Don’t Fear Taking Time Off
[00:00:01] Hey guys Coach Edwards here withLacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com If you had haven’t already, head over to AthleteSpecific.com and check out what I’m doing over there. A lot of you guys don’t know that I coach athletes in a variety of sports.
[00:00:16] Lacrosse has been my bread and butter for so many years, but over the last half a decade or so I’ve been working with athletes in a variety of sports like soccer, tennis, ice hockey, skiing, you name it.
[00:00:31] But I always love my goalies and so that’s why I’m here. But check over at www.AthleteSpecific.com, and if you’ve got a friend or a parent with a good athlete who’s got big athletic dreams you want to send them over there, and have them download my freebie which is Mastering Automatic Negative Thoughts in athletes or you’ll love that.
[00:00:48] Okay so today I want to answer a question that I get every year. I’m going to paraphrase this because it’s kind of long.
This Weeks Lacrosse Goalie Question
[00:00:53] But basically I get these this time of year. It’s like, “Dear Coach, lacrosse is right around the corner. I haven’t picked up a stick since last fall. What should I do to get in shape and get ready to be the best goalie I can be. Thanks so much.”.
[00:01:07] That is from Chris in Silver Spring, Maryland. All right great question Chris. But I’m sure this applies to a lot of lacrosse goalies.
Step #1: Don’t Worry
[00:01:15] First and foremost if you’ve taken a break from lacrosse don’t worry about it. All right. It is proven that when we give the mind and the body a rest it gives it a chance to kind of like I think of the term that use on a computer that idea of defragmenting a disk. If you’ve never heard that just Google it.
Defragment Your Hard Drive
[00:01:40] It’s basically like you’ve used this hard drive over and over and over again, and you’ve saved files and you’ve deleted files that you’ve used files you’ve opened files and closed files. Now what happens is that disk. It’s not like you’re just laying stuff on top or another or putting away boxes nice and tidy, you get boxes over here and you get gaps and things like that.
[00:01:57] So basically the disk is not really clean. And so, when you defragment it you basically free up all this space. So the hard drive can can work properly. And then you also just give it more time and more space to think and store new stuff. Right. New information.
You Are Pruning Bad Synaptic Connections
[00:02:14] And as an athlete, isn’t that what we’re trying to do. We’re always learning and we’re trying to basically prune old synaptic connections in our brain (bad habits) and create new ones.
[00:02:26] So the break that you’ve had is actually really good for your mind and your body, right.
[00:02:32] If you haven’t played anything and you’ve just been sitting on the couch? Granted, you’re going to have a little bit of upkeep. You should probably get moving. (You know this is a bigger conversation this video that will take that into consideration with my Lacrosse Goalie University members and my Athlete Breakthrough Blueprint members. We talk about this a lot.).
[00:02:51] But you’re going to want to get out, get running, get sprinting, get a stick in your hands. Things like that. But don’t fear the break. OK? so that’s rule number one.
Step #2: Stop Worrying And Get Moving
[00:03:01] Rule number two is get a stick in your hand and start working on some wall ball. All right. That includes taking a tennis ball and finding a space in your house. I used to shoot tennis balls off the roof of my parents house. The steep roof I used to throw it up there and I would wait for it to bounce down and I would catch it and throw back.
[00:03:22] Or if it just caught the peak just right, it might take an odd bounce and I’d have to catch it. But that just kept me my hands going. And it started just kind of training my eye. I would focus on the ball. Things like that. Right.
[00:03:35] I would also throw the ball in my parents kitchen. Don’t do that now because cupboards are not built the same as they were in my parents house. My mom’s got a 180 year old house with like solid pine cabinets. Really strong against a tennis ball.
Don’t Make Your Momma Unhappy
[00:03:49] I would just get in there and use it. You can do this in your garage or in your basement. You know you can get a foam ball in your room, whatever. Just start working the hands because I believe…the better your stick skills are the better goalie you can be.
[00:04:04] All right we’ve all seen a kid who’s never played goal that maybe they were in attack man or middie and they had really quick hands and they could do they could do all sorts of fakes and whatever. You put them in the cage and they did really well.
[00:04:14] That can be you! Don’t feel like just because you’re a goalie you don’t need to have good hands. Get a stick. Get a short stick in your hands. Use that, but get the stick going OK.
Step #3: Get Your Head Into Some Good Lacrosse Goalie Video
[00:04:24] Thirdly, start looking at video. All right. Get online.
[00:04:29] Get on Instagram. Start looking at good, lacrosse goalie play and then visualize yourself playing like those good goalies.
[00:04:40] Now, don’t get on Instagram and look at all the best goals from last year you want to find the best saves. Because you want to fill your brain with good examples.
[00:04:51] OK? And here’s the deal the the the mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real( i.e. like practicing playing games and whats imagined with feeling).
Mental Rehearsal
[00:05:02] So if you can mentally put yourself in the headspace of playing in a game, playing in practice. Seeing shots. Moving. You can even do this in your bedroom in front of a mirror. That will get your mind going and your body will start to be replicating kind of what you would feel in practice. OK.
[00:05:21] The cool thing about doing this mental rehearsal in your in your head is that you can speed up the shots. You can make them more difficult. You can change the weather and you don’t even have to go outside. You can do it all by laying in your bed. And I recommend do it before you go to bed at night when you wake up in the morning.
To Wrap It Up
[00:05:39] All right so those are basically three biggies that you can start now and the sooner the better. OK, you’re this close the season, start now. If you can get a hold of a buddy or a parent or somebody to shoot on you, hey that’s great.
[00:05:52] But like I said those three things will really take you a long way. And we, we tend nowadays, especially in North American sports in general. This idea of specialization, and how we need to be playing lacrosse year round. It’s a load of crap.
[00:06:09] Ok. If you’ve gone off and you’ve maybe played football in the fall may play a little basketball in the winter or a little hockey, whatever. You know you’re going to be just fine and that break is actually probably going to put you in a better situation than you would be had you played all year long. All right.
Have a Question? Get In Touch!
[00:06:26] So great question. Listen if you got a question for me e-mail me Coach EdwardsLacrosseGoalieTips.com And by all means if you would share this, like it and subscribed to our YouTube channel.
[00:06:36] Really appreciate it. Every little bit helps and head on over to AthleteSpecific.com and check out what I’ve got going on over there. Huh!
[00:06:46] See you next week.
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