Anybody who’s read through some of my posts realizes that a lot of my work (especially in the last 3 years) has been with female competitive (high school/club advanced to college players) volleyball players. I’m discussing a project right now with one of my athletes (19-years-old, 5’9", 145-pounds, 13-14% body-fat, 25" standing vertical jump [9’5.5"], 28.5" approach jump [9’9"; JUCO scholarship [previously], 9th in state hurdles senior year). She’s hoping to walk-on to a Division I program next year (2007) so we’re planning her program right now and we’re going to go all out on this sh#t (if all of the contract comes together, that’s the business). I’m planning on either keeping a training log here or where they’re supposed to go (in the training log section). I’m not sure how much I’m actually going to post about the program here but I’ll do my best. If all goes as planned, I’m hoping to get pics and videos posted every once in a while. I’m also planning on taking some video/pics of some younger girls that I have (16+ under) who have been training with me for some time and are starting to explode off the ground. One 15-year-old I have just posted a 22.5" (9’1.5") vertical jump and a 25" approach jump (9’4"). I still haven’t had a 10-foot female jumper yet but I’m confident either my high-performance project athlete or one of my junior girls will be able to do it. Should be interesting…
By the way, I’m a private coach and do not work in a school program. I have a contract with a private volleyball club and train vb players from other clubs as well. So don’t expect to see anything where I have her training for 6 hours a day or anything like that. Perhaps when the summer comes around (my main preparation time for volleyball players) I’ll have a complete program, but for the time being expect to see a very realistic, time efficient training program that doesn’t make you wonder do I have to quit my job and starve to death to see some damn progress?.
Sounds cool. How are the athlete’s shoulder issues and how do you prevent/deal with these? There seems to be little agreement from a lot of volleyball coaches on this (and a lot of injuries as well).
We just finished the summer block. And she’s helping with pre-season camps for the volleyball club and her local high school. This is where reality comes in.
And I’m hoping to have more 10’ jumpers. I’ve got a girl with a 30" approach but she’s in the 5’5.5" to 5’6" range so that puts her just short. For real big school Div. I potential, you have to have all of the pieces put together (height, vertical jump, sport ability, etc.). How tall was your girl? If she’s in the 5’10-6’0" range that’s one hell of a jump. If she’s shorter, see if they can have her help power the next space shuttle takeoff.
A little bit of both. I share part of the facility with the club and some of their girls and girls from other clubs were training with me, so they talked with me about helping their program. The director is actually from Poland and he was the toughest to deal with up front. He has great knowledge of Eastern Bloc training methods so our early conversations could get pretty interesting (his english is a little sketchy as well). I felt like early on that he was going over the girls heads and they couldn’t grasp even the basics of the program. I think I’ve actually helped a lot in that regard. Can you imagine a Polish guy with a thick accent and 30-years of experience trying to explain accumulation and intensification to 15-year-old girls? The program’s come a long way but still have a long climb to the top. Some of my girls will actually move on to other clubs (while continuing to still train with me) for competitive reasons. It’s still going to take time to establish our club as a long-term dominant force.
I’m happy to say that collectively we have had no shoulder injuries in the past 3 years (in a club that works with anywhere from 40 to 70 girls/year). I’ve seen a lot more issues with early specialization and lower back problems (with girls using their backs for everything and their hips/shoulders for nothing). Our club director does limit hitting with the younger girls (well, just not hitting too much) and I have the girls do a lot of shoulder mobility and stability work. To my own credit, (not bragging, as this costs me tremendously) I have put in the time that is necessary and not just the time that is paid, to help deal with any problems.
As far as shoulder compensation, that’s another issue entirely. Scapula dysfunction is extremely common. I have learned that I can’t fix everybody, but I do what I can. It’s a coin flip in terms of which girls will hurt themselves or which ones won’t (At least, without a proper training program). Some of these girls can hit hard, but can’t do a chin-up to save their life, and lack the shoulder stability to do overhead presses with 15-pound dumbbells.
I am proud to say that the girls that train with me (on top of their training with me through the club) have developed great shoulder strength that has improved their hitting and reduced all of the wear and tear.
