Cradle Strengthing

[Ctown311]

Today I was watching my teams Varsity game and one of our attackman has a very strong cradle and I've almost never seen the ball get checked out.(his pocket is never illegal and he does not pinch his head) I was wondering what workouts I could do to strengthen my cradle alot. I'm looking into buying the warrior powermaster but what workouts could I do to strengthen my cradle?

[lax20]

yo man i dont know what your talking about. just cradle the way u do. its probably fine

[Ctown311]

I mean like I do have a strong cradle so the ball usually does not come out but like workouts like weightlifting so I can power cradle stronger and so I can work through traffic easier.

[lax20]

do u mean power cradling as in spinning your stick real fast, because that is a complete waste of time. what i think is better than having a strong cradle is just get your cradle to were it works and your comfortable then just dont let the d man hit your stick. hide the stick with your body. but if you are a dman then i dont know what to tell u ive never played d

[Ctown311]

No I don't spin it but I use alot of effort into cradling and I keep the head of my stick right next to my head but today I was getting slashed alot(ref only called 1 slash) and the ball was coming out. I usually don't let anyone hit me but I do get a good check on me once in awhile. I'm just looking for workouts that can help me to be able to put a little more power in my cradle.

[greenshoelaces]

Just don't use the term, "power cradling", and people would understand.

But yes, having a stronger and faster cradle allows you to get through some of the stick checks the Defense throws at you. Which builds confidence while driving to the goal (especially if you are an attackman)

Your forearm is the part of the arm that you need to strengthen in order to have a stronger cradle. So work on you forearms by lifting dumbbells or something. You should notice a BIG difference by next season.

[lax20]

im probably not helping much, but i just had a game and the ball was never hit out of my stick so ill try to tell you what i do/did

so with my cradle i do one full normal cradle then one back spin and then one forward spin then i repeat it but that is only when we are setting up plays and im not getting to much pressure.

but when im driving or somthing i usually just drive in cradling without the spin and it is usually around my head like you said (you do this because if the defender goes for a poke/slap check and hits you in the head they get a penalty). then i will go one handed and turn so my body is between my stick and the dman ( if he cant see it he cant hit it)

thats realy all i got i just go with what feels right. you might be snapping your wrist to much or flinging the stick so the ball comes out. for the exercise i would just do like curls and stuff to work out your forearms.

[Ctown311]

Thanks for the help. I wasn't really looking for techniques but I'll try that out tommorow at practice. And I'll get on my forearms right away when I lift tommorow.

[lax20]

let me know what happens plz thanks

[TigerLax29]

The best workout you can do is forearm exercises. Take a section of shaft or a round piece of wood and tie a string to it and with a weight tied to it so that when you rotate the shaft the strings wraps around it and lifts the weight. Then you just wind it up then unwind it one way, then turn it around and wind it up and unwind it the other way.

I used to do the thing where you use a dumbell and just roll it with your forearm flat on your knee but a trainer told me it was bad for you. I don't remember why but the new method seems more effective anyway.

The other muscles used for cradling should be part of your normal workout, bench press, fly, curls, triceps etc.

You can do the weighted shaft (forget the powermaster, just fill your shaft with STEEL #9 birdshot, do not use lead) but I would think you would be better off doing something like an ankle weight around the throat of your head since you are trying to create rotational resistance.

The thing that has helped my cradling strength hands down 10x more than anything else is swinging a hammer. I do some blacksmithing and horseshoeing and swinging a 2.5lb forging hammer will give you one heck of a workout. It's done a lot for my cradling and one handed stuff.

It's not all about strength though so keep working on your form, especially keeping a tight close cradle. Practicing in the mirror works well. Also work on good form with your off-stick hand to protect your stick. The biggest mistake I see players making when cradling is having the stick too high. Coaches always say "cradle by your head" but just like "never scoop one handed" it's not entirely true. You should try to keep your stick down around your shoulders.

[sabreace]

Just fill your stick, or preferably an old cheap one (heavier most likely) with the steel birdshot or bbs of some other nature (I have some weird zinc-lead-steel alloy for mine). Practice with that during the summer, and I guarantee you'll see a strength boost in all aspects of your game.

[greenshoelaces]

Or you could just buy the WARRIOR weighted training shaft.

