Tabata Training…WOW!

tabata training | interval training | volleyball training

What I mean by ‘total body workouts’ is to perform one muscle group followed by an opposing muscle group or plyometric exercise. Total body is just that, TOTAL BODY. Here is an example of a Super Set for a volleyball player to perform to improve their volleyball conditioning and overall volleyball fitness:

SPECIAL NOTE: ALWAYS CONSULT A PHYSICIAN BEFORE STARTING ANY EXERCISE PROGRAM

Example #1 volleyball fitness routine

Squats w/dumbbells – 30 seconds

rest 15 seconds

Single Leg push-ups – 10-30 seconds

rest 15 seconds

Straight Arm Bent over lateral raise (posterior deltoids – rear shoulder muscles) with band or dumbbells – 30 seconds

rest 15 seconds

Squat Jumps with hands behind head – 30 seconds

rest 30 SECONDS

Front raises with band or dumbbells (arms out straight in front – palms face in) – 30 seconds

rest 15 seconds

Single Leg Squats  – 30 seconds each leg

Rest 1 minute and go through 1-4 more times.

Depending on fitness level you may need to do less repetitions/time or increase. If you go with time, please DO NOT exceed 60 seconds and ALWAYS use proper form throughout the entire exercise.

This is a quick and easy volleyball fitness routine to perform anywhere with very little equipment and one that will improve volleyball conditioning for every volleyball player.

For more FREE volleyball fitness workouts, tips, nutrition advice and videos to improve your volleyball conditioning, head over to Training for Volleyball and simply fill out the box that comes up and BAM you get your FREE goodies!

Good luck!!

volleyball fitness | volleyball conditioning | volleyball workouts

Feel the core working with the, ‘Torso Twist and Press’

core exercises | core training | sports performance

Can you say, ‘TEAM WORK’?

Maybe the definition for ‘team work’ should be changed to ‘Stanford Men’s Volleyball’???

Their win was a great showing of team work, determination, confidence and FOCUS the ‘ENTIRE GAME’.

Notice how I emphasized ‘ENTIRE GAME’? Why?

Too many teams from club to college find it very hard to stay focused on the end result they are looking to achieve: WINNING

What I see all too often and hear from coaches all over the world is two-fold:

1) ‘we are winning by a lot, but end up losing because we feel we already won when in fact there is a long way to go until the end of the game’

2) ‘when we are down, but plenty of time left to come back it still seems to be too late, because in their heads they have already lost’

OK..Unfortunately, this happens over and over.

My suggestion is to elude ‘confidence’ amongst yourselves..amongst your own team. Play YOUR game and play until the END. The reason I say ‘confidence amongst yourselves’ is because if you try to show confidence to the other team it may turn into ‘cockiness’ and that can come back to bite you.

There is a huge difference between cocky and confidence. Take the confidence path, like Stanford.

They came into this game very confident in their ability and played as one.

Play YOUR game and good things will happen……

Play THEIR game and, well…I think you know.

CONGRATS STANDFORD MEN’S VOLLEYBALL FOR YOUR AWESOME WIN OVER PENN STATE!

Congrats Penn State to an awesome year!

Confidence….

Team Work…

Determination..

and

FOCUS

THE ENTIRE GAME!

stanford mens volleyball | mens 2010 national volleyball championships | penn state mens volleyball

training for volleyball | number one volleyball workout

Many of the workouts and exercises in Drills N Kills have never been seen before for the the exception of my personal training clients. This is a basic exercise with a twist..of course

Enjoy and add to your current routine!

Drills N Kills is a series of workouts and volleyball drills by Charlene Johnson-Tagaloa and Barry Lovleace.

drills for volleyball | volleyball drills | charlene johnson-tagaloa | volleyball training

The second I was introduced to her I knew for  a fact she was not only a great athlete, but knew that working with her was going to be awesome!

She just turned 10 yesterday…What better way than to celebrate with a very proprioceptive plank?

How about a plank on 4 Medicine Balls?

Yup..

