Lacrosse Strength » Speed

Lacrosse training programs vs. just working out

Pete — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:24:49 +0000

There is a huge difference between following a training program, for lacrosse or any other sport, and showing up to “get in a workout”. To me, that difference is your goal. Short term goals, long term goals, whatever. A program is designed to help you reach your goal in the required amount of time. It takes patience, determination, and focus to follow the specified program toward your goal. Sometimes it’s hard to stay on task. It would be easy to just show up at the gym and do whatever routine comes to mind. Spontaneous. But in the long run, working out without a goal, a direction, can lead you going in circles. You won’t improve any athletic ability: strength, power, speed, or agility. In the end, just working out, can end up being a waste of time.

Players should be starting their pre-season routines, if you haven’t already started. Your pre-season program should be tailored toward your goals, whatever they may be. So get a program, and stick to it. Don’t have one? Ask your coach, strength coach, hire a strength coach in your area, or even email a coach. Most coaches would be glad to give you some direction. However you do it, get a program, and work hard.

Tags: lacrosse, strength, program, goals

Strength training vs. Youth training??

Pete — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 15:44:56 +0000

Joe Defranco’s gym is the next town over from my high school. I’ve been following his career for about 10 years now. He’s seen some of my best athletes. He trained Augie Hoffmann and Vinny Ciurciu, who I had when I was the athletic trainer at St. Joe’s in Montvale, NJ. He’s also trained Mike Guadango (AKA. The A**hole) who I worked with at my current HS, Northern Highlands Regional.

Every time Joe had a seminar, it was always on a Saturday during the football season, or some other weekend, when I was unavailable due to my work schedule. This time was different. The seminar Joe is doing with Zach Even-Esh is actually on a weekend I’m available. So, on Friday at 10AM, I logged onto defrancostraining.com and went to the store. The pricetag for this weekend event was $495.

Now, a full weekend with these two and their staff is worth double that price to me. But, for the first time, I thought about return on investment (ROI). In this economy, where I’m paying off my credit cards for my kids school clothes, etc, can I get a good ROI? I know the seminar will be fantastic and I’ll get a new perspective on training, but what will I do with that information? The people I train these days are young lacrosse athletes. Most of the time I’m their first strength coach, so I’m doing a lot of “teaching” rather than “training”. So, with great disappointment, I passed on the opportunity.

The continuing education I’m investing in these days focuses on youth training, neurological development, & developing a passion for fitness and exercise. Brian Grasso of the IYCA and Lee Taft seem to educate me with information I can use right now with my athletes. Some day I hope my athletes develop to the point where I can pass them over to guys like Joe & Zach. But for right now, I need to focus on my athletes and their needs rather than my own.

Tags: Lacrosse, Strength, Youth, training, Joe, Defranco, Zach, Even-Esh, IYCA, Lee, Taft, Brian, Grasso

Speed camp in Plano, TX

Pete — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 16:00:15 +0000

I was lucky enough to fly down to the Dallas, Texas area on Monday and did a speed clinic with two great groups of athletes. The first group was a young group of 7-12 year olds. They were enthusiastic and motivated and really seemed to enjoy the session. The next group was higher level high school and college athletes. I have to say I was very impressed with the athleticism of some of these guys. They, too, worked very hard and had a good work out.

Lacrosse is alive and well in Texas and while they may be a little behind the mid-atlantic and northeast with regards to stick skills, they have the athleticism to compete and they really love the game. Drop some of these laxrats in LI and I don’t know if you could tell the difference.

Thanks so much to Shelton, Creighton and Rashad for their hospitality. You can check out more camps by Rashad Devoe by visiting www.devoehp.com.

Strength=Speed

Pete — Wed, 28 May 2008 21:52:14 +0000

I was goofing around on another lacrosse forum page, doing some research, and I came across a post that asked for ways to increase strength, speed, & agility. He mentioned he was going to start taking protein shakes for strength. Can you see me shaking my head??

To me, strength equals speed. Strength equals agility. Strength equals acceleration, and more importantly deceleration. There is no magic to this concept. If you get stronger, you will improve in ALL areas of ability. At the risk of sounding like a minimalist, if you deadlift, squat, press and pull with a decent amount of resistance, you will get stronger. Period.

Unless you’re a middle aged man with decreased levels of testosterone, protein shakes won’t be necessary.

Tags: Lacrosse, Strength, Speed, Agility, Pete, Koeniges

Stretching for lacrosse

Pete — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:47:19 +0000

Sometimes you have to stop and think.

The NJ Pride opened up training camp this past weekend. We ran a session in the morning for about 2 1/2 hours, then took an hour lunch and came back for another session in the afternoon. Before the first session, we started with some movement prep, going into some dynamic activities, then into their line drills, etc. If you’ve been following this site for a while, you’ll notice I haven’t changed very much. Some of the exercises might have changed, but the premise remains consistent.

