After the season is before the season, so many lacrosse players ask themselves this question: How do I stay in shape during the lacrosse offseason? Each sportsman needs a break sooner or later and the offseason is perfect for that. You must let your muscles and your body relax, otherwise your body tends to hurt. For example with a belt crack or over-stretching. But in order to stay in the optimal lacrosse form, you should not give up lacrosse completely in the offseason. You need to stay fit and here you will find some good tips for that.
Lacrosse is one of the fastest sports and also a high-impact sport, which means that almost every muscle of the body is claimed. Lacrosse needs strength to swing the lacrosse stick and shoot the ball. You also have to have a good stamina, because you must run across the entire field more than once. Regular workouts are therefore mandatory. How do I stay in shape during the lacrosse offseason? – means to keep or improve your cardio-vascular fitness, your whole-body strength and the muscular endurance. We will show you how you can do this here:
Stretching
As with any conditioning training, it is also important for lacrosse to do a stretching session before the workout, this will make the lacrosse exercises more effective. In addition, it prevents cramping, sprains, strains,… of muscles which are too tight or too inflexible. By stretching, the muscles become wider and more flexible, so you will be more flexible and agile, which can never hurt in a lacrosse game.
To run
Yes, running sounds perhaps not quite so spectacular, but is necessary. Professional lacrosse players run a lacrosse field (60m x 100m) in seconds. So if you want to keep up, run, run, run. It is a necessary feature of a player that you can learn and must learn. Running strengthens the cardio-vascular endurance and the heart muscle, thus also the blood circulation in the body. In addition, your endurance increases with each running training, that you carry out and you will notice that you are not quite so fast out of breath in the next lacrosse game.
Weekly, you should do 150 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise, like swimming or fast walking or alternatively 75 minutes of intense aerobics, such as running to maintain your physical fitness. But do not worry, you should not running for 75 minutes. The training sessions should last at least 10 minutes or more and be distributed throughout the week. This is one really important part of: How do I stay in shape during the lacrosse offseason?
strength training
As already mentioned, nearly every muscle is claimed in lacrosse, which is why every muscle has to be trained. The upper body is important for lacrosse players to play strategically well with the lacrosse stick, to catch the balls, to control it, to score goals and to check. But also the lower body should not be ignored. Good exercises for lacrosse are, for example, pull-ups, shoulder presses, bank dips, push-ups and bench presses.
Here the muscles of the chest, arms and the upper back work. It is important that you alternate between upper and lower body exercises and not overstress one of the two. In between, you can always do a few knee bends or pulling steps, these train the thighs, calves, quadriceps, the gluteal muscle and the lower back. You should do strength training 2 to 3 times a week, 20 – 30 minutes each.
Interval Training
Interval Training means that you exercise alternately and then take a short break before proceeding to the next exercise. For example, you can walk 30 seconds for an interval sprint, then sprint 10 seconds, then walk again for 30 seconds for an interval sprint, then sprint 10 seconds, then run again for 30 seconds and repeat several times. Optimal for the condition of a lacrosse player is exactly this ratio, namely 3:1.
The training sessions, should still be designed individually and with individual intervals, they can be continually changed and adapted to your current fitness level. If you do not a sprint interval training, it is recommended to build up the individual stations next to each other before starting, so that the breaks and training times can be observed. Stations can be, for example, push ups, squats, side shuffles between two skittles, or side bouncing. Each station should be used between 15 and 30 seconds. This is one really important part of: How do I stay in shape during the lacrosse offseason?
