New England Lacrosse Journal

January-February 2020 www.laxjournal.com 27 TRAIN LIKE A CHAMP TRAIN LIKE A CHAMP Change in play style requires change in training W hen Joe Nardella walked into Sta- dium Performance for the first time, I thought to myself, "Look at this Italian bull!" As one of the best faceoff specialists in the country for the Whipsnakes of the Premier Lacrosse League and the New England Black Wolves of the National La- crosse League, Joe has spent the majority of his collegiate and professional career training to be the strongest and most powerful faceoff player on the field. His strength training while in college at Rutgers University, and during his tenures with the Boston Cannons and Atlanta Blaze, yielded a physique that helped produce numerous achievements, including a 2019 PLL All- American selection by Inside Lacrosse and a championship, and finishing first overall in ground balls, goals, assists and total points for all FOs. Joe possess all the physical and per- formance metrics of an elite Premier La- crosse League player. But what about the NLL? Following our first training session, our initial assessment of Joe was cor- rect. He was strong, powerful and gritty. But what we didn't anticipate was his inability to express performance repeat- ability. As we collectively established, he had previously focused so heavily on dominating his opponent with strength, hand quickness and mental warfare, that he predisposed himself to an inability to generate the same maximal power, time and time again. The NLL demands significant differ- ences in skill sets as box lacrosse has more contact than field lacrosse and is played on a far smaller playing area. Box lacrosse players share many similarities with today's ice hockey ath- letes as they are required to sprint fast, change direction often and recover from maxi- mal burst quickly. Despite his dominant role for the Whipsnakes of the PLL, we decided that Joe needed more acceleration, top-end speed and muscle endurance if he was going to maximize his upcoming opportunity with the Black Wolves. A typical box lacrosse training pro- gram must carefully balance the de- mands of one of the most strenuous team sports. The sport requires the physical abilities of a field lacrosse player with the physiological foundation of a hockey player. Given the smaller dimensions of a box lacrosse field and the increased speed potential of the playing surface, players are almost constantly moving as they attempt to maneuver the ball into the goal. A quality strength training program will contain an aerobic foundation with the ability to repeatedly achieve anaero- bic peaks. This means, that in addition to strength, we would need to ensure that Joe could run faster, change direc- tion harder and perform both more often than ever before. Generally, research has shown that professional faceoff players are like American football players in that they have average aerobic fitness. Although their sprinting bouts last about 11 sec- onds, they are only all-out sprinting for about 10 minutes per game. Midfield players, on the other hand, have signifi- cantly greater endurance than attackers or defensive players and their aerobic endurance compares favorably to more traditional distance athletes like swim- mers and runners. In addition to an increase in accel- eration and anaerobic fitness, common sense told us that box lacrosse players will need to weigh a bit more to endure the increase in physical contact. The ca- veat, however, was to lower Joe's over- all body fat percentage while building lean mass. With a plan in place, just two weeks after winning his first PLL cham- pionship, we now had a mere six weeks to establish our performance goals. From a conditioning point of view, we focused on integrating repetitive maxi- mal-intensity sprints with his single-leg explosive movements. We used our Hi- Trainer sprinting treadmill to measure maximum and average power output, speed and muscle endurance. With the data, we established his repeatability metrics and programmed his intervals to increase each bout by 10 percent. To maintain the aerobic foundation required for the NLL, all rest periods between lifts would be active. This in- cluded jumping rope, rowing, jogging and battle rope drills. To compliment his increase in acceleration, we also focused on rapid footwork drills to promote en- hanced quickness and change of direc- tion skills. In addition to an increase in accelera- tion coming out of the faceoff circle, Joe would need to boost his ability to create separation after each change of direc- tion. For all sports across the board, the decelerative phase of a cut is the leading mechanism of most hip, knee and ankle injuries. For this reason, we trained with stability, instability, resistance and assis- tance to promote randomized external stimuli. Nearly two months after Joe secured the PLL game-winning championship fa- ceoff, we had achieved every every physi- cal and transformational goal. It's the ac- knowledgement of personal weaknesses that provides athletes with the opportu- nity to physically mature, statistically im- prove, and ultimately surpass all previous expectations. The agony of progress will always supersede the agony of defeat. Joe Caligiuri (MS, ATC, CSCS) is director of sports perfor- mance and medicine at Stadium Performance in Dedham, Mass., and has served as an athletic trainer with the NHL's Los Angeles Kings, NFL's New England Patriots and at Boston College. Check out spstrengthcoach.com. feedback@laxjournal.com CALIGIURI JOE Joe Nardella (left) is a faceoff specialist almost without peer in field lacrosse, but a different skill set is required in box lacrosse, and that requires work. Randy Litzinger/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

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