What To Do When You Won’t Be Playing Lacrosse For a While

[00:00:08] Hey guys. Coach Edwards here from LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com Long time no see.[00:00:16] It’s been a long hard summer for me. I’m working on a book. Really excited about this. It’s called An Athletes Guide To Winning In Sports and Life. And currently it’s it’s about 300 pages. Pretty amazed about that. If you’re interested in learning more about success and sports in general, as you know, as an Olympic athlete as well as division one recruit in lacrosse, and as an Olympic athlete in a completely different sport I’ve had the chance to work with some amazing coaches and some amazing athletes. My background is in athletic development for athletes of all types. You know me from lacrosse goalie tips here. But actually I have a much more wide ranging background in the world of sports performance. So if you want to check that out. Head on over to www.AthleteSpecific.com. Get on the newsletter over there. And I’ve got a couple of freebies for you when you sign up. I’ll also let you know when the book is ready. Hopefully it’s going to be big ready by the beginning of September 2017 that’s the plan. So see you over there.[00:01:21] So, to lacrosse. First and foremost, new subscribers as always were shout out to new subscribers and Penny Yan, New York. Dallas, Texas Massapequa, New York. Sykesville, Maryland and Ridgefield Connecticut.

This Weeks Lacrosse Goalie Tip

[00:01:37] This week’s question: I get this from a lot of goalies this time of year. You know school is starting soon and lacrosse, that kind of goes away for a little bit. And the question goes like this here.[00:01:48] Coach thanks for all the great videos on your YouTube channel. I have a question because I’m about to start high school in the fall and I won’t be playing any lacrosse until spring. I’m a freshman and I’ll be playing field hockey and then ice hockey in the winter. Lacrosse is my main sport now and I’m worried I’m going to get a little rusty. I would like to play lacrosse in college when I graduate. What do you suggest I do to stay sharp. Thanks again for all you do for lacrosse. Always we appreciate it. Kim from New York.

Don’t Fear Taking Time Off From Lacrosse

[00:02:14] So Kim Like I said, this question goes for a lot of people this time of year and the fear is that taking time off from Lacrosse is going to hurt you. My first recommendation is don’t fear taking time off from Lacrosse. A lot of parents and athletes, you know, they’re stuck in this. We’re in an interesting time with sports because there’s this thought that if I’m not just playing lacrosse year round, or any sport year round, I’m going to somehow fall behind from my peers and that’s not necessarily the case. So you know that taking a break from lacrosse is going to do you good. What you’re doing by playing other sports, it is not like you’re not playing lacrosse anymore. So because we’re going be playing field hockey because you can play ice hockey and you’re probably doing other things too is that you’re developing an athletic base. And so you can become a really good lacrosse player by developing a good athletic base elsewhere.[00:03:25] By taking this break you’re actually going to now challenge your mind and your body in new ways with field hockey and also in new ways with with ice hockey. And so when you come back to lacrosse you’re going to have this fresh perspective. I always had this every time I came back to play lacrosse in the spring because I didn’t even pick up a stick typically from the end of summer till the beginning of the spring. Now there are athletes who still do that. And they they know what it is I’m talking about what happens is when you come back you will feel stronger physically. It will take you less than a week, maybe three times with a stick, to get your stick skills back up to where they were if not better than where they were because of all the other things you were doing.[00:04:20] All right you’re going to get stronger in field hockey and stronger and ice hockey. If you hit the gym and if you do any strength conditioning work, like athletic development work, you’re going to come back even better. OK. So keep that in mind.

Take Time To Research Where You Want To Play Next

[00:04:33] Now is a great time, because Lacrosse is your, what you say is your number one sport. Now’s the time to take inventory of your lacrosse game and decide what it is you want to improve for next spring. OK so you look at your physical abilities your technical abilities and your tactical abilities, too much to discuss right here. Go to www.athletespecific.com. Check out I’ve got the free audio there about that topic. But what you want to do is take an inventory.

Take Inventory Of Your Skills And Abilities

[00:05:06] What do you need to improve in your game? Are your sticks skills good? Are you weak physically? Could you be stronger? Most likely. You know is there things about the game of lacrosse that challenge you? Maybe you don’t know all the rules. Maybe there are certain situations that bug you more than others. Make an inventory of all that. So even while you’re playing field hockey and ice hockey. And for anybody else watching this whatever other sports you’re maybe playing you can actually address those things while you are playing these other sports. The physical side of it is easy it comes but there’s an interesting thing about your sub conscious mind. When you make these inventory lists of what it is you’re weak at and what you want to improve. Just the fact that you’ve identified it, your brain is going to start working in the offseason to make those things better. So when you come back in the spring you’re actually going to be better off. Those won’t be as much of a problem as they were. And it’s pretty fascinating how that works.

Get Started On Recruiting Now

[00:06:14] So now you said that you want to play lacrosse in college, now is a great time as well to start doing research on where you want to go to school. OK. It’s a big topic to discuss in this video. I’ve actually written an e-book on lacrosse recruiting. You can check it out www.lacrossegoalieuniversity.com/products/lacrosse-recruiting-ebook in the products section I’ll put a link on this on this blog post as well.[00:06:37] But you can never start soon enough when it comes to researching where you might want to go to school, where you might want to play lacrosse. You can’t be in the game or the mindset where a coach is magically going to find you and say hey come to my school Don’t do that. Right, the athletes who play that game in that way get burned later on when no one’s called them or no ones, you know they’re wondering why they’re not getting any interest. You’ve got to be proactive about this. You’ve got to reach out to those schools that you want to go to and that are good fit because if you’re just thinking lacrosse only I guarantee you will get disappointed because you may end up at a school, just for lacrosse experience, but realize the rest of the school doesn’t fit you, your personality your needs as a student. Those types of things. OK. So start doing that now. OK.

Enjoy The Break

[00:07:38] And finally like I said at the beginning, enjoy the break. All right. Don’t fear this break. Enjoy the break. It’s like going on vacation. All right. In my book An Athletes Guide To Winning In Sports and Life I talk about you’ve got to have valleys in order to have peaks in your performance. And so this time off is going to be refreshing. All right. That’s the best way I can give is really it’s going to be refreshing. Kim So don’t fear it. All right. So thanks for the question. Kim if you’ve got a question for me you can always e-mail me Coach Edwards lacrosse goalie tips dot com. Listen. Check out, Kim One thing I didn’t talk about was visualization.[00:08:17] You can spend a lot of time thinking about lacrosse thinking about your performance. And one of the great products that I’ve created is it’s an e-book and then an audio book as well called visualization. It’s a Visualization Course for Lacrosse Goalies. So check that out. We’ll put the link below. All right Kim check it out and I’ll see you next week. Cheers.

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