on developing your posterior chain through squats and deadlifts.
- Core Strengthening – Your core transfers force throughout the body and keeps a great posture as you stay in your goalie stance for an extended period. A weak core can lead to a poor stance and poor performance during the match, particularly in the 4th quarter, when your bodies are tired.
There are many weight programs for lacrosse goalies that achieve these goals. You don’t have to do all the workouts listed below, but it is essential to incorporate some of these workouts into your workout plan.
It’s still much better to select a program and stick with it versus spending hours researching the right workout program.
The Ultimate Lacrosse Goalie Workout
Jump Rope
Jumping rope is a goalie’s best friend. It’s one of the most beloved pieces of training equipment, and also, it’s one of the best.
Jumping rope will enhance the goalie’s foot speed, agility, quickness, and get our bodies into great overall shape to make saves.
In a lacrosse goalie workout, jumping rope is so essential that you’ll begin every single exercise with a jump rope session.
Here’s a good jump rope workout you can perform. Do 50 reps of each of the following varieties of jumps. If you mess up in this workout (i.e., the rope hits your feet), you must drop and do ten plyometric pushups. And then resume the rope workout at the same count you left off at.
Round 1:
- Two Foot Jumps
- Single Foot Jumps – Right Foot
- Single Foot Jumps – Left Foot
Round 2:
- Two Foot – Side to Side
- Single-Leg Right – Side to Side
- Single-Leg Left – Side to Side
- High Knees
Round 3:
- Double Unders
- Boxer Shuffle
Box Jumps
Jumping up onto a box is an exercise that’s excellent for goalies. One of its significant benefits is that it develops the reaction of fast-twitch muscle fibers throughout the body.
The same fast-twitch muscle fibers you’re going to depend on to make your saves.
The higher and more explosive you jump, the better or more rigid the exercise will be.
For box jumps, most gyms will have some boxes to accomplish this exercise. Otherwise, you can use just about anything in place of a box.
It can be a sturdy wooden box, a stable bench, or a ledge. You can also get yourself an official plyometric box to execute this exercise.
Long lateral jumps (skaters)
With this exercise, we’ll work on our lateral mobility and explosion.
Fast lateral movements are critical for lax goalie’s even if you’re stepping at an angle to get your body in front of the ball. There’s still an element of lateral motion in every lacrosse save, and this exercise will develop strength in that movement.
Agility Ladder drills
Agility is one of your vital abilities to change positions quickly, using quick, controlled movements.
Being agile is crucial in the cage as you follow an attackman’s series of fakes with quick, controlled movements.
Lax goalies also flash agility in responding to bounce shots that appear to be headed low but then bounce back up for a high save.
An excellent addition for lacrosse goalies is to work with tennis balls into this agility ladder drills. Have a coach throw the tennis balls during this ladder exercise. By having to catch and throw them back, you’ll help work our hand-eye coordination, which is vital for playing as a goalie.
Try adding a short sprint at the end of each pass through the agility ladder. So, the goalie goes through the ladder with the desired move and then sprints 5-10 yards before running back to the start. He can either resume the movement or go to the next exercise.
An agility ladder is an inexpensive piece of equipment essential for all lacrosse goalie training.
Slow side shuffles
Put a resistance band around the legs, above the knees.
Performing slow side shuffles with a resistance band is an exercise that will build up the muscles in your legs and hips.
Fast side shuffling
After the slow side shuffles, take out the resistance band and go into fast side shuffling with a weighted ball (medicine ball).
Like many exercises in this lacrosse goalie workout, you’ll be working out your body’s lateral motion. This is vital in the lacrosse goalie save process.
Wall sits
Wall sits are excellent plyometric exercises for increasing the strength in our glutes, hamstrings, and quads.
You can also use tennis balls for this workout to work on your hand/eye coordination. Have a coach or friend throw you a tennis ball while you’re in the wall sit position. Try to catch the ball with both hands and throw it back.
Power Cleans
If there’s one quality that needed to be developed as lacrosse goalies, it’s the explosiveness.
Many athletes want this quality. Yet, it’s particularly crucial for lacrosse goalies who need to explode with their body and hands towards the shot that’s coming at them.
