Straight answers about goalie training

A new goalie session every day of the year, sequenced with timings and rep counts, written for your goalie's grade and for where they are in the season. It arrives by email. There is no app to install and nothing to log into.

Three things travel with every session at no extra cost: a printable Cheat Code Card with the whole day on one half sheet and a box to tick beside every set, a 90-second audio walk-through to listen to before they train, and access to the full drill library and glossary. A Welcome Guide arrives the day you join.

Field lacrosse goalies in 3rd through 12th grade, and the parents trying to help them. You do not need to have played the position. Most of the parents reading this have not — I had not either — and the Sunday email is written on exactly that assumption.

Both. Stance, hands, footwork, tracking, mindset and fuel are the same craft in either game, and the daily work does not change.

What does change is the rulebook and the kit. The rules and equipment notes in the program follow the boys' game, so a girls' goalie should check her own equipment requirements — the girls' game requires thigh pads, for one — against her league's rules rather than against ours.

Field lacrosse. Every session is written for the field goalie position — the arc, the angles, the clear, the stick. Box goalies work from a different stance in different gear and need a different program.

No. 3rd and 4th grade start at physical literacy — balance, coordination, catching without flinching, and learning to hold a stance. In the older grades, every session built on a skill with a range of ability gives you two tracks: one for the athlete who is new to it, one for the athlete who already has it. Nobody is left standing over a drill they cannot do.

Yes. The program is written grade by grade, so a 4th grader and a 10th grader are not doing the same work. Everyone moves up a grade on the first Monday of August, and the year that follows is new material rather than a repeat of the last one.

No. All 3,640 sessions were written before the program was released, in order, so that day 400 builds on day 399 and on the 399 days before it. Nothing is assembled the morning it sends.

It depends on the grade and on the time of year, deliberately. A 3rd or 4th grader is usually at ten to twenty minutes. Across a year a 5th grader's day runs from about ten minutes to an hour, most often nearer forty. A high schooler in the off-season runs forty-five to fifty. There is a rest block in August where several days are honestly zero.

Short sessions done most days beat one long one a week, which is why the program is shaped this way. Every session also names the two blocks to keep if the day fell apart — doing only those two is not cutting corners, it is the plan.

The session is written for the grade rather than scaled down from an adult program. Across a year a 5th grader's day runs from about ten minutes to an hour, most often nearer forty — a stick, a ball and a wall, no weights and no gym. The lighter weeks and the heavier ones are placed on purpose, and rest is built into the week rather than left to chance.

Do not take my word for it. A full week of any grade is free to read, with no email address required. Read it and judge for yourself.

A stick, a ball and a wall. Most days need nothing else. A few call for cones, a jump rope, a couple of tennis balls or a partner, and the session tells you what to have ready. Live-shot work in the older grades needs full goalie gear. Nothing in the program needs a gym, a cage, or a coach standing there.

That is what it is built for. Almost all goalie work — hand speed, stance, footwork, tracking, wall ball — needs only a stick, a ball and something to throw against, which is why a driveway and a garage wall will carry a decade of training. The session tells them what to do, in what order, for how long, so the decision is never theirs to make at seven in the morning.

Yes, and rest is part of it. Saturday and Sunday are written differently rather than skipped — the body rests while the habit, the fuel and the attention carry through. Sunday still brings your goalie the week ahead, and brings you the recap of the week behind.

It changes with the calendar, which is most of the point. The pre-season builds volume and rebuilds the stance. The in-season protects it — shorter, sharper, recovery-minded, because games are already supplying the load. The post-season deloads on purpose. The off-season is where the real technical work and the hand speed get built. Nobody grinds for twelve months and stays healthy.

Nothing breaks. Sessions do not stack up and they do not expire — the next morning's email arrives the same as always. The program is built on a decade, not on a streak.

No, and this is the part most programs get wrong. Your goalie joins their grade at whatever week the program is on right now and gets tomorrow morning's session — the same one every other goalie in that grade is doing. There is no backlog and nothing to catch up on. The program year runs August through July, matching school.

It happens by itself, on the first Monday of August. Your goalie moves to the next grade's program and starts that year at week one. You do nothing, and the price does not change.

No. It is what happens on the days there is not one — and there are far more of those than practice days. Through the season the sessions get shorter and sharper on purpose, because the games are already supplying the volume.

