LacrosseGoalieTips.com Podcast

LacrosseGoalieTips.com Podcast

By Olympian - Jonathan EdwardsSportsEducation
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LacrosseGoalieTips.com Podcast episodes

  • How To Improve Hand Speed In Lacrosse Goalies

    Coach Edwards explains to lacrosse goalies that improving hand strength doesn't come down to just one thing. He breaks it down for lacrosse goalies and recommends working on getting stronger and getting involved with a strength and conditioning coach. 

    4 min
  • Why Stepping To The Ball Is Wrong For Lacrosse Goalies

    Coach Edwards goes in depth in this exclusive sneak peek of his Stepping To The Ball DVD Set to help goalies understand what is wrong about the concept of stepping to the ball. Coach gives advice on how to use a T-square during practice to improve your game, and explains why lateral steps are best in this information packed clip.

     

    10 min
  • How To Improve Hand Speed In Lacrosse Goalies

    0:50 – The 3 Keys to making every save.
    1:10 – The importance of moving to the ball.
    1:38 – It’s not all about the core.
    2:16 – Improving hand strength takes work.
    2:46 – Get your athlete stronger.
     
    Introduction
    Hey everybody. Coach Edwards with LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com. This week, I want to answer a question that I got from a dad about improving his daughter’s fast hands.
    The Three Keys
    A question I get pretty commonly is, “how do I improve my hand speed?” If you’ve understood me for a while and watched what I’ve been talking about, there are three keys to making every save. There is seeing the ball, knowing where it’s going, and moving to the ball.
    Moving to the Ball
    Moving to the ball, that last combination, is really a combination of your physical ability to move yourself. This comes from core strength. This comes from shoulder strength and your hand strength. All of that is really what improves your hand speed. When you look at improving your hand speed and having faster hands, you really have to look at yourself and where your weakness is physically.
    It’s Not All About The Core
    In my past life, I ran a strength and conditioning business, so I’m pretty well versed in dealing with young athletes especially, which was my specialty. Getting them stronger. You’d be surprised. A lot of people look at this and go, “An athlete has to have a strong core.” So what they’ll do is they’ll go out and they’ll just do planks all day or they’ll do body weights. You’ve got to understand that as a lacrosse goalie, you are probably the most explosive athlete on the field. However, a lot of goalies don’t train like that. They kind of sit back in their crease, wait for the ball to come to them, and then react accordingly.
    Improving Hand Strength Doesn’t Come Down To One Thing
    Really, the stronger you can be, the more that stick in your hand can feel like a twig, the better you’ll be and your hand speed can improve. It’s really not just one thing. It’s not just improving your core or doing a bunch of wrist rollers. It’s really the whole package. My recommendation to most of my athletes is to just get to the gym. For my Lacrosse Goalie University members, I go into great detail on what to do to improve.
    Get Your Athlete Stronger
    For the goalies out there, for the parents out there listening to this right now, the number one thing you can do is just get your athlete stronger. Get around a qualified strength and conditioning coach, get them lifting heavy weights. Or you can talk to me, you can hire me. I do a lot of athletes via Skype, where we deal with training programs personally, one on one, from a distance, which is pretty cool. So if you need that kind of help, you let me know.
    Conclusion
    As always, thank you for the question. I apologize to the dad who wrote me because I lost the email. I’m going off the top of my head here. If you enjoyed this post, if it helped you, do me a favor and share it, like it, pin it, google plus it, tweet it out. I would appreciate that. By all means, if you’ve got a question for me, email me. Coach [email protected]. Thanks. See you next week.
    Are You A Member Of Lacrosse Goalie University? If not. Why not?

    I created Lacrosse Goalie University to help parents, coaches and lacrosse goalies become better lacrosse goalies fast. And to have access to a qualified lacrosse goalie coach (me) 24/7. I’ve always found DVD’s and CD’s to be really restrictive. I mean how am I supposed to condense 30+ years of lacrosse goalie coaching knowledge and experience into a 60 minute DVD? That is why,
    4 min
  • How To Stop Stick Side High Shots

     

    Coach Edwards gives tips to goalies on how to stop shots that come stick side high. He explains how he has also had similar problems, and gives advice on how to get reactive, explosive, and bait the ball so you can up your game and make the saves.

