FIVE PHYSICAL KEYS TO VOLLEYBALL SUCCESS

Back in the old days, training and discipline meant drinking light beer after a long day of competition or at the beach. But in today’s world of sports if you are not working out or eating right you will fall behind. Athletes in every sport from car racing to gymnastics practice a variety of health and fitness routines that help them stay at the top of their games.


In volleyball, there are five physical keys to proper training: power, agility, flexibility and nutrition. Through, sports-specific exercise and discipline, those skills should be developed at an early age and continue to grow with your game.


Here are five physical keys that will take your volleyball game, whether indoor or beach, to the next level and beyond.


1. POWER – Power is the ability to move strongly with speed. Plyometrics and Olympic weight lifting help improve power.

2. AGILITY - Agility is the ability to move quickly and easily. Speed drills and Plyometrics increase agility


3. FLEXIBILTY – Flexibility is the ability to move through a full rage of motions. This skill improves an athlete’s performance in a variety of volleyball situations. Passive stretching of the muscles used for volleyball and its movements, before and after activity, improves flexibility.

4. FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH – Functional strength is the body’s ability to generate force for volleyball-related skills. Plyometrics, Olympic weight lifting and supplemental resistance exercises like using kettlebells help develop functional strength.

5. NUTRITION - Nutrition is the process by which the body breaks down food to supply nutrients ad energy to maintain health and athletic performance. Eating balanced meals from the four basic food groups provide nutrition.

Funk Roberts

excerpts from Heat

Parallel Dips

The parallel dip could be my all time favourite exercise. ALL TIME!

I remember going to a Fitness Expo in Toronto, where they had a Dip Contest. The person who could muster up the most dips would win prizes from a supplement company. I knew 3 weeks ahead of time about this, so I trained. Up to that point, I could only perform about 25 dips max. Every day for 3 weeks I dipped after my workouts.

Finally it was Expo day. When I entered, I dashed to the booth that housed the Dip Contest.
Now up to this point, the record was 29, keep in mind it was Friday evening. The attendant had me jump onto the bars and away I went.

He counted. One, two, three, four, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. “You have the record now” he said. Forty, fifty, sixty, sixty eight…sixty nine…SEVENTY! I performed 70 dips in a row. That’s right 70. The look on everyone’s face was of amazement… “Are you serious, you didn’t just do seventy dips?” He said.

That was 3 weeks of dips after every workout, just to win a t-shirt, gym bag and water bottle
But for me it was more than that. It was the satisfaction of setting a goal and overachieving. Also without really noticing, my arms were bigger and I had more strength.

When you train and have a goal, it is amazing what other nuggets come out of it. Things you don’t even think of start to surface. You may be training to lose weight, and with doing a program you also gain muscle definition and better heart cardio.

The parallel dip works the bottom edge of the pecs and gives size on the triceps. With this exercise you want to prop up on the dipping bars and then slowly lower yourself to a point where your arms are at 90 angles. You then explode back up, all the time keeping your breathing on pace with the movement. Inhale on the way down, exhale on the way up. Try to blast out 5-10 without the assist. You will soon see that after practice, because that is what it is, you will be able to blast out 15-20.

The key is no matter what you do, when dips are preformed before or after every workout, you will see an improvement in all of your workouts.

Funk Roberts
Don’t Rush the Beat

Funk's Fitness Tip of the Week

Tip of the Week

When doing any resistance exercise, choose a weight that will minimize the number of repetitions you have to do to reach your point of failure. If you do not have to struggle on your last rep, then you are not getting maximum results. If you want to pack on the mass, do no more than 6 to 8 hard reps before failing.

Funk Roberts
Don’t Rush the Beat!