MOB — Mobility & Stretching (Part 3 of 3)

MOB-33 — THE COOL-DOWN WALK

Category

Recovery — cool-down

Purpose

To bring your heart rate, breathing, and brain down out of training mode before you stretch, eat, or get in the car. When you stop hard exercise suddenly and stand still, blood pools in your legs, your heart rate stays high, and your body stays in "go" mode. Two to four minutes of easy walking fixes all of that for free. This is also the entry that makes your static stretching work: a stretch on a warm, calm body gains range, and a stretch on a body still breathing hard is just something you rushed through. Every session in this program — every single one, 3rd grade through 12th — opens THE FINISH block with this walk.

Equipment

None.

Space needed

Anywhere you can walk about 20 steps and turn around. A driveway, a sideline, a hallway, a backyard, a gym baseline.

Grade range

3rd–12th grade. Identical for every age. Nobody outgrows this.

Time

2–4 minutes. Use 2 minutes after a light session, 4 minutes after a hard one.

How to do it

1. Stop training. Do not sit down. The second your last rep or last shot is done, stay on your feet and start walking. Do not flop onto the grass, do not lie down, do not go straight to your water bottle and stand still. Standing still is the one thing to avoid.
2. Walk at an easy, normal pace for 2 to 4 minutes. Not a race walk, not a stroll — the pace you would use walking to class. Down and back, in a circle, around the field, it does not matter. Just keep moving.
3. Take your helmet and gloves off in the first 30 seconds. Let your head and hands cool. If you are in full gear, pop the chest protector loose too. Getting heat out of your body is half of what this walk is doing.
4. Let your arms hang and shake them out. Roll your shoulders backward a few times as you walk. Shake your hands out like you are flicking water off them. Ten seconds each, whenever it feels good.
5. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Count 4 counts in and 6 counts out. Slow, long exhales are the fastest way to tell your body the work is over. If you cannot get to 4 and 6 at first, that is fine — start at 3 and 4 and let it stretch out as you walk.
6. Sip water while you walk. Small sips, not a chugged bottle. You will drink more later with your recovery snack.
7. Say one sentence out loud about the session before you finish the walk. One thing that went well, or one thing you are fixing next time. Out loud, to yourself or to a parent. This is how a session gets filed away in your head instead of just ending.
8. Check yourself before you move on. You should be breathing through your nose comfortably and able to talk in full sentences. If you are not there yet, walk another minute. Then, and only then, go into your stretching.

Coaching cues - "Never stop cold." The worst thing you can do after hard work is stand perfectly still. - "Long exhale." The out-breath is the brake pedal. Make it longer than the in-breath. - "Helmet off first." - "Walk until you can talk." That sentence is the whole test. - "The session is not over until the walk is over." Treat the walk as part of training, not as the thing after training.

Common mistakes - Skipping it because it feels like it does not count. It counts. It is the setup for everything else in THE FINISH. - Sitting or lying down immediately. This is the number one habit to break, and it is the most common one. - Walking fast, or turning the walk into more conditioning. Easy means easy. - Chugging a full water bottle in 20 seconds while standing still. Sip and move. - Staring at a phone during the walk. The breathing and the one-sentence reflection are the mental half of this entry, and a phone deletes both. - Doing it in full gear on a hot day. Gear comes off, the walk stays on.

Progressions and regressions - Regression (grades 3–4): 2 minutes, and let it be a walk-and-talk with a parent about anything at all. No breath counting required at this age — just move and talk. - Regression (very short on time): 90 seconds of walking is still worth far more than zero. Never skip it entirely. - Progression (grades 7–12): add 30 seconds of easy arm circles and shoulder rolls (MOB-14) during the walk, and finish with 5 slow nasal breaths standing tall with your hands on your head, elbows wide. - Progression (after the hardest sessions, grades 9–12): extend to 5 minutes and finish with 2 minutes of legs up the wall (see MOB-23, position 8) before you stretch. - Progression (after a game): run MOB-35 instead, which starts with this walk and continues from there.

How to know it's right - The talk test: at the end of the walk you can speak a full sentence without gulping for air. That is the finish line. - The pulse test (grades 7 and up): count your pulse for 15 seconds right when you stop training and again at the end of the walk. The second number should be clearly lower. Over a season of training, that drop gets bigger and faster — that is your fitness improving, measured for free. - The sweat test: you should have stopped producing new sweat by the end. - The stretch test: your first stretch in THE FINISH should feel easy to settle into. If it feels rushed and your heart is pounding, you walked too little. - The habit test: after four weeks, you start walking automatically when the session ends without being told. That is the real goal.

