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Lacrosse Conditioning

Being a better-conditioned player can make the difference between winning and losing a battle late in the game. For a team, winning or losing these individual battles frequently adds up to winning or losing the game. Superior conditioning leads to superior performance, all game long.

Unfortunately, the wrong type of conditioning can significantly hurt your ability to perform at a high level. For young players, this negative effect may last forever. It’s pretty scary when you think about it.

In general there are two types of conditioning: Aerobic and Anaerobic.  Think of aerobic training going for a long jog. Think of anaerobic training as alternating periods of intense work (e.g. sprints) with complete rest. 

Aerobic Training: Your Opponent’s Best Friend

Aerobic training is the most frequently used form of conditioning, unfortunately. While going for long jogs can feel like hard work, it’s actually not making you a better lacrosse player. Believe it or not, typical aerobic training actually makes you slower!  Lacrosse is a high intensity sport with lots of all-out sprints and full-speed changes of direction. Speed is everything.

Aerobic training teaches your body to move through a repetitive motion, at a submaximal pace. You may be able to maintain that pace for a while, but you’ll never win a game moving at half speed.  Your neuromuscular system (your muscles and the nerves controlling them) actually changes to make your muscles weaker and less powerful.  For most youth athletes, these changes occur during a critical period during development that creates the framework for your ability to build strength and power for the rest of your life.  In other words, aerobic training is the secret to creating slow, weak athletes.

Building Aerobic Power the Right Way

The first step toward building game-changing conditioning is to stop jogging, permanently. The second step is to start doing interval training. Compared to steady-state training, like jogging, interval training leads to greater increases in both anaerobic AND aerobic power. Surprising, but true: anaerobic training leads to greater increases in aerobic power than aerobic training!

Interval training conditions your body to continuously move at near-maximal paces, and doesn’t compromise your strength and power. It also leads to greater decreases in body fat (for players that need to drop a few pounds of fat), and takes significantly less time.  Most interval training sessions last between 8 and 15 minutes.

Spend less practice time becoming fast, strong, and powerful or more practice time becoming slow and weak. It seems like a simple choice to me. 

Kevin Neeld, BSc, MS, CSCS is the Director of Athletic Development at Endeavor Fitness in Sewell, NJ.  Through the application of functional anatomy, biomechanics, and neural control, Kevin specializes in guiding athletes to optimal health and performance.  For more information on how Endeavor Fitness can help you drastically improve your speed, strength, and conditioning, visit EndeavorFit.com or contact Kevin Neeld directly via email by clicking here.