     

    Check out the blog post here: How To Stop Stick Side High Shots

     

    5 min
  • How To Stop Stick Side High Shots


    Coach Edwards gives tips to goalies on how to stop shots that come stick side high. He explains how he has also had similar problems, and gives advice on how to get reactive, explosive, and bait the ball so you can up your game and make the saves.
    0:54 – Remember the 3 Keys of making every save.

    1:24 – The String Drill

    2:07 – Baiting the ball so you can save it more easily.

    2:51 – Being reactive to up your explosiveness.

    3:15 – Don’t overthink it.
    Introduction
    Hey guys, it’s Coach Edwards at LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com. Welcome to another blog post. I really appreciate you being here, as always. This week I’ve got a question from Mory, who says:
    I get a lot of stick side high shots that for some reason I can’t seem to react fast enough to. It should be an easy save but they put it right in the corner. Is there anything I should be doing to give myself a better chance of stopping them?
    Well Mory, great question. I’ll be honest. As a goalie, I had trouble with those shots too. I think what happens is, as a goalie you think your stick’s there, and the odds of them shooting there should be low. Basically the shots should be going everywhere else. What I find is that a goalie really needs to prioritize where they think the shot’s going to go.
    The 3 Keys
    A couple of things. If you are seeing the ball, remember my 3 Keys. If you’re seeing the ball, if you know where it’s going, and you’re moving to it, but for some reason you’re moving to it too slow, or you’re not getting there fast enough, you may be giving up too much cage to that side. If you’re shading too far to your off-stick side, which is a good thing to do. I recommend that sometimes, but even if you make the longest reach you can, you’re not going to cover that corner, that’s a problem.
    The String Drill
    What I recommend you do is the string drill. Go to Home Depot and get some of the twine or the string that they have. It comes in different colors like pink and orange and yellow, I think. Take a string and get a carabiner connected to that top corner on stick side high. Run it out and run it back to the other corner on off stick high. Connect it to the tip of the player stick, like at the scute. That is the furthest point that you need to move to make that save. You’ll see the line going to stick side high to the corner, and also going to off stick high. So when you’re in your stance, you’ll see just how far you need to move to make that save for both positions.
    Baiting
    If, for some reason, you feel like you’re cheating, when you’re in the cage and you’re waiting for the ball to move everywhere else and you still don’t have that covered, you’re going to be in trouble. Lacrosse goaltending takes a bit of patience, but it also takes a bit of what I call dictating the play. It’s called baiting. If you want guys or girls to shoot to your stick side high, then you’re going to want to take a little bit of a step to that off stick side, and you’re going to be ready to explode to stick side high. By getting ready to explode to stick side high, you’re probably going to make a bunch of saves. Don’t shut your mind off to having to move elsewhere.
    Being Reactive
    One of the good things to do is when you get in your stance and you’re waiting and that shot’s coming, is to just concentrate on being loose. Have a loose grip on your hands and be ready to move wherever. Don’t get set in your ways, that you’re all of a sudden going to have to move in one certain position. You want to be reactive and you want the body to t...
    5 min
  • How To Stop More Shots Down Low


