This is a two part program geared to make you a better athlete.  Part one focuses on how to stop, start, accelerate, change direction laterally, change direction horizontally, and control your body while playing sports.  The second portion is designed to improve running form, foot work, stride frequency, stride length, and efficiency.   [...]]]> Speed & Agility Training

This is a two part program geared to make you a better athlete.  Part one focuses on how to stop, start, accelerate, change direction laterally, change direction horizontally, and control your body while playing sports.  The second portion is designed to improve running form, foot work, stride frequency, stride length, and efficiency.   This is not a conditioning program; the goal of each 40 minute session is EXPLOSIVE POWER for all sports!

Who: Male Athletes Grades 8 and up

Dates:

June: 30

July: 7, 12, 14, 19, 21, 26, 28

August: 2, 4, 9, 11

Two sessions per week– Monday/Wednesday

Times: Mondays/Wednesdays 7:00-7:40 am or 9:30-10:10am

Location: Cougar Stadium or under the overhang in front of the school.  The area under the overhang will be used if the gym is not available and it is raining outside.

Total Cost: $110.00 for 12 sessions (Two classes per week)

Payment and registration can be done at the Montgomery Township Recreation Department (Otto Kaufman Center)

Registration begins on June 1st.

Jim Griffin CSCS; USAW

(609) 915-7414

Coachgriffcscs@gmail.com

This is a 14 session, two workouts per week program designed to develop the total athlete.  Each session will include speed & agility training as well as total body strength training. The sessions have been developed with the needs of your sport in mind.  Proper lifting techniques and training habits will also [...]]]> Sport Specific Training Sessions

This is a 14 session, two workouts per week program designed to develop the total athlete.  Each session will include speed & agility training as well as total body strength training. The sessions have been developed with the needs of your sport in mind.  Proper lifting techniques and training habits will also be covered during the sessions.  These workouts have been created in conjunction with your team’s summer commitments so that you can develop your athleticism along with your sports specific skills.

• June 23^rd-August 12^th Fourteen Sessions
• Forty minutes of speed & agility training.
• Eighty minutes of sport specific weight training.
• Two total body training sessions per week.
• Allows the athlete to develop their athletic skills as well as their sports specific skills.

When:

Male Athletes Grades 8 and up: Monday/Wednesday 7am-9am or 9:30am-11:30am

Female Athletes Grades 8 and up: Tuesday/Thursday 7am-9am

Each training session is two hours long.

Dates:

June: 23, 24, 28, 29, 30

July: 1, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28, 29

August: 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12

Cost:

Cost for the program $180.00.  All registration will take place at the Montgomery Township recreation department (Otto Kaufman Center) starting on June 1^st.

Where:

All training sessions will take place at Montgomery High school.  Speed & agility training will take place on the turf, track, or under the overhang in the front of the high school.  All weight training sessions will take place in the weight room.

Questions can be emailed to:

Coachgriffcscs@gmail.com

Or call (609) 915-7414

Many of the NCAA coaches we interview regarding practice are in love with transition drills. In fact, most great lacrosse coaches spend significantly more critical practice time in transition drills than even scenarios such as 6V6. Please understand, we still recognize that 10V10 and 4V4 drills are still critical aspects to every practice. [...]]]> By Mike Muetzel, LaxCoachMike.com

Many of the NCAA coaches we interview regarding practice are in love with transition drills. In fact, most great lacrosse coaches spend significantly more critical practice time in transition drills than even scenarios such as 6V6. Please understand, we still recognize that 10V10 and 4V4 drills are still critical aspects to every practice. But, we love transition drills too!

Why Transition Drills?

1. This phase of the game is where most of the goals are scored, period.
2. Offensive players or even offensive sets always have an extra player to pass to, and this encourages ball movement, touches, and each player stickwork improving for younger and more experienced teams alike.
3. Makes practice more fun!
4. Teaches defensive players to slide and drop back intuitively, and they learn by doing and repetition rather than by lectures.
5. Drills move very quickly.
6. Drills are designed to emulate game situations.

Think about the first time you stepped into your first shot or the first time throwing a pass and how uncoordinated and inefficient you may have been. Besides the lack of necessary motor control and proper mechanics, you’re body was probably [...]]]> Strength & Conditioning for Lacrosse: Core Training – Strength & Stability By Billy J. Voltaire, CSCS

Think about the first time you stepped into your first shot or the first time throwing a pass and how uncoordinated and inefficient you may have been. Besides the lack of necessary motor control and proper mechanics, you’re body was probably as unstable as a bowl of jello. Through years of training and practice, our movements became more skilled, coordinated, and efficient, but it shouldn’t end there.

Many times we forget the basics when training and focus on accessory muscles and not the foundation, the core. It is impossible to be a shooter with pinpoint accuracy without a stable core. Imagine standing on a ball and trying to take a shot. It’s very unstable, obviously, and that’s how ineffective you can be without a solid foundation. All motions (throwing, running, dodging, etc.) at the extremities, legs, and arms require a solid foundation in order to transfer energy efficiently.

