Answers from an Olympian

Below are the questions sent to Olympian Charlene Johnson-Tagaloa. More info Charlene at bottom of post.

The first question comes from Mark:

“I am coaching a 7th grade volleyball team for the first time. I have some coaching experience(CYO-3yrs and asst JO coach for one year). I am trying to determine if I should teach the W or U approach for receiving a serve. This is wil be my first time installing the offense and defense and the W seems like simpler method to teach. I know that I need to focus on passing and serving so any drills that would keep that process fun would also be appreciated.

Thanks

Mark”

Charlene’s response:

“I believe the W would be more appropriate for that age group. With 3 passers deep and make sure your short passers are not deeper than the 10ft line but active and ready to pass a short ball. Good luck with your 1st 7th grade season.

Charlene”

Next question came from me. Why? It kills me every time I hear from one of my athletes that their coach is ‘running us to death’.Especially when they are timed in the mile? One coach has her team running a timed mile…if they don’t run in a certain amount of time they are CUT!

WHAT!?!?

Come on coaches!!!!!! Stop the insanity…I know you may not like to hear it cause you have ‘been doing this forever’, but stop. Think about ‘Why’ you may be doing this and think about not only how much time you can save yourself, but how the morale would change amongst your team.

With that mentioned I ask Charlene to give her thoughts on the ‘1 mile’ subject. Check out what she has to say below:

“Hey Barry,

I do agree that it is a very old philosophy and back in the day they really didn’t have another way to prove fitness so to me it makes sense that that is how the mile run started and has been going strong ever since! I guess it’s just a simple way to get some kind of #’s and possibly eliminate some people initially that may want to try out for a team but physically aren’t in a position to do so!?

Volleyball rally’s last on average of about 10 – 20 seconds so the training should be more focused on the length of a rally and being able to endure the short bursts of conditioning. But you also have to be able to endure the length of the match and that is why running a mile would be important to train. Just not necessarily for the time of it!

Just my thoughts…….

Keep smiling…….. (I think Charlene smile more than I do! )”