My 5 Simple Go To Goalie Drills
It’s the peak of training season with winter tournaments around the corner and I wanted to provide some help to coaches and players no matter your experience. These drills I continually come back to in order to focus on hand speed, hand-eye coordination, or technique corrections. Included in the blog is a description of the drills and when I look to use them.
Ball toss
have goalies attack the ball with their top hand and step to get their body behind the ball. Can also incorporate stability work by going on one foot like in the link or have goalies work in pairs and lay a stick out like here.
When to use:
New goalies
Warm up
Have a goalie that’s struggling to see the ball - sometimes I’ll bring it back to this level and slow it down. Then we’ll go back into full speed. Allows goalies to reset and get their confidence up.
Shaft only
using a shaft and tennis balls, goalies have to make the save with the top of the shaft. Start tossing with hand and then shoot with a lacrosse stick.
When to use:
Intermediate to advanced goalies, evaluate on case by case basis with new goalies
Notice goalie struggling with hand-eye coordination, relying on feet for low shots
Field Stick
goalies must use a field stick to make saves. This was a crazy variation I tried with goalies to work on holding to feel movement of their stick, but basic idea of field stick can be given with this video.
When to use:
Any level - usually I’ll wait to use with lows with new goalies
Warm up go to - I start every lesson with small stick warm up.
Notice goalie struggling with hand-eye coordination, relying on feet for low shots
Girls field stick when goalies are struggling with rebounds, otherwise using boys stick is okay
Game-Time Warm up
goalies face back of goal, on coach’s call of “shot” goalie has to turn around and find ball to make a save
When to Use:
Any level
End of warm up
When you notice goalies are moving too slow and need to get them ready for games - also can make more challenging by using field stick and adding fakes after turn to work on patience
Weighted Stick Head
add a weight to make head of stick heavy and work through sets of 10 reps per side - forces goalies to drop and hold hands on ground for bounce shots
When to Use:
Any level
Notice goalies “picking” at ground
Goalies say they feel like they’re “just missing” low shots. Additionally, I’d videotape their form to check - probably taking too long to get stick to ball. This works on bringing hands and body to ball as fast as possible.
For more drills and videos search the hashtag #lmlaxdrills and have fun! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out at lmlaxtraining@gmail.com