Monthly Archives: August 2011
Coach Joins H2 Saint Louis Volleyball Club
Coach Anderson has officially joined H2 Saint Louis Volleyball Club for the upcoming 2011-2012 season. There are many great clubs in Saint Louis and the volleyball scene is much different than it was back west.
After speaking with some of the top clubs in the St. Louis area, my decision to join H2 Volleyball was an easy one. Not that any of the other clubs in the area lacked in talent, coaching or administration, but rather that the concept, philosophies and goals of H2 were more to my style.
What I love the most about H2 is the positive atmosphere! I feel that H2 although being only 5 years old, is evolving to be one of the elite clubs in the nation. Last year they sent 15 girls to play college volleyball!
If you are in the St. Louis area and interested in playing club, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email. I believe that I will be coaching the 17s team this year.
Also, the H2 St. Louis coaching staff will be attending many high school games this year, so if you see one of us, flag us down! If you are interested in playing for H2, shoot me an email and we’ll get a coach to come out to your high school game.
See you on the court!
Skeptical Theme Edit Header RSS and Email Subscribe
Because I couldn’t find any help on this and the wootheme header complex was a little complicated for me at least I wanted to post a brief tutorial on what I did to edit the email and subscription header.
Find the header.php file, then you will need to change the code to the following:
</ul><!– /#nav –> <?php } ?> <ul class=”rss fr”> <?php $email = $woo_options['woo_subscribe_email']; if ( $email ) { ?> <li class=”sub-email”><a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/onlinevolleyballcoach/News“><?php _e(‘Subscribe by Email’, ‘woothemes’) ?></a></li> <?php } ?> <li class=”sub-rss”><a href=”http://feeds.feedburner.com/onlinevolleyballcoach/News“><?php _e(‘Subscribe to RSS’, ‘woothemes’) ?></a></li> </ul> </div><!– /#navigation –>
You will need to replace the red portion with a link to your feed address. This should work for whatever feed you are using as it only links to an external page.
If you need more help than this, probably I can’t help, but feel free to ask 
See you on the court!
Linear vs. Non-Linear Passing in Volleyball
When big names like John Dunning, Mark Massey and Bond Shymansky start talking about passing, the first thing you are going to hear is the term non-linear passing. In fact GMS (Gold Medal Squared) also uses the same philosophy.
To explain the concept the best I can (hopefully I’ll make a video soon) non-linear passing technique consists of facing or squaring up to where the ball is coming from. The linear passing model is basically facing our squaring up to where the ball will be going, which is usually wherever you put your setter.
I am slightly biased as I teach non-linear passing, but I wanted to discuss some of the pros and cons of the different passing models.
LINEAR PASSING
My favorite part about the linear model, which is generally speaking, the older model of passing, is that it requires you to position your body behind the ball. The idealistic model of linear passing would be to actually be able to draw a perfect line from your platform to the target. By getting your body behind the ball and facing your target, this assures that the player is beating the ball and moving their feet to enable the linear model. This in my opinion is a great technique for young athletes as one of the things I hear from coaches across the nation is, “Move your FEET!”
Now the downside of the model is that as the game advances and things get faster and faster, there really is no time to get your body behind the ball. In college men’s volleyball, a ball coming at 65-75 mph is going way too fast for you to actually get your body in front of if you aren’t already in a perfect position. In women’s it would be the same as 50 to 55 mph balls come flying extremely fast at the top levels. So then the linear model has to be adjusted. Many coaches instruct the girls to move sideways and sort of shift behind the ball when they contact it to keep the linear passing model. The problem I have with this is the physics behind it. When you contact the volleyball on your platform, it is only there for a fraction of a second, almost instantaneously. Regardless of what you are trying to do with your body, the only thing that matters is what position your body and passing platform are in, the instant the ball contacts your forearms to pass. So the way that coaches teach to overcome this is by creating an angle with your platform….which is what non-linear passing is all about.