The power clean is a compound exercise that’s going to help the lacrosse goalies develop their explosiveness.
The first phase of the power clean demands intense muscle contractions. This trains your explosiveness from the ground, supporting a position, like a lacrosse goalie, where the action is fast-paced.
The second phase of the power clean motion (the scoop, 2nd pull, and catch) is beneficial for goalies who need quick feet. This exercise also improves the phenomenal grip strength used in the stick rotations required to make a save.
Deadlifts
Another weight lifting exercise that develops strength in all major muscle groups is the deadlift.
When we deadlift a heavyweight, we’re working our whole body—the back, chest, legs, arms, as well as enhancing our cardiovascular conditioning.
Like the power clean, another reason for doing deadlifts is that it builds impressive grip strength. This forearm strength benefits goalies in their rotation of the stick and stick handling and outlet pass.
Squats
Squats don’t only train your legs, but they also introduce the entire bodybuilding natural testosterone and hormones.
Squats are a fantastic exercise and one that needs to be separate from your lacrosse goalie workout.
Seated Cable Row
By establishing and building the muscles in our rear deltoid and back, you’re also helping your posture. This can help with everything in your life, not just making lacrosse saves.
Seated Cable Rows includes back muscles, including the lats, the erector spinae, rear delts, biceps, and forearm flexors.
Seated Reverse Fly
This is another exercise that’s great for building the strong back and rear deltoids. Plus, it can help the lacrosse goalie maintain a firm stance throughout the game.
This is a challenging exercise, so be sure to go light on the weight and focus on the correct form.
Lunges with Weighted Torso Rotation
This exercise is ideal for any sport that involves rotation. To correctly throw a lacrosse ball, there is a fair amount of torso rotation required.
This exercise is also going to work those core muscles, which is essential for goalies.
For the weight, you can either use a dumbbell or a heavy medicine ball.
Sprints on stairs
Try doing this inside a stadium, which will also make this workout very brutal. However, they were also excellent for getting your body into shape and building the muscles that goalies need to make saves.
The added pressure of working against gravity and balancing while sprinting upstairs adds muscle power and strength in the glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves of goalies. When going down the steps, try to suppress your quads to eccentric contractions, which further works the body.
The stairs are an excellent piece of equipment if you’re looking to up the sprints’ difficulty level.
Push Ups
Push ups are an excellent pushing exercise that’s going to train your chest and shoulder muscles. There are different versions of push ups that vary the muscles that are worked.
Building strong shoulders is crucial to staying in a lacrosse goalie ready position for an extensive period.
Exercises You Should Avoid
On the spectrum of explosive and non-explosive sports, playing goalie in the sport of lacrosse is about as far on the explosive side as you can get. You must react to the ball and explode with your entire body.
Your body consists of fast-twitch muscle fiber, which is liable for the explosion. It also has slow-twitch muscle fiber that is responsible for slower movements and endurance.
As a lacrosse goalie, you want to improve fast-twitch muscle fibers. Therefore, long-distance running is your enemy.
You may want to print out this article to show to your coach next time he proposes a 5-10 mile run for your team. Lacrosse teams do too much long-distance running, which leads to building slow-twitch muscle fibers.
Focus on endurance. After all, lacrosse is a moving game, and you must be in shape to play at a high level. However, it is produced by sprints and high-intensity workouts, not long-distance running.
A good lacrosse goalie workout does not include long-distance running.
Conclusion
There are lots of different weight training programs out there. But goalies have particular needs, and that’s why you must ensure you choose a workout program that meets the unique requirements of lax goalies.
You don’t have to follow all the workouts listed, but lacrosse goalies need a program that incorporates full-body exercises. This includes plyometrics, strength training, and any workout that can strengthen your posterior chain and shoulders.
To be a great lacrosse goalie, you must transform your bodies into that of an athlete.
By following a lacrosse goalie workout like the exercises listed above, you’re improving every element required to have the body of an All-American goalie.
These exercises are designed to help increase the strength and explosiveness that is required to govern this position. If you follow some of these workouts using a “three days on, one day off” system for the entire off-season, you’ll be amazed at how many more saves you can make.
You can even incorporate this workout during the offseason to ensure your body stays in shape and explosive for making saves.