My personal philosophy on shoulders is that you can never not emphasize integrity and balance. Great posture is the foundation for healthy shoulders and backs. To me, this is the same as training hard and eating well are necessary for any nutritional supplements to work at all. So that’s how I view shoulder work, as a supplement to their posture.
She was actually about 6’3" I believe. I didn’t work with her as she goes to a different school that is closely related to where I help out at.
She’ll be a freshman at Stanford this year and I was told that she was the number two overall recruit in the country this past year. (I don’t know how they figure that out?)
I work with a private high school that has won 15 out of the last 25 state championships in volleyball. Try-outs started yesterday, and they run this ship like it is college.
That is awesome. Most of the volleyball players i have known have had tons of shoulder issues, especially those who played college ball. That is great that they have good coaches. I will be looking forward to updates.
How did you come about charging for these volleyball girls. Does the club pay for them or do they pay? Is it per session or a total pay? And how much do they pay?
If you don’t want to answer these questions out load, you can pm me.
I wonder because I may have the chance to do a similar thing in the future.
The club includes my cost into their tuition/seasonal costs. It helps my value because I know that they tell these girls my training is a lot more expensive than it is to help rationalize how expensive the club is [a competitive club program in Texas will cost anywhere from 500 to 7000 dollars anually].
I offer the fundamentals of my program through the club season and then I offer private training to the girls who can “cut the mustard”. I plan on becoming much more selective over the next year because I’m just too busy not to be. I plan on only taking on 12 new volleyball players for training over the next year. I’ve also been able to establish a pretty effective mentorship program with my older players. Essentially, they help to show my younger girls all of the basics of our warm-up and flexibility program (saving me a lot of time; as Clemson told me, “the surgeon doesn’t do the prep work”). It also helps for the younger ones to see that these girls train hard!!
ATHLETE UPDATE: After a hard week of giving private volleyball lessons and coaching volleyball camps 12 hours a day, this is a recovery week for my “Hoss”. She’ll be starting her fall programming next week if all goes well. I’m considering using a lot more testing with her through the fall just to see which tests I feel would give me more insight into the training effect.
Some Possibilities:
-Vertical Jump
-Iso Vertical Jump
-Approach Vertical Jump
-Standing Triple Jump [R,L,R + L,R,L]
-Standing Broad Jump
-Standing Lateral Broad Jump [R, L]
-Squat Jump Endurance [Do I dare say Power-Endurance?]
-Chins or Pull-Ups [Rotated], Squat, Single-Leg Squat [Min-5RM], etc.
Only played recreationally in sand. That court stuff is for tough guys. I’m not sliding on that wood surface!! I’m planning on working with one of the top coaches here in San Antonio to gain a greater understanding of the physical/technical requirements for the sport by practicing myself. I have pretty good physical ability so I’m anxious to see what the feel of high-performance volleyball is like. But only in a technical setting. I don’t have medical insurance so anything competitive is a no go unless I want to spend the next 5 years paying medical bills.
I try to use Charlie’s advice with technical work: if I can think of a reason to not do a drill, I don’t have them do it. But to answer your question directly, I only do technical work for specific physical qualities (lateral speed, agility, etc.).
My female vb player (let’s call her Supergirl) is going to be going through some education with me on training and nutrition. Still doing base workouts (mostly technical lifting work with light strength work) and no speed, agility, etc. I’m trying to get her to understand the finer points of program design and training so she understands that everything we do now (and don’t do) impacts what we do in the future (from session to session and block to block). We’re going to go through JB’s No Nonsense Nutrition and I have her reading Michael Johnson’s “Slaying the Dragon” for motivation/inspiration/dedication/and just plain being a bad-ass. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep a training log here but at least I’ll post initial planning and progression. Can’t spend all day and night posting here. Busy busy.
It helps that I have a 100% success rate with senior high school volleyball players and athletic scholarships. I don’t bully, tease, or torment. The information is there. It takes discipline to do it. And I always use my favorite quote from Bull Durham. I’ll try and post the short article I wrote for them about it.