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MOB-34 — THE SUNDAY MOBILITY FLOW

Category

Recovery — optional restorative flow

Purpose

Sunday is a rest day in this program, and rest day means rest. This is the one optional thing offered on that day, for the athlete who wakes up stiff from a Saturday game or who simply likes moving. It is slow, quiet, and gentle, and it is built to leave you feeling better than when you started — looser hips, a calmer head, and a body that is ready for Monday. It is not training. It does not make you a better goalie by itself. If you would rather sleep in, read, or do nothing at all, that is a completely correct choice and this entry will be here next Sunday.

Equipment

A mat, a carpet, or a towel on the floor. A wall. Optional: a pillow or a rolled towel for under the knees, and music you like.

Space needed

Enough floor to lie down flat and put your legs up a wall — about 7 feet by 5 feet. A bedroom floor is plenty.

Grade range

3rd–12th grade. This is the version grades 3–6 use in place of MOB-23 (Static Stretch Set D), which uses long holds that younger athletes do not need.

Time

10–15 minutes. Ten is complete. Stop anywhere and it still counted.

How to do it

Do this after you have been up and moving for a while — after breakfast, after a shower, or after a short walk around the block. Never straight out of bed on a cold body. Hold each position for 30 to 45 seconds unless it says otherwise. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, and never push into a position hard enough that you cannot breathe smoothly.

1. Two-minute easy walk to start. Around the house, around the block, up and down the stairs a few times. This is the whole warm-up you need. If you already walked the dog or went to church, you can skip straight to step 2.
2. Standing reach and fold — 5 slow reps. Stand tall, reach both arms straight overhead and look up. Then slowly bend forward at the hips with soft knees and let your arms and head hang toward the floor. Hang for one breath. Roll back up slowly, one bone at a time, and reach overhead again. Five times, unhurried.
3. Cat-cow — 8 slow reps. On your hands and knees, hands under shoulders and knees under hips. Breathe in as you drop your belly and lift your chest and eyes. Breathe out as you round your back toward the ceiling and tuck your chin. Move with the breath, not faster than the breath.
4. Child's pose — 45 seconds. From hands and knees, sit your hips back toward your heels, reach your arms long in front of you, and rest your forehead on the floor. Let your chest sink. Breathe into your back. If your hips do not reach your heels, put a pillow between them.
5. Thread the needle — 30 seconds each side. From hands and knees, slide your right arm underneath your body to the left, palm facing up, and let your right shoulder and the side of your head rest on the floor. Keep your hips high and over your knees. Feel it in the back of the shoulder and through the mid-back. Switch sides.
6. Half-kneeling hip flexor — 30 seconds each side. Kneel on your right knee with your left foot flat in front of you, towel under the down knee. Squeeze your right backside, tuck your hips under you like you are zipping up a jacket, stand tall through the chest, and shift a small amount forward. You should feel it across the front of the right hip. Switch sides. (Full detail: MOB-25.)
7. Figure-four on your back — 30 seconds each side. Lie on your back, knees bent, feet flat. Cross your right ankle over your left thigh just above the knee so your legs make a number 4. Reach through the gap, grab behind your left thigh, and pull gently toward your chest. Head and shoulders stay on the floor. Switch sides. (Full detail: MOB-26.)
8. Happy baby or knees-to-chest — 30 seconds. Lie on your back and either hug both knees into your chest and rock gently side to side, or grab the outsides of your feet with your knees wide and pull your knees toward the floor beside your ribs. Whichever feels better. Both are correct.
9. Supine twist — 30 seconds each side. Lie on your back, arms out wide in a T. Pull your right knee up and let it fall across your body to the left, using your left hand to hold it down. Turn your head to look right. Keep both shoulders on the floor — that matters more than how far the knee travels. Switch sides.
10. Legs up the wall — 2 to 3 minutes. Sit with one hip touching a wall, then swing your legs up the wall and lie back so your body makes an L shape. Arms out to your sides, palms up, eyes closed. This is not a stretch. It drains the legs, drops your heart rate, and is the best three minutes of the whole flow. Breathe 4 counts in, 6 counts out. Stay as long as you like.
11. Get up slowly. Roll onto your side first, rest there for a breath, then push up to sitting and stand. Standing straight up from lying down makes you dizzy.

Coaching cues - "This is a rest day. This is a bonus, not a job." - "Slower than you think." If you finish in 6 minutes, you rushed it. There is nothing to win here. - "Breathe smoothly the whole time. If you have to hold your breath, back off." - "Stop whenever you want." Getting through four positions and quitting is a complete, successful Sunday flow. - "Warm first." A walk, a shower, or a morning of moving around — never on a cold body straight out of bed.

