- Sand Volleyball is an emerging sport for college athletics. Start training for scholarships today!
- Beach volleyball is not only fun, it's a great way to improve your skills for indoor volleyball. The more touches the better.
- Each player must improve and master every skill of the game, as opposed to mastering one skill. Both players on a team must pass, set, attack, serve, block, and dig. This makes each a better all around volleyball player. Indoor, players specialize as a setter, middle, outside or libero.
- Beach volleyball is easier on the body. The sand acts as a cushion when landing and diving. With sand moving under your feet, balance is increased and joints and muscles are strengthened thus lessening a chance of injury when going back the indoor.
- Beach volleyball is great way to enjoy the summer outdoors while getting a new look at your favorite sport, all while improving your volleyball skills.
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John Kessel from USA Volleyball has this to say...
First, you get to TOUCH the ball a lot, and work on your weaknesses, in advance of the next change of seasons to school volleyball. What do I mean by that? Well, let’s imagine you have spent the season as a hitter – and partner with a good, but shorter teammate/setter for doubles. What will likely happen is that your opponents, in order to stop you from hitting the third ball which they know you are good at, will serve your partner, and you thus spend the summer working mostly on your setting. You also might have your teammate work to set you up to spike on the second contact, which means you learn to hit balls coming from off the net, and become a better hitter of such imperfect hitting situations. Meanwhile your setting teammate gets to be a better serve receiver and hitter, and you both get to develop your all around play, being better at all six skills. If your serve needs work, you will get a lot of competitive repetitions, as you don’t wait 11 rotations until you serve again, you just have to wait three, before your chance to attack them with your serve happens again.
So you get to work on ALL your skills, and better realize that you are not just a “setter’ or a “middle” but you become a “volleyball player…” As I have noted in other blogs – you stop being a “passer,” and learn to serve receive, and stop being a “setter” and learn to run an offense – even if it is a simplified one with just two and not six player options.
The value of random training and learning abounds when you play outside. You have to show how simple and compact your serve is, or improve it, by tossing and serving in the wind. You have to deal with windblown sets. You must read while dealing with the sun. The ball is a bit heavier, so you get to strengthen your setting and hitting efforts. You get to cover the WHOLE court, with just a teammate, extending your range and hustle skills in completely game like conditions. You play uneven surfaces, grass and beach. You get game like conditioning/jump training when in the sand especially, but simply because one of you hits or blocks every third ball – there just is no better specificity in training for increasing your jump. Let me say that again – the best way to increase your vertical jump is to do spike and block jumps in games and practice.
You learn to stop hitting where you are facing, and how to hit to where your opponents are not. Since you can’t open handed tip, you get better at roll shots, how to place them and contact the ball – including hitting effectively when the set is poor and “tipping” (just not open handed) when the set is perfect.
Play Older Players... Play adult divisions, so you get to learn from those hopefully far older than you. Sure you should enter and play in the USA Beach Junior Tour when it comes through your area. Nonetheless, summertime is when you should also seek to be challenging adults – playing in their “B,” “BB”, “A,” “AA” and even Open divisions. There is a junior player in Southern California who last summer achieved her adult “AAA” rating. She was 13. Olympians Mike Dodd and Karch Kiraly reached their “AAA” rating when they were 16 years old. They learned by playing at the faster level of play that comes against young adults, and the craftier level of play that comes from the veterans of the game.
Play Coed….This is another advantage of our sport, being non-contact, both genders can compete with and against one another. Girls, take on a boys team, or even a men’s team. Play coed with some strong male players, and your reading, skill and volleyball IQ levels will grow.
Compete.... The USA Beach Junior Tour likely has a stop near you. CLICK HERE to access the Tour schedule or CLICK HERE for High Performance Beach Tryout information. Come to Colorado and visit the USA Volleyball main headquarters along with the U.S. Olympic Training Center – visit www.teamusa.org for more on the Colorado Springs site. |
