STRENGTH and Lacrosse: Athletes Break Down Without It‼️

Speed may define lacrosse, but strength is what keeps athletes on the field long enough to use it. At the end of the day you are only as good as you are on the field of battle, I mean play. I think the component of strength, or sustaining strength, and its role on injury prevention is one of the most misunderstand components. Strength training is often treated as optional, seasonal, or purely aesthetic. In fact, some athletes train hard in the offseason and then abandon training once games start; coaches at the high school level are very guilty of this. What I am trying to get across to every reader is that this “load-management” approach is exactly why injuries begin to spike mid-season and why velocity fades late in games. And to add one more layer on this, this is why so many athletes feel “beat up” constantly. Simply state, they’re weak!!

Look, as much as you might think strength is not about size, it is about force control. Every sprint, cut, shot, and collision places massive stress on joints, tendons, and connective tissue. If the body cannot absorb and redirect that force efficiently, something has to give. Usually it’s the hamstring, the groin, the hip flexor, the knee, or the low back. All of these injuries are predictable outcomes of weak links (hips & glutes) being exposed at game speed.

What Happens with Resistance Training?

The human body adapts to load, bones become denser, tendons become thicker and stiffer and ligaments strengthen. Oh, and muscles learn to coordinate force across joints... maybe I should have put all of that in bullets!! All of these results only happen when the body is challenged with meaningful resistance. Bodyweight, light loads and endless band work is not enough. Strength requires load, intent, failure and progression. One of the biggest misconceptions in lacrosse is that lifting heavy will make athletes slow or bulky. Well, I am here to tell you that the opposite is true when strength is trained correctly. Stronger athletes produce more force with less effort. That means faster acceleration, better deceleration, and way more efficient movement patterns. Strength improves rate of force development, which is the ability to apply force quickly. This directly translates to sprint speed shot velocity and rotation.

Most athletes favor one side: they shoot off one leg, rotate through one hip, decelerate harder on one side, and cut predominantly in one direction. Over time, these asymmetries stack. Without strength training to correct them, the body compensates, and compensation always leads to injury. Even a 10-15% side difference is enough to create the environment for injuries to show up. Well, with the right strength training protocols (unilateral training) we can expose imbalances early, before they become problems. Single-leg work reveals hip instability. Unilateral pressing and pulling highlight asymmetrical shoulder strength. Anti-rotation core work exposes poor trunk control. Issues with movements like these expose weaknesses and if caught early enough, we can avoid foreseeable injuries.

Speed & Strength

Without a strength base, speed gains are temporary. Or, better yet, if your ability to produce force goes down your speed does too. Fast athletes who lack strength peak early and decline quickly. Strong athletes maintain speed deeper into the season and much further into games because they are not constantly operating at their physical limit. This does not mean that every lifting session should be at maximal, especially in-season, but it doesn’t mean that you have to have hard training sessions each week. In-season strength training should be strategic but it still needs to be laced with enough intensity to force adaptions. In-season is not maintenance, its adaptation, but with volume considerations: fewer exercises – higher quality – calculated workloads. At the end of the day you need to have enough load programmed in to maintain neural drive and tissue integrity for all lacrosse athletes... And you need to be able to do so without compromising recovery of the mind, muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Tendons and ligaments definitely deserve special attention. Why? Because they adapt more slowly than muscle, they are your velocity and they are the structures that fail under high-speed stress. Sprinting and cutting place enormous elastic demands on tendons and doing this under fatigue is even more demanding. When a lacrosse athlete doesn’t have sufficient strength, tendons become overloaded, irritated, and eventually injured. Heavy, controlled lifting, especially eccentrics and isometrics, can help teaches tendons how to tolerate and store force. When you only focus on concentric based training modalities, like Keyser units, the body doesn’t learn to tolerate and store, nor does it adapt. This is why athletes who only run and condition, or only do explosive movements, often feel fragile (they are soft). Sure, their general cardiovascular system might improve, but their connective tissue and ability to repeat bouts of power never catch up. Strength training bridges the gap and prepares the body for the violence of the sport.

The Hidden Gem No One Talks About

My favorite most overlooked benefit of strength training is in regards to the hormonal improvements that comes with resistance training. Heavy resistance work improves testosterone levels, growth hormone, and insulin sensitivity. These hormones drive recovery, tissue repair, and lean mass maintenance. These traits play a big role in an athlete’s ability to sustain their body, mind and speed during season. Athletes who stop lifting during the season often experience slower recovery, poorer sleep, and increased fatigue. We often blame this on games getting harder, but I would argue that a lot of it has to do with the fact that the hormonal support system has been removed. Strength training makes you tougher, period. It builds you, it forces you to preserve through failure and it makes you battle through discomfort. In a world of softness, strength training makes you less soft!!

The athlete who lifts consistently can expect:

• Increased performance

• Longer careers

• Improved confidence

• Less fear to succumb to injuries

A strong body is a strong mind and this trait gives athletes permission to play fast without hesitation. Lacrosse is a sport of force, speed, and control... AND strength is the foundation that allows all three to exist without the body breaking down...