No, and it is not trying to. It gives your goalie structured daily work in between the sessions a coach can give them, which is the thing almost no young goalie has. If you have a team coach or a private goalie coach, this runs alongside them. If you have neither — which is the common case, because most clubs have nobody trained to coach the position — this is the coaching in between.

It is built to be. The program follows the USA Lacrosse Athlete Development Model, so volume and intensity are matched to the grade rather than scaled down from an adult plan. Goalies do bodyweight strength work for years before any barbell lifting appears in high school, every Sunday is a rest day, and the year has deliberate light blocks in it.

Two things that are yours, not mine: your athlete should be cleared for activity by a doctor, and a younger goalie should train with an adult nearby.

Every single day. Goalie is the only position where the mistake is public and the scoreboard keeps a record of it, so the mental work is not a bonus module — it is one of the three pillars in every session, alongside the body and the fuel. Resetting after a goal, pre-shot focus, self-talk, handling pressure, and by high school, leading a defence out loud.

The opposite. Playing other sports through middle school is one of the strongest predictors of an athlete who is still playing at eighteen, and the program is written assuming they do. On a heavy week, take the short version — that is what the Short on time line in every session is for.

The whole day on one half sheet, ready to print, with a box to tick beside every set. It goes out with every session. Pin it to the fridge, carry it to the wall, tick it off. For a lot of families it is the thing that turns the plan into a habit.

Yes. Every daily email carries a 90-second audio walk-through of that day, to listen to before they train. It is included at no extra cost.

222 drills, each written out in full — what it is for, the equipment, numbered steps, coaching cues, the common mistakes, an easier version and a harder one. When a session says Never-Cross Shuffle (DRL-09), that is a link, not a mystery. Beside it sits a glossary of 189 terms, written so a parent who has never held a goalie stick can read a session and follow it. Browse the library.

Nine simple tests, taken four times a year on a printable scorecard: August, December, February and May. Wall ball catches in a minute with each hand, the longest juggling run, line hops, broad jump, plank, pipe-to-pipe shuffles, drop-catch reactions and a stance hold. The only opponent on the page is the version of your goalie who took it last time. See the scorecards.

A good deal of it. Over a hundred free articles written for goalie parents, the full 222-drill library and glossary, a free build guide for a home training wall, and a complete week of the program at whichever grade you want — all seven days, no email address, no account.

Everything comes to the email address you use at checkout. The daily session is written to your goalie — read it to them, forward it, or hand them the phone. The Sunday Parent Guide is written to you.

For goalies in 8th grade and below we hold no athlete address at all and never send to one. That is deliberate, and it is not something you have to switch on.

The week ahead in plain English: what they are training and why it matters, the equipment to have ready, what to watch for in their technique, and the one thing that helps most. Plus an honest look back at the week behind. It assumes you are hands-on in the younger grades and mostly the support crew by 11th and 12th — which, by then, you are.

No, and that is close to the whole point. Every drill is written out, every term is defined, and the Sunday email translates the week for you. If you can read an email and stand near a wall, you can support a goalie.

Email coach@laxgoaliehub.com, or use the contact page. A real person reads every message — usually me, usually the same day.

$29 a month, or $290 for the year — which works out to $24.17 a month, or 79¢ a day. The annual plan covers a full grade year, August through July, including the summer block most programs skip. The price is the same whichever grade your goalie is in.

On the program page: choose your athlete's grade and first name, pick monthly or yearly, and check out with a card. The grade is not optional — it is the single thing that decides which sessions arrive, so the picker has to run. The first session lands the next morning.

Yes. A subscription covers one goalie, and a second goalie — including a sibling in the same house — needs their own. It is not a licence technicality: each subscription sits in one grade, and everything that arrives is written for that grade, that level and that point in the season. Two goalies in different grades sharing one session would mean one of them is doing the wrong work.

Not through the website — each subscription covers one goalie. If you are running a club, a high school program or an organisation and want your goalies on it, write to me at coach@laxgoaliehub.com and we will set something up properly.

No public sales and no discount codes. The best price is the yearly plan at $290, which is two months free against paying monthly, and it is available to everyone on the same terms all year.

Yes, and it costs nothing at all. A full week of the program is free to read — all seven days, written out exactly as they send, at whichever grade you choose. No email address, no account, nothing held back. There are three sessions on the home page as well.

