What’s shaking, everybody? This is Goalie Training Pro TV Episode 26! And we know it’s 26 because we decided to make one a mini episode, so that now we’re in numbers. Numbers are hard people.
Today’s topic is, do you remember a while ago we did the top three things that you should have for your home gym? Then I said, “Oh, I could probably give you five more. I’ll tell you that another day.” Well, guess what? It’s another day, and I’m going to give you the other five things.
Check out the video and see all the equipment I’m talking about! >> https://youtu.be/ulAuDwr3eGo
Again, this is subject to change, so if you come back two hours from now, my ideas might change. Let’s refresh. We’ll go over what the initial three were.
The first was dumbbells or resistance band kit. Some of you just won’t have access or space or whatever for dumbbells. We went over the dumbbells. See the first video here >> https://youtu.be/ak_8ACu7d_8 so you can see when I went over the initial three. A set of resistance bands works great too.
The second one was medicine ball, because we can do some stability drills with the medicine ball, we can do some acceleration and power drills with the medicine ball, squat, pass and chase, some lateral hops using it as a driver, we can do push ups using it to stabilize. There’s a lot of things that we can do with that, so medicine ball is number two.
Number three was a Reebok step, or a plyo box. I think if you were only going to have one, I’d probably go with the step because it’s a little more versatile, a little less bulky. Again, in that video, you can go watch it. We’ll talk about not getting the ones that are on a metal frame with the plywood on the top, and they kind of go out a little bit like a pyramid. Those will jump up and bite a gash out of your shin, the likes of which you will not believe. So not those.
We use, for a plyo box we use a high density foam that’s covered so that we don’t have that, because you don’t need that. And you also don’t need a four foot high plyo box. You just need, I think a Reebok step is perfect.
That was that.
If we go on to the next five, I’m going to be redundant. I’m going to say a resistance band kit, because I think dumbbells are pretty essential, but again, if you can’t have them, get resistance bands. But let’s say you have dumbbells, then I would get a resistance band kit. I showed you one in that other video that I just ordered. It came with bands that were coated. It had, I think, four different weights, they had snaps on the ends.
I also have stand alone bands that we use in the gym. They are commercial grade bands that we use in the gym so that they can get used all day every day. But the other kit I have, it has little snaps that you can snap on a handle, you can snap on an ankle cuff, you can snap in a door attachment where you close it in the door, and then you can do your exercises. You can almost adjust it at any height.
I can just put it through the door and then I’m all set for whatever I need to do. It comes with those specific anchor points that you can do. Then the nice thing about that, with the handles that snap on is that, okay, say I’m doing a stabilization exercise. I want to grab the lightest resistance and use it for that stabilization drill. Now I’m doing like a squat with my resistance bands. Now I’m going to snap three of them on, and it would make it really, really strong.
They’re so versatile, you can do almost any dumbbell exercise with them. Sometimes you have to be a little creative, that’s fine. You can do any cable column exercise with them at all, using that door anchor.
If you don’t have that yet, even if you have dumbbells, get a good set of resistance bands, and I for sure would insist on getting the kind that are coated with a little nylon sleeve so if the rubber band underneath snaps, it’s not going to come back and hit you.
Again, that set is on Amazon. I think it’s like $40. It came with a little carrying bag and everything. I travel with them. They’re awesome.
So that’s one.
The next one is mini bands. They are about $3 and there’s different colours.
Now, I know what you’re going to do. You’re at a sports store and you’re going to get the heaviest one. Don’t do that. Get the lightest one, and then get a medium one. Then see how it goes, and you can get a heavier one.
They go around your legs and most of the time you use these, we’re trying to work on stabilization drills, maybe we’re even using it when we do our squats to help turn on our lateral hips, or we’re doing a monster walk, or we’re doing a nice step, lateral, something like that.
We don’t want something so heavy that it’s overloading our muscles so much that we bring in accessory muscles to help, because our prime muscles are exhausted. That’s how we develop muscle compensation patterns. With these types of exercises, less is more. Or sometimes we can come down here and we’ll do our abduction exercises or our extension. Less is more on those, so I would get the lightest one and a medium one.
Then notice, too, how to put it on and take it off. I try not to let the treads on my shoes touch the band. Like in the gym if I see someone take them off lazily and just go *rip, rip*, it makes me mad because if they get nicked, they’ll tear. So even when you take it off, don’t scrape the soles of your shoes over it, they’ll last a long, long time.
The next on my list is a stability ball. Again, some people are just going to out and get a big stability ball, or like the colour of the littlest stability ball. Here’s how you know, basically, what size stability ball to have. If you sit on it and your knees are bent to about 90 degrees, that’s the right size for you.
Now, I know that these have improved a lot over the years. I use what’s called the Duraball Pro. They are expensive. They are probably, I can’t remember, I think they’re around $80 each, but these are burst resistant. What you want to see is, it should say Burst Resistant. It should say that on it specifically so that you know that you’ve got a burst resistance ball. A burst resistant ball, what it means is, even if it gets punctured it’ll just deflate slowly. The old balls used to, if they got a nick or a tear, they would blow up like a balloon would. And you definitely don’t want that.
