Do you ever look for it? I do every time I watch a game. It usually starts to appear about 10-minutes into the second period. Then I know a team is in trouble.
What is this sign that puts a team at risk? The sign that coaches and shooters see? The sign that is right up there with bending over and putting your hands on your knees with a pained look on your face as you gasp for air. The sign that says – – “Hey everyone, I am running out of gas down here”.
It is when the goalie stops getting low in his or her legs.
When that happens the goalie’s job gets so much harder and the shooters job gets so much easier.
When you are not getting low, you don’t have power. You can have all the other ingredients, but nothing can replace the speed and power you get from your low stance.
Let me give you an example – let’s take a Formula One race car. It looks so jazzy with all those decals and the winglets and all that stuff. The pit crew can change all four tires in two seconds (literally) and the driver is so skilled, he has every inch of the course memorized – – then the car runs low on fuel and the team has no more pit stops available. Maybe they are leading on the last lap and then sputter, sputter, sputter.
Do you see how nothing else matters? The driver can still drive the correct lines (or try to). The crew can still give them the right data, but without the power nothing can save them.
This is exactly what will happen to you – – unless of course some really nice goalie strength coach is kind enough to share one of her favourite off-ice drills to make you immune to this phenomenon.
Hmmmmm – who would do that?
Oh yeah – me 🙂
So here is how to do it…
Key Points…
Start with the narrow version, get a feel for the movement, for keeping your torso stable. If that weight plate is swaying around, then you know you are not stabilizing your torso and if you are not stabilizing your torso, then you are not staying square in the net.
Start with 4 reps of 20s on:20s off (that is one set), then rest 2-minutes and then repeat 4 reps of 20s on:20s off. Do a total of 4 sets with 2-minutes of rest between each set.
Resist the temptation to go for longer right off the bat. Please do not email me to say “yeah, you know that drill you gave us, well…I did it for 10-minutes straight!” I will not be impressed.
Once you are moving with good speed for every single rep – AND staying low in your legs with a stable torso, then you can increase to 30s on: 30s off for your work interval. You will also make the shuffles wider. Then you can increase the weight of the plate.
Enjoy!
M
PS – reminder that the Ultimate Goalie Training 3.0 goes back up to regular price tomorrow, today is the last chance to save $50US.