Crunches alone simply don’t cut it! Lying down and only curling your trunk is great for the beach and may help improve performance, but it should not stand alone in a training regimen. Crunches and sit-ups are great to develop strength of the trunk but have little transfer for stability.

Stability refers to the ability to maintain a rigid core and produce coordinated, forceful movements at the extremity. Combining the two methods of core strength and stability will allow you to train core power, the ability to produce powerful, quick movements at the extremities.

The following precautions should be considered before and during core training:

1. As with any exercise, it is important to breathe normally. Avoid holding your breath (valsalva maneuver).
2. Always check with your physician in the event you have any lower back pain before considering ANY exercise, not just core training.
3. Train both front and back.
4. Always use appropriate progressions and don’t overdo it.

See the Samples Exercises, Suggested Prescription to Improve Core, and Sample Workout along with the accompanying photos and video, which illustrate most of the core training exercises. 

Note: For planks, hips must remain neutral, straight. Pain in your back is a sign of improper technique. However, if done correctly and pain persists, it is advised to shift to another exercise. 

Term to Know

Valsalva Maneuver: Forcefully exhaling against a closed airway; this can dangerously increase blood pressure.

Plyometrics
The Romanian Deadlift
The Dynamic Warm-up
The Back Squat

Elevate Performance without  Waiting for a Crisis

APRIL 16, 2010 Elevate Performance without Waiting for a Crisis Crises often motivate people to achieve new levels of performance. Since you likely don’t want to operate in crisis-mode, how can you access the hidden reserves in your company without waiting for a disaster? Tap into the three factors [...]]]>

Elevate Performance without 
Waiting for a Crisis

APRIL 16, 2010 Elevate Performance without Waiting for a Crisis Crises often motivate people to achieve new levels of performance. Since you likely don’t want to operate in crisis-mode, how can you access the hidden reserves in your company without waiting for a disaster? Tap into the three factors always present in a crisis response: Urgency. People feel motivated when they know time matters. Set clear goals and clear consequences if the goals are not achieved. Don’t run fire drills, however; people know false urgency when they see it. Empathy. People want to feel emotionally connected to what they’re doing. Show employees how their work will matter to others — their coworkers or your customers. Innovation. In a crisis, there’s no time or patience for red tape. Remove unnecessary organizational obstacles to being innovative. Get rid of the time-consuming processes that would be the first to go in a crisis.

Last week, I wrote a post on How to Ask for a Reference Letter which gave three steps for asking for (and getting!) a great letter of recommendation. The second, and arguably most important step, is to provide [...]]]> How to Ask for a Reference Letter, Part II: The Template

8:27 AM Thursday April 15, 2010 
by Jodi Glickman Brown

Last week, I wrote a post on How to Ask for a Reference Letter which gave three steps for asking for (and getting!) a great letter of recommendation. The second, and arguably most important step, is to provide a template for your reviewer of what you’d like included in the letter.

Recently, an elementary school teacher told me that her former principal had failed to respond to her request for a letter of recommendation. I asked if she had included a template for her principal of what to say, to which she replied no, and then admitted sheepishly, “Honestly, I wouldn’t have any idea how to write the letter myself.” At the risk of stating the obvious, if you can’t imagine writing the letter, how do you think someone else is going to write it for you?

When you are asking for a recommendation, take the time to create a template for the person writing the recommendation. This can be a draft of the letter itself or a simply a roadmap: a set of points that provides them with an outline as well as the context and content for their note.

A strong ready-made template hits upon three key points: your motive, your credentials and the impact you expect to have on your new organization. To be most effective, you need to answer three key questions:

1. Why are you applying for the position or academic program? (Motive)
2. How or why are you uniquely qualified for the position? (Credentials)
3. What will you contribute to your new organization or program? (Impact)

Let’s see what this might look like in a particular case:

Alex Wallace was a human resources professional who worked in financial services for ten years. Alex earned her MBA from a top tier school and most recently covered the multimedia team at Reuters. After two years at Reuters, Alex decided to make a major career shift and jump from human resources to broadcast journalism. Alex reached out to the head of HR at her former employer to ask for a letter of reference for her application to Columbia’s Graduate School of Broadcast Journalism. She included the following bullet points in her template to assist her former boss in writing in the letter:

Motive: Why Are You Applying?

• Throughout my career, I’ve lived and worked abroad have always had a strong interest in business journalism and international affairs.
• My work at Reuters has inspired me to make a leap I’ve considered for a long time and which I believe will tie together many diverse aspects of my career.

Alex gave both a personal reason and a professional motive: her work in HR in the news industry ultimately inspired her to make a change. Why are you applying for a new job or program? Are you hoping to learn a new skill, make an industry, firm or career switch, or are you, like Alex, following a life-long dream of doing something you’ve always wanted to do but were never sure how to?

Credentials: How Are You Uniquely Qualified?

