Q. I am just wondering how people are improving their stick hand coordination / saves? and if people have any exercises that work well for this?
A. Here’s a selection of comments made by our Facebook followers…
Andrew Wilkie practise ball juggling works for me
Jillian Fraser Practice. If you do repeated amounts of a certain save you’ll get better at it.
Reece Perry Over on rachaellynch.com.au she recommends playing table tennis as an off-season exercise – preferably with both hands. Helps hand-eye, reflexes and stick hand fundamentals. During the season I would say practice is the best thing.
Matt Abson-bennett Play badminton or any other racket based sport 🙂
Madeleine Cho Practicing the proper technique over and over again, even without a ball will help with the muscle memory part, then when you have access to someone to throw a bunch at you, you’ll have the muscle memory to save the balls.
Bryttany Duncker soccer keeping helps you move to the ball and have killer dives
Leon van Gass My advice to younger keepers is always repetitive training, often in game or “normal” training sessions are just not adequate because in a whole game or session you are limited to maybe 20 or so aerial saves. However I’ve found that by far the best way is long session with a bowling machine (or a coach with tennis balls and an racket) always shows results. It focusses on specific technique instead of only reaction time and in addition it is always a great confidence booster
Chris Greaney I have always used tennis balls and ball juggling to coach keepers and have found it to be effective,another tip when holding your stick which works is to point your index finger down the shaft of your stick,that way to be accurate you literally have to just point at the ball ! Try it it works 😀
Lilian Brouwer Saving balls with your stick is not so hard, just a few things to remember… Hold your stick a bit angeled in the glove so your wrist get locked and you will see that you won’t try to hit the ball with your stick, but just set your stick to the ball. Another important issue is that you stop the high ball in front of you (you got to see and feel the ball, not only feel it)… The angle make sure that you don’t tip the ball in your goal as well (since the stick will be straight when you stretch your arm). And then it is all about practicing it on the pitch… And don’t forget, you need to still step with your feet as well…
Muhammad Atique Ur Rehman I think that one can improve both side of upper body by standing two players in front of each other and when one through the ball,like at right site you have to catch with left hand and on left side use your right hand by doing this you can improve both site, coordination and also foot work….
Jakim Berndsen Play racket sports that are particularly fast (badminton or squash) and make sure your holding the racket in the right hand, regardless of whether you normally play left handed. Great for reactions, great for footwork, and best of all the forward is going to have to put in one hell of a shot to get it past your stick.