Hey there. Jonathan Edwards here from LacrosseGoalieTips.com. It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve written because I’ve been super-busy revamping the membership section of the site and watching the Tour De France. I’ve been a fan since the early eighties and am just glued to the television when it’s on.
But watching the tour reminded me of the worst sport you could possibly play as a lacrosse goalie and that is Cross Country Running. And it’s especially true for women. Let me explain…
You see, on the scale of “explosive sports” to “non-explosive sports” you would have being a goalie in any sport on one side, and running long distances on the other. This is why I always say that most lacrosse teams spend waaay too much time running long distances and not enough on short sprints. For the goalies it’s even more important.
Running long distances uses slow-twitch type muscle fibers and as a goalie we don’t really want to be developing those. We want to develop our fast-twitch muscle fibers.
Sure, you want to stay in shape, but running long distances is not the way to do it. Play soccer, or football, or field hockey. I’d rather see you work on short bursts of speed and building your strength. If your school has some sort of weightlifting program that can also help. I’ve never seen a goalie who didn’t improve by working on their strength levels.
So, if you’re signed up for Cross Country this fall…umm…how do I say this… pick something else!
I know that being a cross-country runner is probably bad for any lacrosse goalie. My question is why is it worse for female players? I wonder why this is, because my coach has us doing long distance running every practice. I’m talking about an excess of 2-3 miles, just as a warmup. Since I was doing that kind of running every practice I was wondering if it will effect my playing in the long run?
Jonathan:
I have to say that I both agree and disagree with you on this one. In the interests of full disclosure, I should also say that I am a former track athlete and coach, as well as a lacrosse player/goalie.
As for the agreement, you are dead on with your point on “explosive” muscle training. Goalies, perhaps more than any other position, absolutely need to work specifically in this area. Analogies to martial arts moves and training here are particularly appropriate.
Where I tend to disagree with you is in the tenor of your comments that could be read to mean that lacrosse players/goalies should never cross-train through distance running. What I feel may be a more constructive way to express your point here is that lacrosse players/goalies should never rely solely on long distance running as a major component of fitness training. If I have read your intent incorrectly, then please accept my apologies.
As a DivIII player during my undergraduate years, I and one of my best buddies on the team, who I had recruited from the track team to play lacrosse, would regularly work after practice on extra running, no matter how much running we had done in practice. I felt then , and still feel, that there is no substitute for a sound basis in conditioning, however obtained. Lack of stamina/fitness is the mother of bad playing decisions and anything you can do to insure that, when the time comes, you command both the mental and physical state needed to push the ball up on one more clear, to bust a gut on one more ground ball, to run down that darn middie who got a jump on a loose ball and is heading toward the goal with a full head of steam, will benefit your game. As a goalie, if you have to choose between spending your training time on either explosive or non-explosive muscle exercise, then the choice should be obvious – go for the explosive training, hopefully in a manner that simultaneously enhances your aerobic fitness also. The best of all worlds would be to structure your workouts to do both because, in my view, both are beneficial and needed.
Hey there Dr. Dan. Thanks for the comment and no, we’re not far off. Kailee this will be a good response for your comment as well. This will also answer the parent who wrote me and said that long distance running builds the mental side of the athlete and that you must build the entire athlete and not the physical side of the athlete all the time.
I don’t disagree that a fitness is a bad thing. I completely agree with you that a solid base of fitness is beneficial when the games get long and you’ve got to pull something out of the tank to make a last ditch play. I fully agree with you that bad decision making comes when you are tired and fatigued. I totally agree with all of that.
What I disagree with is how most coaches go about training fitness. First off, any strength and conditioning coach worth his weight will tell you that aerobic training should be done after any explosive training. By doing long cardio prior to practice you are bringing down the quality of movement for all of your athletes and not just the goalies. There are a lot of coaches who grew up in systems where the ever popular “build a big base” theory prevailed and we know currently that school of thought is old and outdated.
Now I’m not talking about general fitness here. There is a “base” of fitness here that allows you to train other qualities in order to be explosive. The body must have the ability to withstand a certain level of training in order to be world class. And many goalies come into training out of shape. “Fat” could be used as an appropriate term. Now there have been a number of great goalies who have been quite large. Sal Locasio, arguably one of the greatest goalies in history was a “big” dude. Could he have been a greater goalie if he had dropped some pounds? Probably.
So, there are a lot of goalies out there who end up being goalies because they can’t play anywhere else. When I started playing goalie I was one of those kids. But by the time I reached high school I was one of the fittest kids on the team. Could play any position and often did. Looking back on it I was just a high school kid who loved to play and loved to run. Loved that feeling of my lungs wanting to pop out of my chest as much as I loved the sting of the ball on my skin. It was fun. Knowing what I know now about conditioning…could I have been a better goalie if I had focused more on my strength levels, absolutely.
