Kettlebell Training for Beach Volleyball
Mark Heese and Ahren Cadieux, Olympic Hopefuls
As an ex-Professional Beach Volleyball player, I wish that I had the knowledge of the different training programs and tools that consists today. There is one training tool that I feel is dramatically underutilized in the world of beach volleyball – the Kettlebell.
Kettlebells are effective in training for athletic performance development. The Kettlebell is great addition to the athletes training a number of reasons.
First of all, there are a wide variety of drills that can be performed with them. Secondly, they are inexpensive and take up very little space. And lastly, you don’t need to be in a facility to train. In the case of beach volleyball, you can train with them right on the beach. And what better place to do your training? Athletes will get better transfer of training if they practice on the surface that they play on.
One of the specific exercises that I suggest for beach volleyball athletes is the Kettlebell swing. This basic ballistic drill allows the athlete to develop better ability to effectively generate and absorb kinetic energy through the body’s most powerful engine (the hips) in one single motion.
Another advantage of the swing is that it helps prepare the athlete for the more advanced Kettlebell power exercises, such as: cleans, jerks and snatches. All of which are excellent, because they not only train the hips, but also the: shoulder complex, rotator cuff (more specifically the external rotators, teres minor and infraspinatus) which is so often neglected in athletic training programs.
Beach volleyball players professional, amateur and recreational should all add the Kettlebell workout into the full volleyball training regimen
Funk Roberts
Excerpts taken from friend, Alex Franco, of Brazil
Sgt Shanahan has put together amazing Kettlebell eBooks, DVD’s and workouts for men and women. His eBook is a great way to help you start to incorporate the Kettlebells into your workout.
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