The difference came in the afternoon. Do you think we started with the same warm up routine? Think about it…I have 30 guys ranging in age from 23 to 32 years old. Although they have been working out, I can’t say they have been gettin after it for 2 1/2 hours on a regular basis. Some guys felt their hamstrings tighten, calves cramp, their bodies were ready to rebel against them.

So when they came back in the afternoon, after a long slow lap around the field, we sat on the field and did….static stretching. Remember static stretching. For years, I’ve said static stretching is a poor way to prepare the body for activity. I still believe that’s true, but in this case, the long, steady stretch of the muscles helped to relax the tonic muscles and try to recover some muscle length. After stretching the hams, calves, quads, hip flexors, etc, we did our movement prep, to our dynamic activities to line drills, just like usual.

We came out of the day with no major muscle pulls. I like to think the extra 15 minutes of static stretching did it’s part to prevent any. No matter, as long as they’re healthy, I’m a happy guy.

If you’re in the area, we’ll be going at it again Sunday May 4th at Rutgers Prep in Sommerset, NJ from 8-12. Stop by if you get a chance.

Tags: lacrosse, strength, stretching, warm, up, Pete, Koeniges

Get laxspeedtv.com

Pete — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:02:12 +0000

Just wanted to give you a heads up on a new website for strength and conditioning for lacrosse. It’s called Laxspeedtv, and has audio, video, and articles from some of the leading strength coaches in lacrosse. Most of the content comes from Rashad Devoe, from Devoe Human Performance, Corey Crane, strength coach for the Army Lacrosse team, Kevin Pasquay from KPfitness.com, and myself.

They are offering a 7 day trial for only $1 and comes with a year’s subscription to Inside Lacrosse Magazine. You really have nothing to lose.

To try it out, go to www.getlaxspeedtv.com.

Tags: Lacrosse, strength, laxspeedv,, Rashad, Devoe,, Corey, Crane,, Kevin, Pasquay,, Pete, Koeniges

Explosive exercises for Lacrosse Strength

Pete — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:18:53 +0000

After the warm up, we do some type of explosive exercise. We want to do this early in the session while the nervous system is still fresh. Most of the time, we’ll do box jumps, which is simply jumping onto a box, 18, 24, 26 inches, or higher. Now there have been some videos out there lately that show guys jumping 50 inches and higher. One of those was performed by a good friend of mine. As much as I marvel at the amount of explosive strength this requires, I’m not prepared to have my athletes do this. My max has been 36 inches on a very stable box and when that get’s easy, we’ll add a weight vest or light dumbbells for extra resistance. 3-4 sets of 8 reps.

Another exercises we’ve used is the squat jump. This is slightly more taxing because you have to land and absorb the force of gravity. The box jump was just exploding upward with no real deceleration. Squat jumps can get easy quickly, which can lead to adding external resistance with dumbbells, weight vests or barbell.

An upper body version of an explosive exercise could be a medicine ball chest pass.

Olympic lifts and their variations are probably the explosive exercises that require the most skill and practice. Although we rarely use the clean & jerk or the full snatch, we do use some variations, like the high pull or dumbbell snatch. These olympic-type movements are restricted to 5 reps only, as they are very neuro-dependent.

The main point is to find an exercise that requires a full speed explosive contraction.

Any other exercises you’d like to add? Comments are welcome.

Little things for speed

Pete — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:47:00 +0000

I was checking out InsideLacrosse.com today and on one of the blogs was this picture.

I know I’m warped, but the only thing I see is the shin angles on these guys. This is called a positive shin angle and you have to have it to do any kind of accelerating. The smaller the angle of the shin to the ground, the more force will be produced to propel them forward. This is an awesome picture to illustrate this.

Tags: lacrosse, strength, speed, acceleration, shin, angle, Pete, Koeniges

Lacrosse Strength Warm up

Pete — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:43:44 +0000

The warm up is the first part of the workout and utilize a multitude of drills and exercises, depending on the circumstances of the athlete and the goals of the session. You can use the session to increase blood flow to the entire body, by starting with a 5-10 minute jump rope session. Or you can also do neuromuscular activation exercises to activate weaker stabilizer muscles. These muscles are identified during the evaluation session. I like to use the Functional Movement Screen, found at Perform Better for my evals and identify muscle imbalances and weakness at that time. Joint mobilization exercises can also be used, ie. ankle mobilization. We also use this time to work on some footwork drills, like the low box or ladder drills, or coordination drills like cone drills.

Rehab shin pain

Pete — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 04:16:23 +0000

Shin pain can be classified in three ways: medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS), Tibial stress reaction, or Tibial stress fracture. For simplicities sake, we’ll deal with the lesser MTSS. Everyone with shin pain starts with MTSS and progresses from there, so it’s a good place to start.

Why do we get MTSS? For some reason, the force of your foot landing on the ground with each step is being directed directly to the tissues or tendons beside the tibia, causing a form of tendonitis. This could be due to weakness of the tendons, decreased mobility of the foot/ankle joints, or overuse of the tendons. With each footfall while running, the foot bones, tendons and ligaments (which hold up your arches) tries to disperse the force of landing. So how do we try to prevent this from happening?

