As lacrosse players, we love to stay in great shape and train ourselves in new ways that push our limits and help us stay competitive. In an effort to give you the upper hand, we’re working to supply you with a list of 1,000 training methods that will assist you in your quest to be the next Lacrosse All Star. Whether your goal is the Tewaaraton winner or Summer League MVP, add these workouts to your repertoire and prepare the best.
Training for lacrosse is a little different than training for most sports as you can’t rely SOLELY on your strength or ONLY on your speed. To be an elite lacrosse player, it’s vital that you train hard in several areas: strength, power, speed, agility, and endurance.
The best players in the game move constantly while on the field, running from one point to another as each play progresses. Lacrosse is a very peculiar sport in that way because it requires players to have extreme levels of endurance and the strength to muscle through a check or body up on an opponent.
Simply put, you need to be able to run fast, run all day AND be a beast.
And so 1000 Ways To Train For Lacrosse continues…
41. Push-ups
Just the same as the original sit-up, push-ups, pull-ups and any basic workout are great for building strength and endurance without having to go to the gym or needing to use any heavy machinery. As my own gym membership just expired, you might find me doing exercises like these very soon (i.e. today).
One great website I found that really helps you along your way to push-up supremacy, is called One Hundred Push-ups. It helps you keep to a program so you can successfully work up to completing 100 consecutive push-ups.
42. Pull-ups
… are different than chin-ups and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Pull-ups are the harder version, where your palms face AWAY from you (with chin-ups they face towards you). Pull-ups put less focus on your biceps than chin-ups but work your back a lot more.
Here is a great write-up on proper form when doing Pull-ups and Chin-ups.
43. Dumbbell Walk Circuit
Circuits are great when it comes to training for lacrosse, which makes one designed for Maryland’s lacrosse something you should add to your workouts immediately. This circuit really focus on building strength in your hands, rotator cuffs, and shoulders.
Check out the full video from StackTv below, thank you Coach Szemborski.
44. Single-Leg Squats
There are a bunch of different ways to do single-leg squats and depending on what your looking for and comfortable with, there is definitely one that will work best for you. You can use a bench, a box, a Swiss ball, or even just gravity (Pistol Squats) to get to one leg. One of the most important things I’ve learned when single-leg squatting, is to make sure your knee never goes past your toes.
45. Swiss Ball Hip Raise and Leg Curl
46. Straight Arm Modified Crunch
The straight arm modified crunch. Whichever ab exercise you do, it’s important to remember that after you start, your “down position” should never take you fully back to the ground. By doing this, you really test your ab muscles to control your movement. It is the same concept as not clinking your dumbbells together when you do bench (plus that’s just annoying as heck).
47. High Knees – 1/2 Feet Per Hole
We’ll go light on the speed ladder this week. High Knees on the speed ladder are very similar to the Speed Run & Stride Run. Move down the ladder touching one foot, or both feet into each square. Really make sure that you are driving your knees high into the air and then landing on the balls of your feet.
Move through each one several times, working on your form and building speed as you feel more comfortable.
48. 6-Pack
These are the worst, period. I became best friends with them though every year when I played on Team Idaho so we could prepare to for the Vail Shootout and its 8000+ ft. altitude. All you need is a lacrosse/football/soccer field. Split the outside of the field up into six segments as pictured below. Begin by jogging one side of it, as soon as you hit the next cone sprint one segment, then jog one more – that’s one. Next, you jog one, sprint two, jog three and so on until you are sprinting six at a time.
The first two are featured below.
If you are just starting out, I would recommend taking a 30-60 second break in between each one. Once you master it though, start taking out your breaks and if that is easy, then work back down to one.
49. Sweet 16’s
I discovered these this year when we had to move indoors because of some lightning – this is a big basketball conditioning drill apparently, but you could definitely change it to fit on a lacrosse field. Starting on one side of the court, the guys begin sprinting back and forth from sideline to sideline. Each sprint across is one so it is eight trips to the other sideline and back. The part that makes it harder though is that it’s timed. Take the total time from the sprints and then subtract a few seconds. Each time you beat it, subtract a couple more.
50. Stretching
Easy one, but it’s important. More active stretching before helps to loosen and prepare your muscles for the intense activity, while more static stretching afterwards helps to cool them off and keep your muscles from cramping.
Until next time, only 950 to go!
1,000 is a big number. Please share your favorite lifts and exercises in the comments section (or email us at info@lacrosseallstars.com) so we can add them to our list and reach the big 1-0-0-0!
An important note about training: You should always consider your own goals and decide what you want to accomplish during training. Most importantly though, always learn how to properly do an exercise before you start doing it. As very few of us are experts in Sports Science or Medicine, we always recommend doing your own research and finding credible trainers to teach you how to train. Train smart, train safe, train hard, lax on.
