Friday, November 14, 2008

Basics: Lacrosse Shooting 101


1) Hand Placement: When shooting a lacrosse ball it is important to have your upper hand a little lower on the lacrosse stick than you normally have it when you throw or catch and your lower hand at the bottom end of the stick. This gives the shooter more leverage allows them a quicker release of the ball.

2) Shoulder Alignment: When shooting a lacrosse ball, make sure your shoulders aligned or perpendicular to the goal. Also if you are taking a right handed shot, you should lead with your left foot. If you are taking a left handed shot you should lead with your right foot. Opposites tend to add more power to the shot and give you better balance.

3) Throw with your waist and not just your arms. In order for you to have the most power in lacrosse shooting, you need to use the power in your abs and hips to fling the ball. This is difficult to describe, but easy to demonstrate, we hope to have a video available soon. This will give you more power to move your stick and shoot the ball faster.

4) How to aim: No shot is complete without taking aim. Look for white edges of the corners of the net. If you look at the goalie you may hit him! The most accurate types of lacrosse shooting are typically bounce shots and corner shots.

5) Bounce shots. This shots need to be hard and fast. Aim for the ground 2-3 feet in front of the goalie. The most accurate bounce shots are on the sides of the net. Also aim for between the goalie’s legs or his weak side. (the side without the stick.) This will force the goalie to have to move or have to crossover his stick in order to stop the shot.

6) Corner Shots. Here the emphasis is an accuracy and speed. Shooting for the corners may be a good way to keep the ball a far a way from the goalie as possible. High corner are great to take if there is a lot of traffic. Low corners are better with less traffic.

7) Practice. My brothers took so many practice corner shots, the corners were the first part of the net to go. Practice will pay off more than you know. The people who shoot the best will make more goals and be encouraged to shoot more often. Lacrosse is the ultimate game of skill and excellent lacrosse shooting is fundamental to thesport.


Other types of lacrosse shots are the crank shot, the underhanded lacrosse shot and behind the back shots. Please look forward to these next posts.

Lacrosse Shooting

Welcome to Lacrosse shooting. This site provides tips and techniques for how to shoot a lacrosse ball with as much speed, accuracy, and efficiency as possible. Also we discuss several different types of styles, sticks, and types of shoots. If you still have question that are not covered, please feel free to email your questions to 1fantasticdad@gmail.com