A Goalie's Focus Leading Into major tournaments- by Jack Bowen

As goalies approach the end of their season and post-season games, it's important to consider changing their training and focus accordingly. Here are a few things to focus on in the remaining days of your preparation to maximize your performance in the goal.

1. Leg Conditioning: Move away from endurance focus and towards an explosive focus. For girls with JOs still 10 days away, you can incorporate some Broncos and Fire Walk over the next few days. Then, in the days leading up to big games you should shift to something more explosive quick like the “Pressure & Lunge” work (push your partner’s shoulders down for 2-3 seconds and then your partner does one explosive lunge) we’ll be doing at these upcoming sessions. And if you’ve been lifting weights, the week leading up to a big end-of-season tournament is the time to pull back from that in order to allow your muscles to recover and instead, shift your focus to stretching.

2. Fundamentals & Technique: At this point, your habits are locked in place based on your work and focus over the summer. So our fundamentals work can become a bit more dynamic to match game-situation. At this point, you’re not looking to make any major changes in your core fundamentals and we’re really ramping up our explosiveness with an emphasis on leg speed (RPM’s).

3. Quality over Quantity: Getting closer to a big tournament, you’re looking to do fewer moves, but with greater intensity and explosiveness. For example, don’t be in the goal during a shooting drill for 50 consecutive shots—instead, attempt to block 10-15 shots at 100% and then rotate out with a partner for rest/recovery.

4. Penalty Shots: With the new rules and the way games are being called, goalies can expect to see more penalty shots. Not to mention, USAWP games ending in a tie go to a penalty shootout, unlike high school games. Goalies should practice their penalty shot move in training and, if possible, develop a secondary move. In a game, and especially a shootout, where many penalty shots occur, you don’t want the other team to know what to expect during each penalty.

5. Stretching: Our stretching program is now especially important for recovery. As tournaments involve multiple games over consecutive days, include an added emphasis on stretching during the days leading up to a game and, following a game, warm down and stretch to help your body recover and prepare to perform in the next game. 

6. Rest & Diet: Given how taxing a tournament can be, it’s especially important to focus on getting good rest and eating well during the days leading up to the tournament. And if you don’t already: Get a water bottle and make sure you’re hydrated well before any training and games.

7. Game Play: This is understandably a time when goalies become nervous going into games. This can actually be a good thing: It means you care about what you’re doing and it can even provide an added boost in game play. At this point, trust in your training and don’t go into games trying to do anything new or overextend yourself.

The hope here is that goalies can focus all of their hard work over the course of the summer thus maximizing their performance in big end-of-season tournaments, increasing the fun-factor as well!

-Jack Bowen
Menlo School Water Polo Coach, Author, & Head of Bowen Goalie Combines