[cheesehead]

another exercise i do that my coach taught me is i take the curling bar and hold it with my thumbs facing away from me just underneath my buttocks. then i curl it up with my forearms. 3 sets of 30. by 25 on set 3 you should barely be able to do it. i do it every day and add 5 pounds every other day

[HeadHeartHustle]

hmmm, it seems to be a stick protection issue. if your stick is never checked, the ball shouldnt come out.

[Ctown311]

Well yah I know shouldn't be getting checked but it happens sometimes. I've fixed the protection problem and I am working on my strengthing.

[zachattack8020]

strenghten your wrists

[underdog10]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlE7wGonJlM&feature=related

that will help you

[underdog10]

strenghten your wrists

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlE7wGonJlM&feature=related

that will help you

[lax-crazy]

recently I have started deadlifting a lot more and doing many more forearm work outs, in turn my cradle strength has done up, I can power cradle a lot better and throw a lot more people. Just get your grip strength up, and your forearm strength also.

Also don't SPIN your stick, it's a bad habit, and I wouldn't recomend it.

[azlax19]

For improved wrist stregnth do wrist curls, reversed barbell curls, hammer grip dumbell curls.

I found a good article here on improving shot speed but requires essentially the same muscles as cradling:
http://www.e-lacrosse.com/yeager1.html

[the wister]

Cradling strength would come more from practice and confidence than anything else, having strong forearms will not immediately lead to a better cradle. When you are stick checked, the ball does not shoot out, it's just dislodged. So if you become better at quickly recovering from a poke check by controlling the ball and getting it back into your pocket before it rolls off the plastic and out of your head, you will do a lot better than someone who simply grips their stick harder. At first, to practice, you may need to watch your stick to learn how it feels when the ball is knocked loose and where it is on your head so that you know how to pull it back in faster.

[molax57]

do alot of wrist curls. get a low weight dumbell and like curl with only your wrist not your entire arm then do an equal amount of reps but reverse...

wrist curls: palm up holding a dumbell, knuckles should be pointing down towards the ground, bring wrist up so that the knuckles point towards the ceiling

reverse wrist curls:palm facing down towards the ground while holding the dumbell, bring wrist up so that knuckles point towards ceiling.

[lax-crazy]

Cradling strength would come more from practice and confidence than anything else, having strong forearms will not immediately lead to a better cradle. When you are stick checked, the ball does not shoot out, it's just dislodged. So if you become better at quickly recovering from a poke check by controlling the ball and getting it back into your pocket before it rolls off the plastic and out of your head, you will do a lot better than someone who simply grips their stick harder. At first, to practice, you may need to watch your stick to learn how it feels when the ball is knocked loose and where it is on your head so that you know how to pull it back in faster.

I agree but having stronger fore arms helps. I am not saying one is better than the other just that having a stronger grip helps. Maybe you are right about the confidence over the summer I have been playing with more confidence than I useualy do, but I have also made huge gains in grip and forearm strength. In my case with the situations I discribed I just power cradled through my situations.

However at higher levels of lax everything helps, forearm strength and all of that stuff. At lower levels I would 100% say that cardle practice and technique is much more important tha grip strength

[Ironslave]

http://www6.mailordercentral.com/ironmind/images/1260-F.JPG

Trust me on this, get a bar like this (or just take a 25 lb bar), hold it straight out in front of you, and twist your wrists back and forth, so the bar is going like a windmill.

[bonebrakr12]

Or you could just buy the WARRIOR weighted training shaft.

that was a waste of money for me. it was not really that heavy anyways.

[the wister]

I agree but having stronger fore arms helps. I am not saying one is better than the other just that having a stronger grip helps. Maybe you are right about the confidence over the summer I have been playing with more confidence than I useualy do, but I have also made huge gains in grip and forearm strength. In my case with the situations I discribed I just power cradled through my situations.

However at higher levels of lax everything helps, forearm strength and all of that stuff. At lower levels I would 100% say that cardle practice and technique is much more important tha grip strengthStrength definitely helps. But most people believe, and have suggested, that simply strengthening your forearms will help you out, and that is the wrong way to go about it. If you practice enough, your arms will get stronger.

[Ctown311]

I have done multiple upon multiple workouts for my wrists and the have definetly worked. I have done wrist curls, did some black smithing-esque construction with my dad and just played alottt. Thanks for all the help guys and hopefully any other TLFer will stumble upon this so they don't make a thread for it.