    Coach Edwards gives tips on how goalies can stop more shots down low. He explains the importance of staying safe and protected, and offers strategies on improving their game. Coach covers probability of a shot, adjusting your stance, staying protected, and prioritizing shots during practice.
    1:12 – Coaching every position on the field can be a challenge without the right experience.
    2:00 – Getting video of goalies in action to improve their performance.
    2:32 – How to figure out the probability of where a goalie will take the most shots.
    3:08 – Using your knowledge to adjust your stance and stay safe.
    4:07 – Prioritizing low shots in practice.
    Introduction
    Hey, it’s Coach Edwards here with LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com. I hope you’re having a great season, and if you’re not, shoot me a note and maybe we can get you straightened out. Congratulations to all my Lacrosse Goalie University members who had a great week. I love the feedback, I love hearing from you guys, and all the goalie critiques that I did for you this week, I hope those really helped. If you’re not a member of Lacrosse Goalie University, you want to be. Click on the Coaching tab at the top of this page and head to Tier 1. You should at least be a Tier 1 member of Lacrosse Goalie University. Check it out. It’s the best thing available for goalie coaches around. I try to make it better all the time.
    This question comes from Lucy, and she says:
    My daughter was playing goalie and is developing as a pretty good goalie, but she’s having trouble with the shots down low. What are some good drills to get her stopping the ball down low more consistently? Her coach treats the goalie position as more of a hassle, which is sadly a huge departure from her coaches last season and on her club team.
    The Challenge Of Coaching Every Position
    Lucy, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve got that to deal with, but I hate to say that it’s not uncommon. A lot of well-meaning coaches out there, and I can speak as having been a coach and coaching every position on the field is a challenge.  I think it’s easier to be a goalie coaching other positions, maybe having played or dabbled in them at certain times in your career than to just maybe be an attackman or a middy trying to coach the D and the goalies.
    It’s a big challenge. That’s why I started Lacrosse Goalie University. I’ve got a lot of coaches in there who finally have a resource for everything they need to know about incorporating a lacrosse goalie into their practice and their team, their communication, all sorts of stuff like that. Check that out and definitely pass that on to your coach. I’m willing to help where I can.
    Get Video Of Your Goalie In Action
    This is a great question. In terms of stopping the ball down low, there are a couple things. First is stance. One of the things I find is that a lot of goalies, when they’re playing the shooter, they think that the ball can go everywhere equally. Meaning they can get a shot up here just as much as they can get a shot down low. What I encourage you to do with your daughter is to get some video and to watch and see just where are the shots going on her. Are most of them down low or are most of them upstairs?
    Figure Out Your Probability
    What happens is, as a goalie, other teams want to shoot on you in certain spots. Let’s say “That goalie’s good down low, or that goalie’s good upstairs.” Well, if she’s getting a lot of shots down low, she can actually adjust her stance down a little bit, almost in anticipation of those low shots. The example I use is when you watch poker on ESPN,
    6 min
  • How To Deal With Bad Lacrosse Coaches

    0:45 – The different categories a bad coach can fall under.
    1:11 – The specifics of coaching lacrosse goalies.
    1:45 – Showing incentive.
    2:20 – Building a relationship with your coach.
    2:48 – Lacrosse goalies getting proactive.
    3:23 – Save percentage counts the most.
    4:00 – The adoption of new techniques can be slow, but keep trying.
    Adopting new techniques can be slow, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t working. Keep trying.
    Introduction
    Hey everybody. Coach Edwards here with LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com, and this week I got a question on how we should deal with bad lacrosse coaches. Specifically, how do you deal with bad goalie coaches.
    This came from a few weeks ago, my post about why stepping to the ball is wrong. I got a lot of great feedback from that, a lot of emails. Thank you. A lot of good comments and facebook shares. But the question came from, well what do I do if my coach either is a bad coach or is teaching me different stuff?
    Categories of Bad Lacrosse Coaches
    On the telesemenar I did in the month of April, I talked about this a great deal. I’m just going to touch on it here. Bad coaches go in a couple of categories. One, there are coaches who are just bad. That’s really unfortunate, but not uncommon. There are a lot of coaches out there who mean well but they’re overwhelmed. A lot of coaches are volunteers and they’ve got all sorts of stuff to deal with. They’ve got time jobs, they’ve got kids to deal with, and then they’ve got to figure out offense, defense, and goalies.
    Coaching Lacrosse Goalies
    Usually what happens with the goalies is that a lot of coaches don’t know what to do anyway, so they just let the goalies do their own thing. That’s one category of coach. The second category of coach is a coach that is teaching bad stuff, and that can either be out of their own ignorance, they just don’t know what they don’t know, or they’ve got outdated information. That’s the whole reason why Lacrosse Goalie Tips exists. It’s because I want to help you have up to date, cutting edge information, and I’m not afraid to buck the old school “stepping to the ball” mentality that really hasn’t improved over the years while the game has changed.
    Lacrosse Coaches Should  Treat You Better If You Want To Learn
    With those two categories of coaches, I find that with my Lacrosse Goalie University members, I’ll actually be in communication with some of our goalie’s coaches. Not all of them but some of them. What I find are a lot of coaches are thankful to know that their goalie is taken care of by somebody who knows what they’re doing. If you’re a goalie who is going out and you are seeking information and you are going to camps, and you are proactive, then your coach is going to coach you differently than if you were just a bump on the log and you’re not doing anything.
    Building A Relationship With Your Coach
    If you’re a parent or a coach or an athlete who is listening to this video, you’re of the more proactive type. What I recommend is get with your coach. You really need to have that relationship with your coach in so many ways. The goalie in so many ways needs to have a relationship with their coach. Talk to your coach, and say, “Hey listen, Coach, this is how I was taught to do this,” or, “I’m working with Jonathan at Lacrosse Goalie Tips and I’m a member of Lacrosse Goalie University, whatever.
    Get Proactive
    This year I worked with a college goalie who the team invested in my  coaching package, and every month we did a goalie critique.
    6 min
  • Why Stepping To The Ball Is Wrong!!!