NON-LINEAR PASSING
With the non-linear passing model it addresses a few of the aforementioned problems. The key to non-linear passing is that you face where the ball is coming from and create an angle with your platform to direct the ball to the setter or target.
The difficulty with non-linear passing is that you let your platform do all of your work. While moving your feet and passing at your mid-line is still encouraged, the angle of the platform is truly all that matters, so I see a tendency from most athletes to stop moving to the ball. There is a tendency to stand and reach and even, in my opinion, a tendency for the athletes to stop reading the play as much on the other side of the net because body position behind the ball isn’t stressed as frequently.
The positives to the non-linear passing model are the answer to all the linear models questions. When the speed of the game increases, the non-linear model allows you to move your arms only, meaning you can beat the ball easier if it is within arm’s-length. The physics work as the angle of your platform is set a split second before the ball makes contact, giving the ball the correct trajectory regardless of if your body is moving or not.
If the passing models were truly as simple as I just explained, coaching would be simple. Within these two models there are hundreds of variations, and beyond that there is the method of teaching that will vary with each coach. What cues or keywords, what they emphasize the most and what background each athlete came from gives many more variables.
What passing model do you use? Why do you use it?
See you on the court!
1 Step to Making the Team – Volleyball Tryouts
FOR VOLLEYBALL ATHLETES:
I have written on this before, but with seasons starting up again, I wanted to try and help those of you that are preparing for volleyball tryouts.
The single most important factor in making your high school or club volleyball team is EFFORT.
EFFORT is defined as “a rigorous or determined attempt.” What I suggest is that you give more effort than you ever have in a volleyball practice or game when you show up at tryouts. Effort is the most easily recognized “talent” that a coach can see. I call it a talent because as a coach, it is hard to teach effort. We can motivate, encourage and support our players, but we cannot force our players to give intense effort.
If you are new to a high school volleyball team or volleyball club, the coaches generally have only a short period of time to evaluate you. The impression you make in the first few hours is very important as many decisions are made during this very first day. Everything from position to playing time is often thought of in a coaches mind as tryouts evolve.
If you are going to give your very best effort in a volleyball tryout, you must be giving it your all, all the time. An athlete that plays hard in a scrimmage, but then is the last to finish when its time for conditioning is not giving their all. What coaches are looking for is some kind of natural talent that you may possess that they can cultivate and turn into an elite volleyball player. Natural talent is often visible in the ability of an athlete to run. By giving your all in tryouts, the coach can have confidence that you are a hard worker and are going to be able to work hard at learning the skills the way they want you to.
If you are a returning player or bench warmer wanting more playing time, EFFORT is going to be critical to this process. Each year as a coach enters tryouts, they give every athlete a window of opportunity. You and your coach may know that you weren’t as good as some of the other athletes the previous season, but showing more effort than your teammates sheds new light on this subject. As I mentioned before, EFFORT is going to be the most dramatic visible improvement you can make between seasons. In all likelihood, you didn’t go from average skills as a bench warmer to elite skills over the summer, so to get recognized you must give added effort to stand out from the crowd.
WHEN TO GIVE EFFORT:
Effort is demonstrated in many ways. Effort to follow instructions during tryouts is very important. If a coach teaches a skill or asks you to do something in practice it is critical that you give your best effort to do what is asked. Think if I ask you to go to the store and buy me a birthday cake for my grandma. You say “Sure!” I get super excited because you are going to help me accomplish my goal of being a great grandson. Now you come back from the store without a birthday cake. I ask why and you say, “Oh, I forgot.” Immediately I get disappointed and in addition I probably won’t ask you to do anything for me again. Volleyball is exactly the same. If a coach asks that you don’t flip your wrists, you act like you understand, and then you continue doing it for the rest of tryouts, he/she will lose confidence in you. The coach will no longer trust you to be able to do what is asked. If you stop flipping your wrists, the coach will get excited that your are trying to help them accomplish their goal.
