Hey gang! It’s Maria here! Episode … I’m going to call it Episode 25 of Goalie Training Pro TV, just because I think it is, maybe. It’s somewhere… Plus or minus one, Episode 25. Today, what I want to share with you; I wanted to do something a little more active, but I wanted to share this with you today, because I think it’s relevant to where we are in the off-season. If you’re watching this in February, maybe not as relevant. For right now, June, it’s relevant. These are kind of the three lessons they took from that Turning Pro Camp.
Check out the full episode on YouTube here >> https://youtu.be/ZqaMgyasy3k
Our three observations from Turning Pro Camp, and even the camp that I was at in Breckenridge, Colorado, a couple of weeks ago. So it’s three things that stood out to me in working with goalies who are performing well, they’re taking the steps to get where they want to be. They look really good on the ice, they have the drive to get better, but there’s sort of a little missing ingredient.
The very first one was that you don’t have a picture of where you want to be, how you’re going to get there, like, exactly how you’re going to get there, and then what action steps you need to take.
At the Turning Pro Camp, we spend about a two and a half out block, three hour block, going through this whole exercise. Mapping out where you’re going to be in three years; what team you’re going to play for, what your role is going to be, and then how you’re going to get there.
Then we compare what actions you need to take to make that happen with what you’re actually doing right now.
So it’s like, “Okay, I need to get my workouts in, so I need to get up 45 minutes earlier. My current action is; I don’t have a regular bed time. I stay up until 11:30, 12:30 on my phone or whatever. That’s a behaviour I have to change.”
Some of the guys that did it, didn’t even have a goal of where they wanted to be playing in three years. That’s hard too. There’s a saying I like, “If you don’t know where you’re going, how do you know when you get there?”
It’s not to say that it’s etched in stone, it can change as you go, but you have to have a picture.
I have a picture of what I want to achieve in helping you guys. You know that I want to help ten of you get to the NHL, and I want to help three of you win the Stanley Cup. That’s a measuring stick for me. What do I have to do to make that happen?
Well, I have to deliver tons of content so that any goalie, anywhere in the world without spending a penny, can get some help to be a little bit better. The guys that are at the higher level or that are really striving for that higher level, then there’s higher level programs where I’ll work one on one with you. I have to set those things up in place, and then follow through with them.
So, having a picture of where you want to be, specific action steps of what you need to do to get there, and then an exact breakdown of action steps that you need to take.
And it can’t be: “Well, I need to train more.”
At the end of the day, it needs to be a “Yes” or a “No”.
It’s like, “Yeah. I need to do my mobility five days a week.” Maybe the first step is, “I need to have a goalie-specific mobility program. I need to do that goalie-specific mobility program five days a week. In order to do that, I have to get up 45 minutes early Monday through Friday.”
Those are action steps, and that’s something that is measurable, and you know at the end of the day, “I did it,” or, “I didn’t do it.”
If it’s like, “Well, I need to stretch more. Actually, last week, I didn’t stretch at all, and this week, I stretched once.” So, *tick*. That’s not going to get you there.
Then the next thing: I’m sure most of you warm up with … Guys that play on the team, warm up with your team before you hit the ice, maybe just for games, which is a mistake. You’ve got to warm up for practice ice too, but maybe just for games, but you don’t pay attention to it. You don’t take it seriously.
So we did warm-ups at the camps, at my Turning Pro camps and at the camps I worked at; people were kind of just going through their motions and not really trying to feel it where they should feel it.
“Hey, what’s this for? Why are we doing this? What’s the benefit of this?”
We do a dynamic warm-up because it’s important, and because it’s important, we need to do it well, and we need to do it with purpose. Again, you might not know why you’re doing it, because the coach just told us to do it.
Ask. “Why are we doing this? Where should I feel this? What can I do to feel this more?”
It has to be multi-directional, it has to include some balance, it has to include some power and stick. It has to include a little bit of read and reaction, but take it seriously. Be engaged. Feel it where you’re supposed to feel it, because it’s a key element to helping you perform once you get on the ice.
You don’t have that little lag, and it also feeds into what we talk about, the habit of excellence. You can’t be an excellent athlete or an excellent goalie and have some crappy habits. You can’t be in top physical condition and eat junk food. It just won’t work in the long-term.
It’s that commitment to excellence; if it’s important enough to do, then we’ve got to do it properly.
Oh, and the third one was talking about working hard, or valuing just hard work over doing the right kind of work. We talked to some of the athletes about, well, what if you don’t achieve your goal this year? Then what will you do? What will be your next step? “Well, I’ll work harder.” Okay, well, that isn’t really the answer.
If I’m going to run … Again, I know we don’t do steady state cardio, I’m just using that for an example. If I run a mile a day this year, and I don’t make the team I want to make, then next year, I should run two miles a day, harder. If that doesn’t work, then I’ll run three miles a day, harder. If I’m doing the wrong thing with more effort, it doesn’t get me there.
Now, if you have a training program; maybe you’re in the Shout Out Academy. You’ve got all the workouts laid out for you, and you don’t do them, or you do it once a week or twice a week. Then yeah, you know what? You need to work harder. You need to be working out four, five, six times a week to play at the level that you’re thinking of playing.
You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re going to play junior hockey working out twice a week in the summer, or whatever it is.
In that case, yes, you actually do have to work harder, but you have to work harder on the right things. That’s what you should value, not just hard work.
So, those are the three big lessons we learned from Turning Pro and the camps they’ve done so far this summer. Next up on the road trip is heading out to Halifax for the East Coast Goaltending Conference with Jack Hardigan and FinnGoalie Training. Then it just goes on from there, but that’s the next stop.
Gang, thanks for stopping in. See you later!