    Stepping To The Ball

    Hey, it’s Coach Edwards here from LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com. I want to welcome you to this week’s blog post. I’m going to do something a little bit different. I’ve been asked a lot this year about the question of stepping to the ball, stepping, should you step toward the ball, should you step sideways, and the title of this post is “Why stepping to the ball is wrong.” I want to set you straight.
    What I’ve done is, I’ve taken a clip from my Stepping To The Ball DVDs, or my Moving To The Ball DVDs, whichever, I keep waffling back and forth between what I’m calling it, but this year I created a 2 DVD set called Stepping to the Ball. The first part of the DVD talks about why stepping to the ball is wrong. Let’s cut to that, and I’m going to show you exactly why stepping to the ball is wrong. Here we go.
    Stepping To The Ball DVD Footage

    Here the lines show you how far I need to move to make a save. If I step to the ball, if my initial move is to the ball, I may never get to that line to make the save. You’ve heard my Three Keys to Making Any Save. You’ve got to see the ball, you’ve got to know where it’s going, and then you’ve got to move to the ball.
    Well, if I pick up a shot from out there and I move to the ball, and that ball is aiming here, I may never get far enough in the time that it takes for that ball to meet me here, I may never get far enough to actually make the save.
    Reach
    Now, I’ve got a stick in my hand, right? That’s going to give me more reach. I understand that. But still, the bottom line is this. There’s an amount of time between when the ball leaves the shooter’s stick to when it’s going to meet the goal line. This is the goal line. And I have to get in front of that before it gets there. So in this case, when I step to the ball, I’m trying to meet it somewhere out here.
    Don’t Just Step Forward

    This is a big step. This is a big step – it’s a full lunge for me. As we’ll get into later, we’re going to talk about the adjustment step. But the bottom line is this. If I step to the ball, I may never get far enough where I’m actually going to cut that ball off here. And also, by stepping forward, I am shortening the amount of time I have to get in front of that ball. That makes sense? One, I may not get far enough. Two, I’m actually attacking the ball, which we’ll talk about that later, but I’m attacking that ball which is shortening my time that I have to get there.
    Using A T-Square


    What I want to show you to prove this to you, I brought a drywall T-square. You can get these at Home Depot. What this does is I’m going to line this up. This is perpendicular. This is a square. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. So I’m here and I set up my T-square, and this stripe is the middle of the cage. If I’m in this stance, my goal is going to be in position to receive the ball when it comes to me so that I give up less rebounds. I want to have the most time to do that. I’m not going to step backwards. That’s not the goal. The shortest distance between me and the line where the ball can go, the shortest distance is a straight line, and that is relatively straight.
    Why Lateral Steps Are Best

    So for me to get in front of that ball in the fastest amount of time is to move with this T-square. Move with this straight line that the T-square creates. Because of that, you can see here by using the T-square, that my step is not forward. We used to teach, “Hey, take a 45 degree step at the ball. I used to do line drills, and I’ve got those in Lacrosse Goalie University, I’ve got Walking The Line drills.
    What happens is,
    10 min
  • This Short Goalie Needs A Better Pocket

    Coach Edwards explains the benefits of long lasting titanium shafts and describes his two favorite lacrosse stick heads – the Eclipse and the Nemesis. Coach describes how goalies control distance and accuracy on the field, and gives tips on how to become a better goalie and avoid the stress of trying to make a team.

    6 min
  • How To Get Your Team In The Best Shape Possible

    Coach Edwards gives coaches advice on how to train their athletes in position specific ways to up their chances of winning and help them work better together as a team. He explains why it's important to address every athlete individually and gives tips on how to best train lacrosse goalies at the start of the season.

    8 min

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Follow Coach Jonathan Edwards as he provides tips and advice on how to improve your skills in the world of lacrosse.