Two taps in your account at account.laxgoaliehub.com. Billing stops and the program keeps working until the period you have already paid for runs out. No phone call and no retention offer.

Cancelling stops every future payment straight away, and you keep the program to the end of the period you have already paid for. Nothing you have paid for is taken away from you. Payments that have already been taken are not refunded.

That is exactly why a whole week of the program is free to read before you pay. Read it first.

If something has gone wrong — charged twice, charged after you cancelled, charged the wrong amount, or you could not reach the program because of a fault at our end — that is a different thing and we will put it right. Write to me. The full wording is in the refund policy.

We retry it and email you. If it still cannot be collected, the subscription pauses and the sessions stop until the payment goes through. Nothing is lost — when it clears, your goalie picks up at whatever day the program is on.

No. LAX Goalie Hub is online only. The training program arrives by email, and the hats, hoodies and accessories are sold here on the site.

The training program is delivered by email, so it never carries a shipping charge. The apparel and accessories are printed to order and shipped from the printer, so the rate depends on the item and is shown at checkout before you pay. Express delivery is offered on some items, such as hats and hoodies.

Not yet. The store is set up for United States customers today, in US dollars. If you are outside the US and you want the program, write to me at coach@laxgoaliehub.com — I would rather hear from you than have you find out at the checkout.

I do. Greg Sicotte — founder of LAX Goalie Hub, a USA Lacrosse certified coach, and a goalie coach and Vice President at Stanwood Youth Lacrosse in Washington. I did not play goalie. I am the coach who kept getting handed one. The longer version is here.

The USA Lacrosse Athlete Development Model, stage by stage — physical literacy in 3rd and 4th grade, the skill-acquisition years in 5th and 6th, tactical reading in middle school, and structured strength and performance work through high school. The model decides what belongs in a grade. The daily writing decides what happens on a Tuesday.

Yes, and there are two, depending on who you are.

If you coach, run a club, or make lacrosse content, become a partner. If you are simply a parent who already subscribes, you do not need to sign up for anything — a referral link appears in your account after you join, and passing it on is enough.

Coaches, trainers, club directors, goalie parents who also coach, and people who make lacrosse content. You need to be 18 or older. Every application is read and approved by hand rather than automatically, because the point is people who actually know the families they are talking to.

No. There is no cash, no commission and no sales target, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight. Nobody earns a penny for a recommendation, which means nobody has a reason to push the program at a family it does not suit. What partners get instead is free access and sponsored goalies — the two answers below.

Two things. Free access to the full daily program, so you know exactly what you are recommending rather than recommending it blind. And your own link and code to share at practice, in the team chat, or wherever your people are.

$29 off their first payment. On the monthly plan that is the whole first month free. On the annual plan it is $29 off the $290, so the first year costs $261 — a discount rather than a free year.

After that they pay the normal price, and they can cancel at any time like anyone else.

Every five families a partner brings in pays for one goalie to train free for a full year.

A coach nominates the goalie, we approve it, and that family gets the year at no cost — aimed at places where lacrosse is still new and there is nobody around who has played the position. At the end of the year they decide for themselves whether to carry on. It is the closest thing to a commission we run, and it is paid to a kid rather than to you.

Yes. A family is credited to you for 365 days from their first click. Parents research a decision like this slowly, often across a whole season, so a seven-day window would have been useless to everybody.

Yes, every time, and it is not optional. When you share LAX Goalie Hub, say you are a partner of the program. It is required by law once you are getting anything in return, including free access — and more to the point, the families you coach will find out eventually, and it is far better that they hear it from you.

No. Subscribers get a referral link of their own — your friend gets the same $29 off their first payment, and you get $10 of credit to spend in the gear shop for each family who joins and stays.

One thing worth knowing: the same email address cannot be in both the subscriber referral scheme and the partner program. If you coach as well as subscribe, pick whichever fits and use a different address for the other.

Once the family you referred has paid their second month, which is about a month after they join. It is not instant, and that is on purpose — a first month that was free and then cancelled is not really a family joining, and we would rather wait and be sure than claw a credit back off you later.

No. Most of what works here is a coach telling three families at practice, or one parent telling another in a car park. Nothing about the program asks you to post, film, or build an audience.