High School Lacrosse Tryout Prep: The 4-Week Plan

Everything in this plan builds toward day two of tryouts, when you are tired and the coach is watching what your hands do about it.

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Five rounds of the field ladder: restraining line and back, midfield and back, far restraining line and back, end line and back, carrying your stick the whole way. Ninety seconds of walking between rounds. Time every round. Feel your feet stay under you on the turns; the turn is where the seconds go. Write the five times down. You will beat them next week.

Duration: 20 min · Equipment: Stick, ball, wall or bounce-back, helmet or goggles per your game

Ten feet from the wall. One hundred with the weak hand, fifty strong, fifty alternating catch-with-one, throw-with-the-other. Top hand by the ear, elbow up, throw from the elbow snap, give with the catch. This week is not about speed. It is about making sure the stick you bring to tryouts throws the same on every rep so that when your legs go in week three, the hands do not go with them.

Roll five balls out a few yards apart. Approach each at a jog, back knee toward the grass, bottom hand low, push the head under and run through it, stick to the ear, turn away. Ten passes down the line, alternating top hand. Every rep at the speed you would use with a defender on your hip.

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Same five rounds, 75 seconds of rest. Beat every time from week one by a second. Add one thing: on every turn, call out "ball" or "help left" as if you are on defense. Your voice needs to be a habit before tryouts, because a quiet field is where coaches notice who talks.

Six feet from the wall, fifty quick sticks each hand, no cradle. Then run laterally along the wall throwing and catching every two steps, twenty each direction each hand. This is catching in traffic without the traffic. Eyes on the ball until it is in, then up.

Duration: 15 min · Equipment: Three cones, stick, five balls, net or bounce-back with a target

Cone at the top, cone at each wing. Start at a wing cone, drive to the top cone, split dodge at the cone (plant, switch hands, three hard steps), and shoot overhand on the run at the far pipe. Ten each direction, each hand. Then repeat with a roll dodge. Hands away from the body on the shot, hips through, miss low if you miss.

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One round of the ladder, then straight to the wall for forty weak-hand catches, then ten shots on the run at the target. Rest 60 seconds. Repeat four times. Your hands will feel heavy by round three. That is the point: learn what your stick does when your legs are gone and fix it with your elbow and your feet, not by slowing down. This is the closest thing to day two of tryouts you can build alone.

Partner starts with the ball twenty yards away and jogs toward the far end. You sprint to their stick side, get in front, and turn them toward the sideline without any contact. When they stop, reset and go again. Ten reps. Attack players who ride hard get noticed on every turnover, and defenders who sprint back on a failed clear get noticed on every one of those.

Partner feeds you at the wing and plays soft defense, no contact. Three choices: shoot if they are more than a stick length away, dodge if they are square and close, pass back if they are between. Say the choice out loud. Ten each hand. Coaches want the right choice fast, not a trick.

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Three rounds only, full rest between. Best times of the month. Then stop. The conditioning is in the bank; this week you are keeping it, not adding to it.

Fifty catches each hand with no drops; a drop restarts the count. Then twenty shots on the run at the target and end the session on a make. Every day this week.

The two days before tryouts, walk through three-line passing, ground ball lines, and a basic clear at half speed in the yard, saying the defensive words out loud. You are making sure nothing at tryouts is new. Then sleep.

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Run the plan, then after the first tryout day, tell us how the legs held up and which drill the coach spent the most time on. That is where the next plan starts.