Mindset Coaching:
Confidence and self-esteem go hand in hand with performance. Training the mental disciplines are key to consistency in performance, growth and longevity at a competitive level. Goaltenders handle pressure Pre-game, Game, and Postgame, this takes leadership. Developing a “Mind Vault” approach keeps your focus always in the present, in the now current with the task at hand. You can’t play in the present when your mind is elsewhere.
Read and React Disciplines:
Ultimately illustrates the patience of the goaltender. The poise it takes, a baseball player reacts to the ball off the bat, a tennis player receiving a serve cannot afford to guess, the goaltenders read must be sharp and disciplined. Otherwise the goalie becomes predictable, and will be inconsistent in performance.
Goalie Athletics:
Anyone can stop the puck but can you stop a barrage of shots and game situations and not lose a beat. Consider an Olympic gymnast doing their routine, a professional wrestler every move staged, all choreographed, how many consecutive moves, that’s athletics. One save two saves in a row, three saves, and four saves, now it’s getting real, goalie athletics is designed to keep you in control from the top of your head to the ice.
Agility and Flexibility:
These abilities and disciplines lead to play connected responses, agility means your read and reaction time is tight, your flexibility allows you to go Hollywood and make the impossible save.
Core Strength:
Core strength achieves a level of play that illustrates how light on your feet you are, well you carry your body and in this case as a goalie.. Your core strength gives balance to all that you do on ice. It’s a cornerstone to your athletic prowess.
Athletic Body & Legs: Upper body and lower body need equal attention with variations in approach to maximizing strength, agility, balance with quickness, show reflexes and be in control of execution and recoveries. It’s clear when you observe an athlete in any sport, the combined core energies required to maintain harmony in motion or execution is visible can be felt when awareness of self is established. When the body is out of sync when performing the energy flow is clear, it’s not optimized, it’s wasting movement and energy which should be understood and mastered.
Anaerobic and Aerobic Conditioning: For those intense moments and those calm but steady moments. Example: You run at a steady pace, heart rate up and you pick a defined distance, like two street poles. Once you hit the first designated pole you turn on the jets only going back to your running pace as hit the second pole, this gets your heart rate up and ready for acceleration when you need to perform.
Good Hand-Eye & Body-Eye Coordination: A goalie responds to shots at them from the ice to the crossbar coming at them from speeds to differ paths high and low. Divide your body in half. Guess what, you have to react equally strongly on the left of center of the body, and right of center of the body, top to bottom, on the edge of the body t, top to bottom, just outside the body using arms, legs, upper torso, lower torso. You get the picture.
The Focused Eye and Peripheral Eye Training: The V.M.P. Visual Mental and Physical Relationships. Your focused eye and your peripheral eye provide lots of information to the brain and that information must be deciphered quickly and accurately to select the reaction/s for the moment and beyond. So understanding the relationship is key to performance.
Good Communication Skills: Falls into the leadership category. This skill cannot be overlooked. It can be a game changer. Like a big save, lifts a bench, an inspiring word or gesture really does go a long way.
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