Resolved Question
Help with Plyometrics for a Novice Lacrosse Player

I’m currently a junior in high school who would really like to play lacrosse next year and… I’ve never played a game in my life. The way I see it, I have a year to beat some lacrosse geared athleticism into me before I embarrass myself in front of my friends and about 6-9 months before I embarrass myself in front of an indoor team.
My goal is to prevent this embarrassment from happening. So I’ve begun a pretty demanding training schedule: Day 1 Upper Body Mandatory Day 2 Lower Body Mandatory Day 3 Minor Muscles (Semi-recovery day) Day 4 Plyometrics Day 5 Lacrosse technical skills. This is done for 3 weeks, then a rest week and then it begins again with workouts on different days and hopefully different exercises. My main problem is, I don’t know a good plyometrics workout routine. The other problem is I don’t know any exercises that would improve my stick skills.

Current athletic ablitity and other info:
I’m approximately 165 pounds and 6 feet and 1 inch tall
I can bench 160 pounds
I’m more than capable of running a six minute mile
With arms fully extended I can jump and reach a basketball rim.

When I weight lift I do not max out, the bench press is a max but a friend was over and he wanted to know yadayadayadyada, so I obviously cannot give you any other max outs. I apologize for all the approximates, I don’t know what I’m “officially” capable of but I figured they would help in determining an appropriate routine. I would greatly appreciate help.
Art’s Response, Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
Hi, I have some experience teaching speed & explosion of which plyometrics are part but not all of the formula. To improve your athleticism, you’d do well to learn sport specific “grass drills”, with straight ahead speed, lateral movement and first step quickness and explosion all as essential elements. It’s also important to both limit and gradually build up the quantity of reps, jumps and landings, with plyo’s, so you don’t exhaust or injure yourself from the impacts which are a form of progressive overload (very intense on the  human structure). Think of it like “a little is a lot” and then you can add more frequency by combining the plyos into your various routines (although not on your lower body day, given your current sequence). This way you’ll get more lasting conditioning out of what your doing.
Good posture, alignment and jumping & landing technique with reflexive ground reaction is the key. Keep it simple. There’s a great book by Doc Kreis the ex-CU strength and conditioning coach that gives both exercise technique and seasonal workout structure for lacrosse and a number of other sports. Also see Human Kinetics, Vern Gambetta or Don Chu video materials which are very instructive.
If you can run a sub-6 you have a lot going for you in the way of endurance and flow which will serve you well. Use this base of conditioning as confidence booster and push yourself from the same place you would with running with the demands of your new sport (your coaches will take notice too). With sport specific speed your training your nervous system to fire more rapidly… it’s like anything you’ve ever worked at systematically; coordination, rhythm and speed are a result of training the nervous system in a specific pattern through repetition. It’s similar to going to the driving range or batting cage. Once you’ve got the foundational movements down and you can anticipate and change directions well in order to get to the place in the field and cover your responsibilities and/or make a play… think about how rapidly and numerous the transitions from offense to defense can be in a short span of time. Developing the hand-eye coordination for stick handling on the run will follow (not my expertise really) although I’d spend just as much time playing with the equipment in a relaxed way with your friends to get a body sense of how to handle it. The resistance training/weights are actually secondary/non specific although the strength gains and toughness in your shoulders and hips will help you tolerate the contact and wear and tear. Remember, the body is the “ultimate free weight.” Medicine ball work could be fun and beneficial as well.

Hope this gives you some direction. Enjoy!
Source(s):
Human Kinetics Publishing
Vern Gambetta
Donald Chu
(search should bring them up)

Sport Agility, book by Doc, Kreis (could be out of print, maybe Amazon?)