In between play effort is critical. Many girls and boys I coach often try hard in games but when it comes to anything else, their effort is disappointing. If you want to gain the advantage at a tryout, you must give extra effort any time possible. An impressive girl I coached last week during volleyball camp showed some great effort. We spoke of the importance of practicing movement for liberos in between plays. Not standing up, but rather remaining in ready position. As we went through our next digging drill, the coach was attacking balls at a line of girls trying to learn a double knee drive. As this athlete rotated between the front of the line and the back of the line, she remained in defensive position. She worked on shuffling her feet and staying low at close to a 90% of maximum. She stayed in ready position in the line as she waited for her turn. While other girls witnessed this, no other girls chose to do the same. This is the type of effort that stands out! This girl was not the very best libero in camp, in fact she had some difficulty following the first rule of advice that I suggested above. But, given the amount of effort she was willing to put into one silly little drill, I would have chosen her for any of my team immediately.
IS THIS JUST A QUICK TRICK?
While you may think that effort is only a trick to get you on a team, I might agree if you only gave effort during the tryout. Continued effort throughout the season will give amazing results. You see, I have never witnessed a lazy athlete that progressed more than a hard working athlete. It may be that and athlete that came into the season with much more skill was able to keep their starting spot, but progression is attached to effort. Individual maximum efforts are difficult to measure, but what I can guarantee is that as you push your levels of maximum effort each day, what you did the day before will become easier and easier.
Good luck to you all at tryouts this and every season!
See you on the court!
“Jumper’s Knee” Most Common In Volleyball
For weekend athletes, volleyball may carry the biggest risk of the tendon injury known as “jumper’s knee,” a new study suggests.
Medically known as patellar tendinopathy, jumper’s knee is an overuse injury of the tendon that runs from the kneecap to the shinbone. It typically causes pain below the kneecap, especially when a person is running, jumping or climbing stairs. After it progresses, the pain may become more constant.
The nickname comes from the fact that the problem is common in jumping sports. Studies of professional athletes have found that volleyball, basketball, track and field, and soccer have some of the highest rates — as high as 45 percent in volleyball.
The new study, published in the American Journal of Sports Medicine, gives the first estimates of how common jumper’s knee is among amateur athletes.
Dutch researchers found that of nearly 900 adults who played any of seven recreational sports, volleyball enthusiasts had the highest rate of jumper’s knee. Just over 14 percent either reported symptoms of the injury or said they’d been diagnosed with it.
Next came European handball, with 13 percent of players reporting jumper’s knee, followed by basketball (12 percent), track and field (7 percent), field hockey (5 percent), korfball (5 percent) and soccer (2.5 percent). Korfball is a Dutch sport similar to basketball.
“Jumper’s knee is not uncommon in amateur sports,” lead researcher Dr. Johannes Zwerver, a sports medicine specialist at the University Medical Center Groningen, told Reuters Health in an email.
The relatively high rate in volleyball, Zwerver said, might be related to the combination of repeated jumping, how players land, and the hard playing surface.
There’s anecdotal evidence, he noted, that volleyball players who prefer the beach have a lower rate of jumper’s knee.
Zwerver recommended that people with symptoms of the knee injury see a doctor or physical therapist sooner rather than later.
Jumper’s knee can be difficult to treat, particularly once it becomes chronic — at which point there may be a significant amount of degeneration in the tendon.
Treatment usually involves rest, exercise therapy and, for short-term pain relief, anti-inflammatory painkillers and corticosteroid injections. In some cases of long-term jumper’s knee, a doctor might recommend surgery.
As for prevention, Zwerver said there are no “evidence-based” tactics that studies have established as effective.
But, he added, learning good jumping and landing techniques, along with conditioning exercises to keep the lower-body muscles strong and flexible, may help.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/rd4zZH American Journal of Sports Medicine, online July 7, 2011.
On a side note I would like to say that HYPER has had tremendous success with jumper’s knee. Our training method is used by elite volleyball players internationally. Contact HYPER if you need help with jumper’s knee.
