Lacrosse Athlete - Log

[Bobby32]

Hello all. Decided to start up a log on my training for lacrosse. I am a sophomore in high school and 16 years old. Currently in the off-season and on the Novice Program, except I’m doing high bar pause squats instead of low bar squats, pause bench instead of TnG bench, and strict press instead of press 2.0. I’ll also be doing explosive work, gpp, and mobility work too. Hope other athletes will find this helpful.

[Bobby32]

Tuesday, Feb. 12 2019

MB Rotational Scoop Throws: 10 throws

MB Chest Pass: 10 Throws

Squat (w/1ct pause): 275x5x3

Bench Press (w/1ct pause): 155x5x3

Power Clean: 160x3x5

Good session today.

[Bobby32]

Thursday, Feb. 14 2019

20yd Pushup Start Sprints: 4 sprints

20yd Side-Pushup Start Sprints: 6 sprints

Squat (w/1ct pause): 280x5x3

Press: 100x5x3

Deadlift: 345x5x1

Chin Up: 20x5x3

Good session today.

[Dillon Spencer]

Greetings! Lacrosse was my game in my younger days, so when I spotted your log I figured I'd pop in and see what you're up to. Looks like you've got some pretty decent numbers going already, particularly on squats and deads. Not trying to put you on blast or anything, but I'm curious about the rationale for high bar paused squats and paused benches.

[PowerDaClean]

Your upper body is kinda supbar given your squat and deadlift numbers. Given that you rep in the high 200s on a high bar paused squat (very impressive) I’d expect low 200s pause bench and low to mid 100s strict press, but since you’re mid teens and just now getting a taste of your upper body potential I understand why that’s not the case. I had exact the same situation when I was 16, what worked for me was straight up doing more sets of pressing, lots of chinups, developing strong arch and leg drive on bench and using the bulldog grip on pressing movements. Don’t slack on upper body, it translates much better than you think to contact sports like lacrosse. I wish my upper body was stronger when I was a wrestler.

Also I imagine high bar paused squats are just personal flavoring to the programming, they’re not inherently better or worse than low bar squats. Do what feels right and stick to it.

[Bobby32]

Hi Dillion! Thanks for the compliments. I'm doing high bar mainly cause my ego so I can compare squat strength with others (most athletes squat high bar). Also cause Jason Blaha recommends them. I know Blahino was messed up in the past, but these days he is the best fitness youtuber IMO. From what I've read it really won't matter what kind of squat you do. Just squat I guess. I highly doubt getting brutally strong on front or high bar squats will make me that much weaker if I did low bar. I'm doing pause work cause my form is better and for explosiveness.

[Bobby32]

Hi PowerDaClean (sick name lol). Yeah I've always been like that, weaker upper body. I'm definitely gonna work on it like you suggested. I'm doing chins twice a week (Monday and Friday) like Barbell Logic suggests. Yeah I'm doing high bar for the reasons I mentioned in my reply do Dillion.

[Bobby32]

Sunday, Feb. 17 2019

High Bar Squat Paused: 285x5x3

Bench Press Paused: 160x5x3

Power Clean: 165x3x5

Chin Up: 22.5x5x3

Good session today. No explosive work since I had to help a relative move a bunch of heavy stuff today. Squats were hard. Bench was good. Power Clean was easy. Chin ups were hard. Considering the manual labor I had to do today the session actually went well.

[Bobby32]

Monday, Feb. 18 2019

Continuous Shooting & Passing for 45mins (Keeping heart rate between 130-150bpm)

[Dillon Spencer]

Well, at least you've got a reason! Although, I'd caution you against "because Blaha said so" as a rationale for pretty much anything in life. Dude's a clown haha

I won't bust your chops too hard, but I'd encourage you to reconsider artificially limiting the amount of weight you can lift by pausing all your squats and benches. You're already training explosiveness with things like jumps, throws, sprints, and the power clean. Let the strength work get your strong, and let the other stuff take care of the explosiveness. When you get to an intermediate level, maybe you consider things like Dynamic Effort work. Until then, just worry about getting your lifts up. Guarantee you a 250 lbs bench press transfers better to the field than a 200 lbs paused bench!