So stability ball, you all know you can use it, we can use it for planking, variations, we can use it for some nice stabilization push ups, you can use it for glute bridges, hamstring curls, stability ball roll outs, adductor squeezes. There’s all kinds of things we can do with it. Again, I don’t think it’s the number one thing you need, most people, like you go in your basement, it’s like, “Oh yeah, I had one of those sitting in my basement for five years.” So you don’t even need to get it.
Don’t stand on it. It’s not cool. It’s not cool, it’s not goalie specific training.
The next thing is a reaction ball. There’s different ones that you can get. There are ones that are a little bit wilder, there are ones that are a little less so, and I kind of like the ones that have shapes or numbers or different coloured dots that gives you something to focus on as you’re catching them.
Basically, it’s like an Indian rubber, you roll it or throw it along the ground. It’s going to bounce like crazy, like off the wall, and you’re going to try to catch it. We use them in here off the rebounder sometimes, to do our hand-eye stuff. The rebounder is just a little mini trampoline. We’ll throw them there because with the rebounder they don’t come off quite as wild as they come off the wall, so it’s a little bit of a deviation.
If you use them, the thing I want you to keep in mind is to stay nice and low and in your ready position. Even if, say it comes off the wall and it just goes crazy, and it goes way over there. Stay low in your legs and go for it. Resist the temptation to chase it. You want to stay low in your legs, move around, and then get low to catch it, just like you would, not like smashing your butterfly or anything, but get low to get it, just like you should on the ice.
You can also get those at the pet store because I think they started as a dog toy. Sometimes they’re cheaper at the pet store than they are in the sports store.
Then the fifth thing. I do think it’s worth having an agility ladder. Again, you could probably just make one yourself. Sometimes, for people that don’t have one, I tell you just to draw a line out on the sidewalk in sidewalk chalk, or tape one out in the basement or garage, or in the driveway. But if you’re a kid, ask your parents first before you start putting sidewalk chalk or tape on the floor.
They typically have, I think it’s ten squares. The squares, I think they’re like a foot and a half or something. It’s like 17 inches square.
At times, it’s so funny because some coaches got a hate on for these. Five years ago, when they were just like, “Oh no, agility ladders are the worst things, and it’s not like our sport.” Well, putting a barbell on your shoulders and squatting isn’t really like your sport either, but it doesn’t mean the training benefit you get from that is useless. We use them quite a bit. It’s not something … I think the reason they got … people are distasteful about their work, had a distaste for it should say, is because they saw so many people using them improperly.
Again, scroll your Instagram feed and you’ll see people going crazy and loose with them. That is not movement. That is not quality movement. It’s like you went to see an orchestra and everyone is just … it hurts your ears, just like that kind of hurts your soul a little bit to see.
Again, it’s like music. It’s like your scales. It’s improving your vocabulary of movement, teaching you to stand low, teaching you to keep your eyes up and have that peripheral awareness of where you’re supposed to be, teaching you to move with quickness and precision. Then that can translate into quality and efficient movement patterns on the ice. We’ll use it for speed, we can adjust our work to rest ratios and use it as a stamina tool.
It’s not our only tool, but it does give us a framework so we know, hey, we’re going to work on our shuffles, and I’m going to push off this leg because if I’m on the ice, I’m probably not going to start by pulling like this way. I’m going to push and pull with those quick little patterns that teaches us to do that, and to keep a position.
I think that’s worth investing in as well. This would be a total of eight things, so that’s sort of six, seven, eight kind of thing. I think it’s a good tool to have that we use, but only again, if you’re using it with proper movement patterns on proper form.
Let’s recap.
The top three things were dumbbell set or resistance bands, then a medicine ball. Again, not the heaviest medicine ball you can find, somewhere between a four to eight pound medicine ball, and then you can build up from there. A Reebok step or plyo box, then resistance bands again, mini bands, a good quality, burst resistant stability ball. It doesn’t have to be an $80 one but make sure it’s burst resistant. Reaction ball of some sort and an agility ladder.
And then I added a bonus one, which is the chin-up bar. At some point, you’re probably going to get tested in chin-ups and it is a good body weight exercise, and you don’t really see anybody who’s in really good shape that can’t do chin-ups, so I think it is a good measuring stick that way. Plus, if it’s installed properly, not the kind that just hangs on your door, but a real good chin-up bar, you can use it to anchor your bands and stuff like that, but yet only if it’s installed properly.
If I had to keep going down the list, well, a foam roller or lacrosse ball should be in there, anyway. TRX would be somewhere down there. A balance board. We use a slide board. The slide board would be down the list, but again, if you don’t have access to ice, that would be fine to come down toward the bottom of the list too.
That’s what I got for you today, help you build out your home gym so you can just do your workouts at home, you don’t have to have a car to drive to the gym. That’s it. We’re at goalietrainingpro.com, episode 26 for Goalie Training Pro TV. See ya.