As a lacrosse goalie, there are only a few rules that apply across the board. Stepping to the ball is one of those rules. No matter how fast the shot, where is is coming from, or where it is going, you always, always, always step to the ball. Foot speed is a critical aspect of being able to step to the ball in time and bring your trail foot up the the right position. These drills will help you in season and in the off season to develop quick feet and make more saves.

Jump rope

Every goalie needs to own a jump rope. If you don’t, buy one now. It will become your best friend and one of the greatest investments you will ever make. Mix jumping rope into your workouts, warm ups, cool downs, and during commercial breaks while you’re watching ESPN. Take it with you in the car, on vacation, and to the grandmas house.

Try to see how many you can do in a row. Try for 200. Then take a quick break and do it again. This is the fastest way to quick feet that I know of and it really worked for me. I’m a tall guy, 6’3″ and it takes a lot to get me moving. This helped.

Magic square

This is a drill that every goalie should use a few times a week during the season. Find any straight line on the field and lay your stick perpendicular to the line. This will create four quadrants. We will call the upper left side 1, upper right side 2, lower left side 3, and lower right side 4. In doing these drills, you want to be facing the same direction and allowing your feet to just move around beneath you.

Start in quadrant 1 and with your feet together, jump to 2,4,3 and back into 1. Upon returning to one, reverse the order and repeat. This is just jumping in each quadrant.

After doing this for 10 reps, start in quadrant 1 and with both feet still together, jump to 2, diagonally to 3, over to 4, and diagonally to 1. Do this for 5 reps and reverse the circuit.

Agility Ladder Drills

Everyone’s favoriate piece of fitness equipment is the agility ladder. There are a ton of variations that can be used on a ladder to improve your foot speed. Start with your foot in each square and go through the ladder as fast as you can. Then transition to touching both feet inside each square. To get fancy, touch your right toe to the left side of the ladder, just outside rope, the tap both feet inside, and then touch your right foot to the right side of the ladder square just outside the square. Proceed to the middle of the next square by tapping with each foot and then touching the outside left of the ladder. Repeat.

Stretch a Lot

Staying loose and limber is pretty important for a goalie. After all, you have to be ready to spring and save a shot in .19 seconds. A good way to increase flexibility and in turn foot speed is to take the appropriate amount of time at the beginning and end of practice to stretch out.

I recommend a warm-up lap and dynamic stretch to start. Consider including high knees, butt kickers, straight leg kicks, hip rotators to the inside and outside, and calfs. Then after practice, take time to cool down with a static stretch.

Hot Feet

This drill is similar to high knees dynamic stretching, but with the floor on fire. The idea is to minimize the amount of time that your foot and the ground are in contact. Bring you feet up and down as quickly as possible. Bring your feet high enough off the ground to reach the high knee position. Ten repetitions makes a set.

Let’s talk about some important lacrosse goalie workouts and what muscle groups that you want to make sure to hit.

Workout #1 – Squats

Squats are one of the most fundamental leg workouts out there.  They hit almost every muscle in your leg with a special emphasis on your quads. Crushing leg workouts will help you become more explosive in the cage. They also help you to keep your stance for the length of the game.

Using a leg press machine can get you basically the same results without the risk of supporting all that weight on your traps.  Also if you do not have access to a gym you can just do body weight squats, single leg squats, and pistol squats.

You need to do a few more of them to get the same workout since there is no additional weight, but they can be just as helpful.  You do 100 body weight squats and tell me you can’t feel it!

Workout #2 – Rebounding

A rebounder is just a mini trampoline; chances are you have seen one.  They are roughly four feet in diameter.  Just jumping on it is great for your whole body; in fact rebounding is one of the only ways to clean your lymphatic system.

Beyond that, however, it is a great combo of a cardio and leg workout.  I like to jump for about 15 minutes per session and alternate between multiple movements.  It is great because you can do it as intense as you like.  Just bend your knees and jump down (so you are not emphasizing getting air like a normal trampoline, rather you are trying to push down through the springs).  You can stand on your toes to focus more attention on working out your calves.

Workout #3 – Jump Rope

It does not get much more basic than this, but at the end of the day it is the quickest way to quicker feet, which is highly important for a goalie.  If you cannot jump rope that is totally fine, just practice for a bit and it will come to you.

Start slow and as you figure it out begin to go a little faster and progress from there.  Change it up, alternate feet, skip, jump high, do double jumps and so on.

Jumping rope is one of the things that transformed my game back in high school and it is advice that I give to all athletes.  It hits on a lot of the same things that rebounding does and I love the combo of a leg muscle workout and cardio.

Workout #4 – Hills!

Find an incline of some sort and propel yourself up it! It can be a hill, stairs, bleachers, mounds of dirt, whatever.  This is a workout that will be great for your quads and your endurance.  Sprint up the hill and then walk down as you catch your breath.  And repeat.  If you are running stairs be sure to put an extra emphasis on moving your feet quickly from stair to stair as this will give you a foot speed work out as well.

There are a lot more workouts out there that are helpful for goalies, and we will highlight some in later posts. I hope these four quick ideas get you started though.  If you do them I can promise you that you will feel increased explosion and power coming out of your legs and it will make attacking the ball much easier.  If you have a goalie workout that you love, drop it in the comment box, we would love to hear what you are doing to make yourself better!