I am on a bit of a road trip for the last half of this week – today I stopped in at Jon Elkin’s camp to visit with Jon of course as well as my friend Michael Ouzas and to finally meet one of my Elite Goalie Strength and Conditioning clients who I have worked with for two years, but met for the first time today – Slovenia’s very own Matic Boh – that is us in the pic.
I love the opportunity to get out and meet those of you that I have known for so long but never actually met. Bless the internet 🙂
Tomorrow and Friday I will be running some off-ice sessions for Michael Lawrence’s Pro Goaltending camp – I will let you know how that goes, right now I am just hanging out in the lobby of the dorm where there is wifi trying to get some work done before bed time, so I am ready to go – just like being back in University (without the pesky exams).
i have a gift for getting my finger in every photo 🙂
Two Exercises That Exposed Weakness & Imbalance
I live quite close to where Steve McKichan runs his Future Pro Goalie camps in Strathroy, Ontario (we call it Strath-vegas – – no idea why) so during the summer I get the chance to work with some of you who live out of town, but find yourselves close by during the camp or private sessions.
I cannot accomodate everyone because my schedule fills very quickly in the summer (typically 2-3 weeks ahead of time), but I do my best.
Last week I had the chance to work with a great high school goalie (Rob) who was a great athlete and a really nice kid as well. He has been working hard with a trainer back home all summer and I could tell, his strength, stamina and speed all looked good. But these two off-ice exercises exposed his weakness and imbalance.
Strength Without Stability
We started through our workout and I put in some single leg strength work – you know I love single leg strength training because it requires strength and stability. My guess is that his trainer at home had not yet got to this stage in the training program (I am sure he was going to add it in over the next week or two).
When I had Rob single leg squat off a box, he struggled like crazy. With two feet on the floor – no problem, in fact very, very strong, but rely on just one leg and his force production, stability and alignment went down the tubes.
Here is the cool part, with a little coaching and repetition, Rob was already competent with the exercise, it just took a little practice to get his muscles working and stabilizing.
Dominant Dominance
The second exercise that gave Rob trouble was a lateral hurdle step from a kneeling position. He was great moving to his left (pushing with his right leg), but when he got into a kneeling position on the other side of the hurdles, he always wanted to lead with his right foot again, rather than push off his left.
Subconsciously, he probably has similar preferences on the ice which can lead to inefficiencies or delays in response. So by practicing this exercise Rob can become a little more ambidextrous with his legs.
So this is another way that your off-ice training can help improve your movement on the ice. We are not trying to exactly mimic what you do on the ice – that would be impossible, the surface, equipment, heigh of your foot, etc. all change the mechanics – but you can improve your ‘vocabulary’ of movement and strengthen the muscles you need to use during practices and games.
Until next time – happy training!
Cheers,
Maria
PS – for those of you in the www.Goalie Workout Club.com, I am racing to get the module 16 workout videos up – it is really cool workout this month – I have them edited and just need to upload them, but there is no internet in the room, so I will be testing the lobby wifi to see how it goes. If it works, I will have them up by Friday. If it does not work, the I will get it done as soon as I get home and they should be up by the end of Saturday. Sorry for the delay – it only affects those of you who purchased the program the very first couple of days that it was released, over a year ago.
