We've all heard the saying, 'practice makes perfect,' and it's almost true!  But PERFECT is an aspiration, one of those goals you may have written down in your journal.  Perfect is a BIG goal. Something to always work towards.  But BETTER is a smaller one and BETTER is easy to achieve, every day - if you are ready to make the effort.

 

Practicing good habits -- with your stick work, your conditioning, your recovery and your overall skill is the first step to helping you to excel on game day.  

 

Two important aspects of practicing, that will will help you to be better and to perfom your best, include: your attention to taking care of your body and the intensity with which you practice . 

 

TAKING CARE OF YOUR BODY  - Takes many different forms, from nutrition, to exercise, to recovery and even rest, and all are important to performing your best when it counts the most.  

Being a lacrosse player we want to be fast, agile, strong and explosive out on the field. Preparing for games means preparing our bodies with a little thing we all know and love called CONDITIONING.  Putting in the extra work with sprints, running, lifting, footwork and overall physical fitness training will be what helps you put your best product out on the field on game day.  

I like to do two extra reps of every sprint workout just so that I know I've done all I can and I am prepared for an overtime game or a late game situation where I am tired and I need to trust that I can mentally and physically push myself through it.  It may be difficult sometimes but believe that those extra sprints and reps and footwork and lifting is all for a reason and it WILL pay off during the games! 

On the other hand, when we train hard it is really important to  also take care of our body with the right amount of stretching, mobility and recovery. I like to stretch before and after every practice or anytime I do any sort of physical training, to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to prevent injury and to keep my body in the healthiest state possible.

There's a lot more to an athlete taking care of your body than what I've included here, but the point is to think about it as part of  your practicing, because a healthy body is a happy body and only a happy body can play FREE, CONFIDENT and STRONG on game day.  

 

ALWAYS PRACTICE AT GAME SPEED - It's important to train the way you will play, whether you are with your team at a scheduled practice, or on the wall/rebounder, or doing ladder footwork, or out in the backyard shooting by yourself.  Always go 150%!  Give all of your effort at practice because ultimatley that is the effort you will be giving in a game!

Always going game speed while you practice will get you comfortable with game speed on game day.  It means you won't be wasting reps while you're practicing and it means that you are maximizing your beneficial reps - the ones that will propel you towards your best performance and putting the  best product on the field on GAME DAY. 

If you need a few drills to try out when you're practicing on your own, click the buttons to some of my favorite drills (which are on my YouTube channel and K017 Lacrosse Instagram page).