Common mistakes - Turning it into a workout. Adding push-ups, wall ball, or "just a few shots" defeats the purpose of the rest day and is the single most common error, usually made by the most motivated athletes. - Doing it first thing out of bed on a cold, stiff body. Move around for a while first. - Pushing into deep, hard stretches. Sunday is a 4 out of 10, never a 9. - Feeling guilty for skipping it. Skipping is allowed and expected. Some Sundays the right answer is a couch. - Rushing through with a phone in hand. If you are going to do it, give it your attention or do not do it. - Racing a parent or sibling to see who can reach further. Not that kind of day.

Progressions and regressions - Regression (grades 3–4): steps 1, 3, 4, 8, and 10 only. About 6 minutes. Make it a family thing — a parent or sibling on the floor next to you makes it far more likely to actually happen. - Regression (sore or beat up from Saturday): steps 1, 4, and 10 only. Walk, child's pose, legs up the wall. Five minutes and you are done. - Progression (grades 7–12): hold each position 45 to 60 seconds and add 3 minutes of easy foam rolling on the quads, calves, and upper back before step 2. About 18 minutes. - Progression (grades 9–12, in Post-Season or Off-Season): run MOB-23 (Static Stretch Set D) instead for the deep, long-hold version, or run this flow and finish with 5 minutes of the breathing work in MEN before getting up. - Progression (a bad night of sleep or a stressful week): stay in legs up the wall for a full 5 to 10 minutes and skip everything else. That is a legitimate and often the best version of this entry.

How to know it's right - You feel better at the end than at the beginning. That is the only performance standard in this entry. - You are calm, maybe a little sleepy, and your breathing is slow and quiet. - You are not sweating, not sore afterward, and not tired from having done it. - Monday's warm-up feels a notch easier than it does on a Sunday you skipped. Over a season you will notice this pattern, and that is what turns the flow into a habit you choose. - The honest test: you looked forward to it. If it starts feeling like an assignment, take three Sundays completely off and see if you miss it.

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MOB-35 — THE POST-GAME RECOVERY FLOW

Category

Recovery — post-competition

Purpose

A game is different from training. Your heart rate spent an hour spiking and crashing, you took shots off the body, you were locked in emotionally for two hours, and you are probably carrying either the high of a win or the sting of a loss. This flow does three jobs at once: it flushes the legs so you are not wrecked tomorrow, it settles your nervous system down out of competition mode so you can actually sleep, and it closes the book on the game so you are not replaying goals at eleven at night. Gentle throughout. Nothing here is hard, and nothing here is meant to make you better today — today is finished.

Equipment

Water and a recovery snack. A wall. A mat, a towel, or a patch of grass. Optional: a foam roller for 9th grade and up.

Space needed

Enough to walk a sideline, plus enough floor to lie down and put your legs up a wall. A sideline and a hotel room, locker room, or bedroom floor both work.

Grade range

5th–12th grade. Grades 3–4 should walk with a parent, drink water, eat something, and go play — that is the entire correct post-game routine at that age.

Time

8–10 minutes, started within about 30 minutes of the final whistle. The floor portion can be done later at home if you are getting on a bus.

