Stretching Exercise - The Importance of Stretching

Stretching, is it a waste of time? I hope you never think that. Stretching is one of the most important part in a goalies game. The biggest reason to stretch is to avoid injury. An injured goalie is of no use to his team. Another big reason is it helps you warm up, something that is probably much less thought about is how goalies are supposed to have "cat like refllexes", a quick glove or hand, and be able to move freely and easily. If you stretch before every game and every practice and every training session, hopefully you will have stretched at a minimum of 3 times a week. Stretching should take around 10-15 minutes if done properly, you must make sure that each muscle is stretched and warmed up.

Some basic stretching exercises that a goalie can do are as follows :

Stretching your legs.

Exercise #1

A goalies legs are very important to him, this is the part of the body that provides the most amount of area, they are very good for protecting the lower part of the net as well as the mid section. So before each game, if you only have time to stretch 1 part of your body. You should stretch your legs.

Start on your knees in your butterfly position, keep your right knee on the ground and stretch your left leg out like your making a save. Do not force your leg down, take your glove and apply pressure down to the ground around your knee. Start off with a little bit and slowly apply more and more pressure. Your leg should be moving lower and lower towards the ground closing the gap between the bottom of your pad and the ground. After a year of doing this 3 times a week you should be able to get your pad almost flush with the ground.

Push your leg down as much as you can until you feel like it won't push anymore, then hold that position for 10 seconds. It may be tough but if you dont feel any strain in your groin and leg then your not doing it right or your not applying enough pressure.

Once you are finished with the left leg continue onto the right leg, keep your left knee on the ground this time and stretch out your right leg. Do the same thing as you did with your left leg.

Exercise #2

This exercise is more for your groin then legs. Pulling your groin is not fun!

Go into your butterfly position, legs perfectly on the ground. Next lean forward, and move your legs so they are parallel to each other, your legs must still be on the ground, It should look like your squatting but with your legs on the ground. Next push your body down so it stretches your legs (groin) its like doing the splits but with your legs tucked in, and you should lean forward.

Exercise #3

This will be our last exercise for this article. This one will help stretch your hamstrings (The muscle at the top and back of your leg. It is usually the biggest muscle.)

For this exercise stand up, next stick your leg out, make sure the back pick of your skate is on the ground (You should probably be on a rubber mat or rubber floor). Next squat with your leg still bent out, keep going down as much as you can and hold it. Rinse and repeat and do the same with the other leg.

Well thats all for today, there are more stretching exercises you can do I will discuss some more in later articles.

For now I will leave you with some tips.

• I like to only get my bottom half dressed, so this is my skates and pads and everything else. Then I put on a t-shirt and only my blocker and catcher. This is the equipment that I put on to stretch with.
• Try to stretch in a secluded place away from noise and lots of action, you wanna be concentrated and focused.
• Don't stretch until you break a sweat, you want to just get your muscles all warmed up, not tire yourself out.

That's all for now!
Sean