• I have a strong background in both finance and business issues, having spent ten years on Wall Street supporting finance professionals and two years at Reuters learning about the news industry
• In my current role, I am responsible for managing employee issues related to ethical standards of stories, quality of writing and knowledge of key figures and trends in the news industry
• I am strong writer, a skilled presenter and a quick learner; I am able to discern the important and relevant pieces of information from large amounts of data and make decisions quickly and effectively

Alex highlighted both her relevant experience and her inherent skill-set. Together, these combine to make her an excellent candidate for the program. As you think about your own qualifications, consider coursework and academic programs, relevant work experience, extra-curricular or volunteer activities, or even your own natural talents or strengths that will be better utilized in your new endeavor.

Impact: What Will You Contribute?

• I believe that the reporting and writing classes will give me the tools I need to become an outstanding broadcast journalist
• With my quick grasp of the issues and my in-depth understanding of finance and news organizations, I hope to bring a unique perspective to the program

Alex’s impact — her unique perspective — could even be more compelling if she talked about how her news coverage would be different or unique from what exists today. Regarding your own contribution, what is your vision of how you will impact your new organization? Do you have new ideas, better ideas, a different way of thinking about things or a richness of experience that will impact your new environment?

At the end of the day, your goal is to give your former boss or colleague a clear-cut outline of what to include in your reference letter. By providing a thoughtful and well scripted template, you’ll greatly increase the chances of getting your reviewer to agree to write the letter of reference and make that letter of reference communicate and convey exactly what you want.

Jodi Glickman Brown is a speaker, author and entrepreneur. She is the founder of communication consulting firm Great on the Job. You can follow Jodi on Twitter at @greatonthejob or on her blog at www.greatonthejob.com/blog.

One of the most underdeveloped skills that we see in lacrosse players entering the college game from high school is shooting ability. Shooting ability is what separates a scholarship player from a walk-on for many coaches. By far, it is the thing we work on the most at Providence College with our [...]]]>

By Chris Burdick 
Head Coach, Providence College

One of the most underdeveloped skills that we see in lacrosse players entering the college game from high school is shooting ability. Shooting ability is what separates a scholarship player from a walk-on for many coaches. By far, it is the thing we work on the most at Providence College with our new players.

We break shooting down into three areas and, depending on the goal of a drill or task, we can work on one of the three, two of the three, or all three components at one time.

For us, the three areas of shooting are; shot selection, shot placement and shot power. To build a shooting skill set, we try to build on the latter first, with the idea that we can facilitate selection and placement once the player has learned how to shoot with power. This article focuses on just that, developing shot power in time-and-room shooters.

Shooting power is defined by shot velocity and is generated from three areas–footwork and leg strength, torso rotation, and arm extension. Since we develop both time-and-room and shoot-on-the-run ability, we develop each skill with the same progression; however the drills will vary slightly to incorporate the specific skill. This is our time-and-room progression:

Shadow Shooting

Shadow shooting is a drill that mimics the actual shooting mechanics but is done without a ball. Using shadow shooting allows a player to develop shooting footwork and motion without having the component of velocity or placement impeding his attention.

For time-and-room shooting, we put a goal on the sideline facing the middle of the field and dissected by the restraining line. We have players stand on the restraining for a right handed shot by placing both feet on the restraining line with their left shoulder towards the goal.

When they start their shooting motion for a right-handed shot, we ask them to drop their right foot behind the left foot, planting that right foot behind the line. This “crow step” as Chip Casto, assistant coach at Bergen Catholic (N.J.) calls it, allows the front shoulder to close so that the shooter’s back is facing the direction of the shot. Once the right foot plants, the arms pull the ball forward in an overhand shooting motion as the player steps into the shot with their left foot.

Once the task is perfected we start to teach them to whip their hands through the shooting motion so they can hear the whipping sound of the stick head against the resistance of the air, which shows stick head velocity. The last step in shadow shooting is having the player take multiple crow steps into the shooting motion, covering more ground and causing a louder whipping action.

Seated Shooting

To engage the torso in the shooting motion we use seated shooting, which takes their legs out of the equation and forces them to use their body and arms. We do a seated shooting where the player sits with his legs out in front of him facing the goal. The player then tries to get as much velocity as possible using just his torso rotation for power.

This develops into the same setting but we now bring the player up to his knees, allowing for more torso rotation and more power.

Over Goal Shooting

The final step in the progression is our over goal shooting drill. In over goal shooting, we place a goal 10 yards behind another goal. Our shooters stand in front of the first goal and shoot over the top of it into the second goal. This creates the need for them to extend their arms. It also forces them to pull the ball with their bottom hand in the shooting motion, to keep the ball from flying over the fence and into a dorm on campus.

In doing this drill, it is important to have a player feed from one knee and with his hand to ensure the maximum reps in a short period of time. Also, be sure your shooter is far enough from the goal that he is shooting over to keep his follow-through free from hitting the crossbar.

We work on these shooting drills almost every day and feel that the ability of our team to shoot is the second-most important factor in winning or losing lacrosse games, behind team speed.

And still, if there is one thing I think we don’t do enough of…it’s shooting!