Here I am in Richmond, BC after my first day working at Jack O’Halloran’s Head2Head Elite Goalie Camp.  We have a great group of goalies here this week – they are very focused and working hard both on the ice with Jack and Adam Russo and off the ice with yours truly.

if you have questions – come out to Richmond for a free consult

I am going to be available on Wednesday between 7-8pm to meet up with any goalies or trainers who live in the Richmond, BC area.  We will be meeting at the Richmond Ice Centre  – using the meeting room on the main level – it is off the hallway between the two sides of the arena.  If you will be coming out to meet up, please email  info@revolutionconditioning.com with the subject: Goalie Roundtable.

Plateau buster…

One of the really cool things about working at the Head2Head Elite Goalie camp is the fact that three of the members in my Elite Goalie Strength & Conditioning (EGSC) program are here, so it is the first time I have met them in person.

I was meeting with one of the goalies from my EGSC after camp yesterday to go over his training logs and strategize for his next phase of training and he asked me a great question.  He was getting stuck at 135lbs for his single leg barbell squat and he said when he tried to increase the weight, he could not get down as low, but when he lowered the weight a little bit then it was too easy.  So here are two strategies I gave him.

1.       Bottom up single leg squat.  With this strategy he will set the safety bars in the squat rack so they catch the bar when he is at his 90 degree or thigh parallel squat position.  He will begin with the bar resting on the safety bars and (using perfect form) lift the bar from the bottom position to the top.  When he squats back down, he will actually rest the bar on the safety bars and then again lift from the bottom up.  He will only do 4-6 reps like this for 2-3 workouts and then return to his regular technique.

2.       Now the goalie I was talking with had trouble getting down into the low position, so I think the strategy above will work best for him.  But another strategy I like for breaking plateaus like this is to overload the lowering phase, so in this example you would add weight to the bar and lower into the squat using only one leg, but then use both legs to return to the standing position.  Again, you would only do 4-6 reps like this for 2-3 workouts and then return to your regular technique.

You can use these similar techniques to bust through your bench press, split squat or chin up plateaus.  But remember that it is a special technique that you will only add in for 2-3 workouts and then return to your regular technique with a few more pounds of weight on the bar!

I will tell you one more thing that I am thinking – I am going to give the goalie in my EGSC some supplemental lateral glute activation exercises to do before he does these lifts, because I am wondering if it is perhaps a stabilization issue that has him stuck.

Hope this helps you smash through some of your plateaus!  Happy training.

Cheers,
Maria