I agree with you that both are “beneficial and needed” but only if one does not take away from the other. And that is what I find happens with most teams, especially with the goalies. The most popular study to back things up right now is the Tabata Protocol. In this study the Japanese found that the best way to train cardiovascularly without taking away from the explosive nature of their sprinters was to train in an interval format with twenty seconds on and forty seconds off. Sets of eight. (Sorry that was a bit of a run on sentence.) This is what I recommend all goalies go through. The high intensity nature of this type of protocol not only reinforces solid movement patterns for sprinting it also ramps up the heartrate something fierce. The elevated EPOC burns more calories than steady state cardio and it’s better on the joints which I highly recommend for female athletes.
Now, to the parent who wrote me and said that cross-country running builds character and mental strength my answer is this: There are tons of ways to build mental strength that do NOT include running for fifteen minutes plus. I can teach it with Tabata running. I can teach it with more shots at the end of practice. I can teach it with a sport psych book. I can teach it with some attitudinal training. What I find happens is that people rely on long distance running as this sort of panacea. I honestly think a lot of coaches rely on those laps at the beginning of practice or the long distance runs as a way to fill up time because they aren’t creative enough to learn anything new. Just my take.
Dr. Dan I would ask you, who would you want in the cage? Your 60meter runner? or your 10,000meter runner? Would you have a 60 meter runner run for twenty minutes prior to training for the 60? Then why do we ask our goalies, who we want to be at their most explosive, to run for three miles prior to practice? And when those 60 meter guys and gals need to shed some pounds do they go out and do steady state cardio? Not typically. They adjust their diet and run some extra 40’s. Not 100’s.
I’m getting nitpicky there. But you understand I’m sure. You comment that “there is no substitute for a sound basis in conditioning, however obtained.” I would argue that. There are better ways to get that base of conditioning. And there is a level of specificity that needs to be adhered to not to drag the goalie far away from being explosive. If I was your coach during your DIII years I would have grabbed you and your buddy after practice and said this, “You guys are studs already. From a training economy standpoint lets get you guys in the weightroom after practice. You already have a huge base. Let’s work on your strength and we will actually increase your running performance while increasing your sprinting ability which is more applicable to this sport you’re playing right now.”
When I wrote that parent I told them this, “You’re daughter can be as tough mentally as she wants to be, but if she lacks the physical component to be an explosive goalie it’s just a recipe for frustration.” And that is where I see most athletes go wrong. Their coaches reinforce that if you want to get in better shape you should go out and run forever. It’s not worth it. We can get better work done in less time working on your sprinting ability over intervals and improving your strength.
Ok, that’s enough for now. I hope that all makes sense. Thank you SO much for the insightful comment. (Beats the whiny emails I’ve gotten from some parents not “in the know” I guess.) If anyone has any other questions or comments please comment below and we’ll keep this discussion going.
Jonathan – The Goalie Guru
I agree that fitness
Kailee I hope you read the comment from me above to Dr. Dan. That will help you understand where I’m going with this.
From the female perspective here is what I find as a generality amongst most of the female athletes that I have trained: Most girls do not lack in stick-to-it-iveness. Far from it. In fact, if I could replace the minds of the male athletes I’ve trained with women’s brains they’d be ten times the athlete. I swear it has to do with that fact that women have to go through child birth. My wife for example, two kids, born at home, no drugs. Nuf said. Boys can’t do that.
What most female athletes have trouble developing is maximal strength. And from maximal strength you gain explosive strength. So from a training economy standpoint I would rather focus on my girls in the weightroom than out running three miles. Especially before practice. And especially for my goalies. However it’s a scientific fat that women carry more adipose tissue than the boys. And a lot of uneducated coaches feel that if their girls could just drop a few pounds they’d be better. That’s not the case. You can get more done with sprint work, and interval work, and work in the weight room. Problem there is that most girls don’t like the weight room. They have this false idea that they will get “bulky” if they lift weights. This too is not true and it’s based on the difference in hormones between boys and girls.
Running long distances is probably not going to hurt you in the long run. But, if I were your coach I would take that time you’re running three miles and shoot more balls at you while you’re fresh. We’d focus on moving to the ball properly. At the end of practice I’d run you up hills. Or have you run shuttles for twenty second intervals. And rest you for a minute. Then run you again. I would time you every interval and when your times dropped by ten percent I’d call it a day. Each week we’d add another one.
I’d teach you how to do a proper push up. And a chin up. And I’d teach you how to do bodyweight single leg squats. I’d make you a stud (studdette) and your ability to stop the ball, and then clear it, would go through the roof.
Jonathan – The Goalie Guru