The best form of prevention is to try not to overtrain in the first place. Try to adhere to the rule of 10%. That is do not increase your running distance by more than 10% per week. By increasing your distance too quickly, you’ll obviously increase your foot contacts quickly and open your self up to increased stress to the lower legs.

You can also train the lower legs eccentrically by stepping off of a six inch box and practice landing. Decelerating, or slowing down, is a very important skill to improve agility and train the muscles of the lower leg. Try stepping off of the box and landing on the pads of your feet as quietly as possible. Three sets of 5-8 reps should suffice. To increase the intensity, try two footed hops over small hurdles. Again, focus on landing as quietly as possible and this time spend less than a second on the ground before your rebound to your next hop. Try 3-4 sets of six hops.

Give it a shot and let us know how it goes. Log on to www.lacrossestrengthforums.com to discuss these exercises and others.

Tags: Lacrosse, Strength, training, agility, shin, pain, stress, fracture, deceleration, hops

Coming soon…Jesse Hubbard

Pete — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:16:54 +0000

Next week, Jesse Hubbard will be stopping by for an interview. If any of you have any questions you’d like to ask Jesse, please email them to me at Pete@lacrossestrength.com.

Tags: Lacrosse, Strength, Training, Jesse, Hubbard, Warrior Lacrosse, New, Jersey, Pride, Speed

Rehab of some common injuries-Hamstring strains

Pete — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 19:58:16 +0000

This is a tough column to write because everyone has different injuries, histories, mechanisms, etc. So we’ll just stick to the basics. To start with, if you have an injury, it’s best if you go get it properly diagnosed first before trying out the latest in rehabilitative techniques. You need to know what exacty you’re dealing with. And as we all should know by now, utilize the RICE priciple for acute inuries. That is Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

Hamstring strains: I’ve found hamstring strains to be the most common injuries across the board, from high school athletes through professionals. Hamstring strains occur for two main reasons: either the glute is not firing correctly and utilizing the hamstring for the bulk of hip extension, or the running technique is such that the foot pulls at the ground, rather than pushing it behind you.

Treatment of this injury is acutely, RICE and then start foam rolling and GENTLE stretching. I say gentle because you’re not trying to create new motion here, just maintain what you have. Gentle static stretching for 30 sec at a time should be sufficient. Then roll the hamstrings slowly for 8-10 passes.

Strength training, when able, should include squats, deadlifts, step ups and isolated hip extensions at some time througth the rehab process. Keep the reps between 8-10 at first, then drop to 5-8 and add resistance, when able.

To improve your running technique, the important thing to note is your stride foot should land beneath your hips. If your foot lands in front of the hips, your hamstrings will be at a poor angle and be utilized to PULL at the ground. Not good. Any drills, such as wall drills, will help improve your technique and reduce the amount of injury.

If you have any questions regarding rehabing hamstring strains, or anything else, stop by our forum at www.lacrossestrengthforum.com and our list of experts will be glad to lend a hand.

See you next time.

Tags: Lacrosse, Strength, Rehab, Hamstring, Strains, Pete, Koeniges, Foam, Roller, Speed

Lacrosse Off-season Training

Pete — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 15:41:44 +0000

Sometimes it’s hard to know when off-season is actually here. The spring season rolls into the summer tournaments to fall ball, indoor tournaments, back to the spring season.

When does it end!

Although I don’t recommend it, some people are year-round lacrosse players. If that’s the case, when do you recover, recuperate, rehabilitate, and improve your physical abilities for the next season? Looking at the calendar, this might be the best time to take off and take part in a strong off-season training program. This program should focus on improving your total body strength, improving flexibility, and rehabing whatever injuries you may have incurred. This is the time to make significant changes to your body.

Recovery methods can include massage, contrast baths/showers, foam rolling. Find a good sports massage therapist in your area and get a massage once a week. Contrast baths/showers consist of changing water temperature at a timed rate. Start off with cold water for 2 minutes and change to hot for 3 minutes. Switch back and forth for 15 minutes, then end with cold. Foam rolling can be done multiple times a day. This will help break up and adhesions in the muscle tissue and increase blood flow. I wrote an article on foam rolling for Lax Speed, a magazine put out by Rashad Devoe at www.devoehp.com. Check it out.

Next time we’ll look at the rehabilitation of some common injuries.

Speed Clinic prior to Pride game

Pete — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 19:31:57 +0000

On July 21, we will be hosting a speed clinic for lacrosse players aged 10-13. This clinic will run from 3-5pm and located at the practice field just behind Yurcak field at Rutgers University. All participants will recieve a game ticket for the Pride game vs. the Long Island Lizards that evening. For more information, go to www.lacrossespeedclinics.com.

Congrats to Luke Armour

Pete — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:31:56 +0000

Luke Armour, Attack at Lawrenceville, has been coming up to workout for two years now. His hard work has finally paid off this year, as he was awarded All-Prep in the state of New Jersey. Congrats Luke!

Tags: Lacrosse, Strength, Luke, Armour, Lawrenceville, Pete, Koeniges