How to do it

1. Walk for 3 to 5 minutes, gear coming off as you go — start immediately. Do not sit on the bench in full gear. Get the helmet and gloves off in the first 30 seconds, then the chest protector, and walk the sideline or the parking lot with a parent or a teammate. Breathe 4 counts in, 6 counts out. This is MOB-33, extended, and it is the most important step in the entry.
2. Drink and eat while you walk. Sip water steadily — not one giant chug. Within 30 minutes of the whistle, eat something with carbohydrate and protein: chocolate milk, a peanut butter sandwich, a banana with a handful of almonds, a yogurt. Your body refuels fastest in that first half hour, and the difference shows up in how you feel at the next day's practice. Keep this in your bag so it is not a decision you have to make while tired.
3. Say the three sentences before you get in the car. Out loud, to a coach, a parent, or yourself: one thing that went well, one thing you are working on next, and then "the game is over." Say the last one exactly like that. This is the closing ceremony — after these three sentences, the game does not get relitigated in the car, at dinner, or at bedtime.
4. Easy leg swings — 10 each direction, each leg. Hand on a fence, a wall, or the car. Small, loose, comfortable swings forward and back, then side to side. This is a flush, not a stretch — never force the end range on a body that just played. (Full detail: MOB-06.)
5. Standing quad and hip flexor — 30 seconds each side. Stand tall next to a wall for balance, pull one heel toward your backside, keep the knees side by side, and squeeze your backside so your hips tuck under. Gentle. If your quads are cramping, skip this and go to step 8. (Full detail: MOB-25.)
6. Standing or seated hamstring — 30 seconds each side. Heel on a low bench or curb, leg straight, toes up, hinge forward from the hips with a long back until you feel a firm pull behind the thigh. Do not round your back to reach further. (Full detail: MOB-24.)
7. Calf stretch on a wall or curb — 30 seconds each side. Hands on the wall, one foot back, back heel pressed down, back leg straight. Then bend the back knee slightly and hold again to reach the lower calf and Achilles. (Full detail: MOB-27.)
8. Figure-four on the ground — 30 seconds each side. Lie on your back on the grass or a floor. Cross your right ankle over your left thigh above the knee, reach through and pull the left thigh gently toward your chest. Head down, shoulders down. The hips and backside take a beating in a game — this is usually the one that feels best. (Full detail: MOB-26.)
9. Chest and front-shoulder opener — 30 seconds each side. Forearm on a doorframe, a fence post, or a goalpost with your elbow at shoulder height, then turn your body away. An hour in the ready position with your hands up leaves the front of the shoulders short. (Full detail: MOB-29.)
10. Legs up the wall — 3 to 5 minutes. At home, in the locker room, or against the side of the car if you have a towel. Sit with a hip to the wall, swing your legs up, lie back into an L, arms out with palms up, eyes closed. Breathe 4 in and 6 out. This drains the legs and drops your heart rate, and it is the step athletes skip and then wish they had not. Do it while you talk to your parents, not instead of it.
11. If your body took shots, ice can wait. For a normal bruise from a shot, walk, eat, and elevate first. Use ice only for a specific spot that is genuinely painful, 10 to 15 minutes with a towel between the ice and your skin, never directly on bare skin. Anything sharp, swelling fast, or still painful in the morning gets looked at by an adult, not stretched.
12. Protect your sleep tonight. Screens down 30 minutes before bed, room cool and dark, lights low. A game night is the single hardest night to fall asleep and the single most valuable night of sleep in the week. If your head starts replaying a goal, go back to 4 counts in and 6 counts out until you drift off.

Coaching cues - "The flush comes first, the stretch comes second." Walking beats every stretch in this list. - "Gentle. You just played a game — this is not the time to chase flexibility." - "Eat inside 30 minutes." Set an alarm on your phone if you keep forgetting. - "Three sentences, then the game is over." - "Legs up the wall is not optional if your legs are heavy." - "Wins and losses get the exact same routine." That consistency is what makes it a routine instead of a mood.

Common mistakes - Sitting in full gear on the bench for 20 minutes after the whistle. This is the single worst post-game habit and the most common one. - Deep, aggressive stretching right after a game. Muscles that just worked hard under fatigue do not want to be pushed. Go to a 4 out of 10 and no further. - Skipping food because you are upset about the result. This is exactly when your body needs it most, and it is a big reason athletes feel awful at the next day's practice. - Replaying the game in the car for 45 minutes. Say the three sentences and let it go. Full video review happens tomorrow, calmly, with a coach. - Doing the flow after a win but not after a loss, or the reverse. Same routine both ways. - Icing everything out of habit. Ice a specific painful spot, not a general feeling of being tired. - Staying up until midnight on the phone after a night game. It undoes most of what this entry just did.

Progressions and regressions - Regression (grades 5–6): steps 1, 2, 3, and 10 only. Walk, eat, three sentences, legs up the wall. About 6 minutes, and it delivers most of the benefit. - Regression (bus ride, tournament, no floor available): steps 1 through 3 plus the standing stretches (5, 6, 7) in the parking lot, then do steps 8 and 10 at the hotel or at home that night. Later is fine. Never is not. - Regression (second game of a doubleheader coming up): walk, eat, drink, and legs up the wall only. No static stretching between games — that leaves you slow for the next one. Redo the full flow after the final game. - Progression (9th–12th grade): add 3 to 4 minutes of easy foam rolling on the quads, calves, and upper back after step 1 and before the stretches. Extend the holds to 45 seconds. - Progression (11th–12th grade, heavy game schedule): run this flow, then run MOB-23 (Static Stretch Set D) the following morning after a warm shower, and take a 10-minute easy bike or walk that day as active recovery. - Progression (mental side): pair step 3 with your written post-game note in the MEN library — three sentences spoken now, three lines written before bed, then closed.

How to know it's right - You are breathing easily and can talk in full sentences before you get in the car. - You ate something within 30 minutes of the whistle. This is a yes or a no, and it is worth tracking. - Your legs feel lighter after legs up the wall than they did when you sat down. - You fall asleep at a normal time on a game night instead of lying there replaying goals. - The next-morning test: you wake up stiff but functional, not wrecked. Over a season, compare how you feel the morning after games where you did this flow versus games where you skipped it — that comparison convinces athletes faster than any coach can. - The consistency test: you ran the same routine after your best game and your worst game. That is the standard.

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© LAX Goalie Hub — MOB Library, v2. Entries MOB-01 through MOB-35.