I am amazed when I meet a goalie who does not work on their hand-eye coordination.
You know that cross-country skiing was my Varsity sport through University and we used to spend hours working on our skis. A fun Friday night was cleaning them, metal scraping them and then putting on just the right wax for the next day of training.
It is what Steven Covey refers to as ‘sharpening the saw’, which means investing the time in the tools you need to succeed.
In the grand scheme of things, you don’t see that many pucks on the ice. You might see 30-40 in a game – if you are playing that day. How many of those test your hand-eye coordination?
If a puck grazes your glove and ends up in the top corner, the goal still counts right? You need the precision to make those saves and practicing your hand-eye coordination can help your body learn to interpret visual data and tie it to a motor response.
You should all be working on this essential skill and it makes a great goalie off-ice drill, I often use it as active rest with the goalies I train. In other words, if we are training speed, strength or stamina and there is a rest interval between working sets then instead of hanging out around the water cooler, we are going to use that time productively on a drill like this…
If you cannot see the video above, just click here > https://youtu.be/7uhBU21erHE
Because we want to keep your focus sharp when working on this fine motor skill, I limit the bouts to 60-90 seconds at a time.
Could you wear your glove?
Yes, you could, especially if you were trying to break it in, but if you are not trying to break it in, I prefer you use your bare hand – the glove gives you more surface area, your hand requires more precision.
I know you don’t catch a puck with your blocker hand…
…but your brain will learn from using both hands, it also lets you increase the neural complexity of these drills, so humour me and use both hands to catch and pass.
It will be a little frustrating at first, but stick with it!
Cheers,
M
PS – if you need more speed, strength and stability to go with that new hand-eye coordination, then click HERE