What musculature has the largest impact on a goalie's athletic succes in the short and long term?

When I look at training a young goaltender, I don't want to start by asking how many butterfly slides they can do or how quickly they can move across the crease. I want to look at the athlete first.

Can they move well? Can they control their body? Can they produce force? Can they absorb force? Do they have enough strength to get into the positions that goaltending requires?

These are some of the things that I believe should be addressed before we start making training more complicated.

For a young goalie, I like starting with the lower body, particularly the glutes, hamstrings and lower back. These muscles aren't the only ones that matter, but they give us a good place to start because they are involved in so much of what a goalie does on the ice.

A goalie is constantly loading their legs, pushing, stopping, recovering and changing direction. The hips, knees and trunk all have to work together to make those movements happen.

The Glutes: Creating Force Through the Hip

The glutes are a major contributor to lower-body force production. They work around the hip joint, helping with hip extension and helping stabilize the body when a goalie is pushing, jumping or recovering.

Think about a simple lateral push. A goalie has to load one side of their body and put force into the ice. The glutes are a big part of creating that force through the hip joint.

The same thing happens when a goalie recovers from the butterfly. They have to bring the hips back underneath them and get themselves into a strong position again. The legs, hips and trunk all have to work together.

This is one reason I like basic exercises such as squats, step-ups, hip bridges, hip thrusts and Romanian deadlifts for young athletes. They aren't complicated, but they teach an athlete how to use their hips and legs properly.

As the athlete gets stronger, we can start asking them to produce that force faster. That's when strength starts becoming useful for power and explosiveness.

The Hamstrings: Producing and Controlling Force

The hamstrings are often thought of mainly as an injury-prevention muscle, but they have a much bigger role than that.

Because the hamstrings cross both the hip joint and knee joint, they are involved in both producing and controlling movement. They work with the glutes around the hip and help control the knee as the athlete loads, pushes and changes direction.

For a goalie, this is important because they aren't just producing force. They are constantly having to control it.

A goalie pushes across the crease, then has to slow down. They recover from the butterfly, then have to be ready to move again. They change direction and have to control the position of their legs and body.

The hamstrings are part of that process.

When training a young goalie, I want them to develop the ability to load the leg, produce force and then control that force. Exercises such as Romanian deadlifts, hamstring curls, hip hinges and controlled landing exercises are simple ways to start developing those qualities.

As the athlete gets stronger, we can use that strength to build more explosive movement.

The Lower Back: Keeping Everything Connected

The lower back is another area I pay attention to, but not simply because I want a young goalie to have a stronger lower back.

I look at it as part of the trunk.

A goalie can be moving their legs in one direction while their upper body is tracking the puck somewhere completely different. They need to be able to move their lower body without losing control of their upper body.

That becomes important during lateral movement, butterfly recoveries, scrambles and post integrations. The legs are doing a lot of work, but the trunk still needs to stay strong and controlled.

The lower back helps provide that connection between the lower and upper body.

For young athletes, this can be trained with fairly simple exercises. Back extensions, carries and anti-rotation movements are examples of exercises that can help develop trunk strength without making the program overly complicated.

I'm not looking to isolate the lower back. I'm looking to teach the athlete how to keep their trunk stable while the rest of their body is moving.

The Hip and Knee Have to Work Together

When we talk about goalie movement, it is important not to look at one muscle or one joint on its own.

The hip joint and knee joint have to work together.

The glutes help control the hip. The hamstrings work across both the hip and knee. The quadriceps contribute heavily around the knee. The muscles of the groin help with lateral movement, and the ankle and foot also play a role in how force moves through the leg.

If one part of that system isn't doing its job properly, it can affect the way the rest of the leg moves.

This is why I don't want a young goalie to spend all of their training trying to strengthen one specific muscle. I want them to learn how to use their entire lower body together.

Can they load the leg? Can they push? Can they stop? Can they change direction? Can they maintain control?

Those are much more useful questions.

The Groin and Hips Still Matter

Starting with the glutes, hamstrings and lower back doesn't mean the hips and groin are less important.

In fact, the hip joint has some pretty significant demands placed on it in goaltending. A goalie spends a lot of time moving through different positions of hip flexion, rotation and abduction while skating, getting into the butterfly and working around the posts.

The groin is also heavily involved in skating and lateral movement.

With young goalies, though, I don't think the answer is simply to make them more flexible. They need to be strong and have control in the positions they are getting into.

That's an important difference.

Being able to get into a position is one thing. Being strong enough to control that position is another.

Strength Comes Before Explosiveness

Everybody wants a goalie who is explosive.

We want the big lateral push. We want the quick recovery. We want the goalie who can get across the crease before the puck gets there.

But that explosiveness has to come from somewhere.

A young athlete needs to learn how to move first. Then they need to develop strength. Once they have that strength and can use it properly, we can start working on producing force faster.

That's where power, speed and reactive movement come into play.

I don't think every exercise in a goalie's off-ice program needs to look like something they would do on the ice. A Romanian deadlift doesn't look like a lateral push, and a squat doesn't look like a butterfly recovery.

That's okay.

The purpose of the gym is to develop the physical qualities the athlete needs. We then take those qualities onto the ice and teach the goalie how to use them.

Build the Athlete First

One of the biggest things I try to avoid with young goalies is making everything too specific too early.

Before we worry about how advanced their training is, I want them to be good athletes.

They should learn how to squat, hinge, jump, land, push, pull, balance and control their body. Those are basic movements, but they are also the building blocks for more advanced athletic skills.

As the athlete gets older and develops more strength and experience, the training can become more specific. We can add more power, speed, agility, reaction and goalie-specific movement.

But I don't want to skip the early steps.

A young goalie who has developed a strong athletic base will have more tools to work with when they start dealing with the faster and more demanding movements of higher-level hockey.

How I Approach It at Lemaire Pro Systems

When I work with a young goaltender, I don't want to start by putting them through the most complicated goalie program possible.

I want to see the athlete.

I want to see how they move and where they have limitations. I want to know if they can control their hips and knees, produce force through the hip joint and knee joint, absorb force and move efficiently on both sides.

From there, we can build the program around what that particular athlete actually needs.

For many young goalies, that means starting with basic strength through the glutes, hamstrings and trunk. We can then build the hips and groin, improve overall lower-body strength and mobility, and eventually move toward power, speed, agility and more advanced goalie-specific movements.

There is no reason for a 10-year-old goalie to train like an 18-year-old goalie. The training needs to match the athlete in front of us.

That is really what good development comes down to.

Build the athlete first. Give them the strength and movement skills they need. Then take those qualities and teach them how to become a better goaltender.

Build the athlete first. Then build the goalie.

Sebastien.L Lemaire RSCC, ERS and certified strength and conditioning specialist