indoor pre season
if you are from an area in the country that has inclement weather, you may be forced indoors for a few sessions. lax coaches are always practicing in gyms, church rec centers, in roller rinks and at golf domes.
if you are in a confined space, and are trying to figure it out, here are a few ideas to make it work.
1/keep the groups small. the smaller your venue the smaller the group needs to be. too many kids running around in a gym creates a dangerous scenario. i like to split them up by position, alphabetically, by grade, whatever works to get groups of 12-20 max.
2/ forget the pads. helmets, gloves, and short sticks ONLY. long poles are useless indoors for the most part. maybe give the goalies a break in the pre-season by letting him in on some passing, catching, feeds, and shots. they will improve the stick skills and have some fun doing it.
3/ wall ball. how many times have you heard a coach say "you need to get to the wall". good advise, but what do they do there? i see kids out there all the time mindlessly facing the wall and throwing and catching only strong handed. not what you want. like everything else in lacrosse, technique is what is most important. use the indoor facility to show the players the right way to do wall work. kudda.com has some great stuff posted. come up with your own wall ball program
4/ get them a ton of touches. i run all types of passing drills. keep the drills at 6-8 minutes, and constantly coach techniques. make sure you have plenty of balls. keep them moving. you can do 4 corners, criss-crosses, drill using cones, etc. work right hand, left hand and over the shoulders.
5/ use no bounce lacrosse balls. no bounce balls tend to work better in gyms or anywhere you have hard surface. great if you need to control where the balls end up. i was once denied use of a gym until i showed the director the no-bounce balls. switch to tennis balls as a last resort if a hard ball is not allowed. one note on no-bounce balls. they work great for strengthening shooting muscles. have a shooter stand 10 feet or so from a wall and try to bounce and catch a NBB. it takes a big wind up and follow through to get a NBB to come back to the shooter.
6. shooting drills. a natural for indoors. i run 3 to 4 drills (see my shooting drill post) approx. 6-8 minutes each. they love to shoot and will do it the whole hour if your let them. middies, attack, defense and goalies should all have their short sticks in hand and be firing at will. i have found d poles and goalies get a special treat when allowed to be shooters. rage cage makes an collapsible cage that is perfect for indoors. if you need to drag one in from out doors, use foam pipe insulation or a carpet remnant on the bottom rails to prevent scratching the floors
7. what about defense? plays? formations? save it for outdoors. focus on the stick skills. of course indoors can be use to do conditioning, more on that later.
see you at the gym...
if you are in a confined space, and are trying to figure it out, here are a few ideas to make it work.
1/keep the groups small. the smaller your venue the smaller the group needs to be. too many kids running around in a gym creates a dangerous scenario. i like to split them up by position, alphabetically, by grade, whatever works to get groups of 12-20 max.
2/ forget the pads. helmets, gloves, and short sticks ONLY. long poles are useless indoors for the most part. maybe give the goalies a break in the pre-season by letting him in on some passing, catching, feeds, and shots. they will improve the stick skills and have some fun doing it.
3/ wall ball. how many times have you heard a coach say "you need to get to the wall". good advise, but what do they do there? i see kids out there all the time mindlessly facing the wall and throwing and catching only strong handed. not what you want. like everything else in lacrosse, technique is what is most important. use the indoor facility to show the players the right way to do wall work. kudda.com has some great stuff posted. come up with your own wall ball program
4/ get them a ton of touches. i run all types of passing drills. keep the drills at 6-8 minutes, and constantly coach techniques. make sure you have plenty of balls. keep them moving. you can do 4 corners, criss-crosses, drill using cones, etc. work right hand, left hand and over the shoulders.
5/ use no bounce lacrosse balls. no bounce balls tend to work better in gyms or anywhere you have hard surface. great if you need to control where the balls end up. i was once denied use of a gym until i showed the director the no-bounce balls. switch to tennis balls as a last resort if a hard ball is not allowed. one note on no-bounce balls. they work great for strengthening shooting muscles. have a shooter stand 10 feet or so from a wall and try to bounce and catch a NBB. it takes a big wind up and follow through to get a NBB to come back to the shooter.
6. shooting drills. a natural for indoors. i run 3 to 4 drills (see my shooting drill post) approx. 6-8 minutes each. they love to shoot and will do it the whole hour if your let them. middies, attack, defense and goalies should all have their short sticks in hand and be firing at will. i have found d poles and goalies get a special treat when allowed to be shooters. rage cage makes an collapsible cage that is perfect for indoors. if you need to drag one in from out doors, use foam pipe insulation or a carpet remnant on the bottom rails to prevent scratching the floors
7. what about defense? plays? formations? save it for outdoors. focus on the stick skills. of course indoors can be use to do conditioning, more on that later.
see you at the gym...
posted by 313 LACROSSE at
12:33 PM
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