1) DOES PLAYING OTHER SPORTS MAKE YOU A BETTER VOLLEYBALL PLAYER?

2) BEACH VOLLEYBALL SPIKE TIPS

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1) DOES PLAYING OTHER SPORTS MAKE YOU A BETTER VOLLEYBALL PLAYER?

Many coaches debate on whether or not a young athlete should play multiple sports. Some coaches think athletes shouldn't play multiple sports because it's just too hard to be committed to all of them.

Other coaches think you should play multiple sports because this will make you a more rounded athlete.

From what I understand, most experts believe a young athlete should play multiple sports until around 16 years old.

Playing multiple sports is especially important for young athletes. There is a time from childhood to adolescence that’s referred to as the “brain development period”. During this time period, a young athlete has the ability to adapt to new stimulus rapidly (high plasticity). This process doesn’t continue equally forever, and there are windows of opportunity for different types of learning.

As a child gets older, the plasticity of the brain and nervous system declines.

So what does this have to do with volleyball?

If a skill isn’t developed during this critical time period, then it will be much harder to acquire that skill later on in life, if not impossible.

This is why it’s important to expose your young players to everything you can. For example, motor skills and movement patterns learned while playing other sports such as softball or baseball will help with the coordination and motor control needed to play volleyball.

When they are young, an athlete's central nervous system is extremely adaptable and by playing other sports, kids will enhance their athletic ability which results in becoming a better volleyball player.

As a coach that's training young volleyball players, part of your job is to avoid automaticity in your players. Automaticity basically means the brain is on autopilot giving the usual responses, even when those responses aren't appropriate for the given situation.

When it comes to coaching volleyball, it's important to lead your players to discover how to play volleyball. This style of coaching involves having the players focus more on the outcome of the skill rather than the technique used to perform the skill.

Go read my latest page on skill and form vs outcome training.


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2) BEACH VOLLEYBALL SPIKE TIPS

Spiking a volleyball in the sand can seem very difficult when first learning to play beach volleyball.

Here are some tips to help spike better in the sand...

When approaching in deeper sand, you shouldn’t broad jump at all. To get more jump height, you want to jump more straight up, staying behind the ball.

Hitting sharp angles is important for success on the beach. You want to following through over the top of the ball, giving it topspin to dive down at sharp angles into the court.

To hit the ball straight ahead, you want to make contact with the ball in the middle. To hit the ball to your right, make contact on the left side of the ball. To hit to your left, make contact on the right side.

The key to being a great beach spiker is being able to disguise your hits. You need to have an array of soft shots that are deceptive. Being deceptive means that you can use the same explosive approach every single time, and the defense can’t tell whether you’re going to swing hard or hit a shot.

If the defense doesn’t know what’s coming, this makes your spike much more difficult to dig when you decide to bring the heat.

Go read my latest page on beach spike tips and techniques.