Check her out below. She ROCKS!

ps – she also does yoga and told me yesterday she held a pull up in gym class for over 2 minutes!

“What are good techniques or strategies to improve my volleyball teams’ confidence and chemistry?”

Tom House has some great tips!

“Chemistry”

Girls often don’t bond on their own.  They need help, and coaches have to help them!  Here are some ideas that I’ve used.  I’m sure other coaches have dozens of other suggestions.

The Coach Should Select The Practice Teams/Pairs. There’s only one time where my players are allowed to pick their own teammates:  when their warming up before a match.  All other times, I chose them.  This forces girls to work together who aren’t naturally friends.

Have The Players Do Special Things For Each Other. My club teams always do Secret Santas, Secret Valentines and Secret Easter Bunnies.  They pulled names from a hat, all had to spend less than $10.

Once-A-Month Team Bonding. Offer the girls a team movie, or team meal.  If you really want to promote friendships, have them sit in some random order that YOU decide…….their jersey number, in alphabetical order, by their birthdays, etc.  If they say, “Are you kidding?” then you say, “No. We’re here to become better friends and to get closer as a team.  And sitting beside your school teammate isn’t going to help that.”

Team Goals. Here’s something else we did.  Before a big tournament, I got a sheet of paper and, while they were watching, wrote with a big marker:  “Our Goal Is To Win The ABC Tournament on March 25, 2010″.  Then I cut it into 12 pieces (9 players, 3 coaches), gave each one a piece of the paper and a pen, then had them pull a name out of a hat.  Each girl had to write a note to the “hat” person on the front of the paper, around what I’d written in marker.  After the tournament (which we DID win) I taped all their notes together, put them in a frame, brought the frame to practice and had everyone read what they’d written about their teammate.  (If we had lost, I don’t know what I would have done! haha).  There were some tears and shaky voices.  How can this not help bond a team?

Something To Symbolize Team. This season I gave each of my girls a popsicle stick and gave them 30 minutes at one practice to decorate it any way they wanted.  Then we placed them all together, put a rubber band around it, and it was named, “Team”.  And at then end of each practice, the Captain-Of-The-Day would hand it to the next practice’s captain and she would be responsible for it until the next practice.  Yes, there were some adventures with Team, haha, but at the end of the season, we took apart the rubber band, and passed them all back out.

Each Girl Has Her Own Web Page.  I not sure if this really helps bond our team, but the players sure do love it.  So do the parents!!

Little Spontaneous Parties! About once every two weeks, why not spend the final 10 minutes of practice eating cupcakes, ice cream, etc.  Let the players sit around and talk.  No, practice isn’t over.  No one can leave.

Almost Every Team Has A Leader. I’m not talking about the captain that was assigned by the coach, but a player who is vocal & popular with her teammates.  If she also cares about her teammates feelings, she’s a special person!   So use her!!  I remind those players several times a month about making sure they make special efforts to speak to EVERYONE on the team, include everyone in their conversations, and ensure that no one feels left out.

If Your Team Is Away From Home Without Their Parents. A few years ago I watched a bunch of college players, who were hundreds of miles from home, sitting in the bleachers pulling names from the coach’s hand.  They then were laughing, giggling, slapping hands.  I didn’t know what was going on.  So I just had to ask. Coach told me that was how she assigned hotel rooms on away trips.  How cool!  Then the coach wrote down each pair for her records.

Leaving Together. We always leave our playing site together.  Why?  It’s a very important time!!  No, I don’t want my players bolting from the court because they didn’t play or because we lost.  And I don’t want them leaving one by one.  Whether we win or lose, we always leave the building together.  And, then, as soon as we all leave the site together, some players turn around and walk right back in to shop, some players take a left, some take a right, some go to their cars. But we leave together.  At Big South, after we “left” together, I ran back in, and ran to another part of the facility, then sat down with my wife so I could see my stepdaughter. play.

Finally. Remember, bonding is not something you take for granted.  And it’s not something you leave to chance.  It’s something you have to nurture and encourage.

Tom Houser
Head Coach, 2010 New River Valley 15’s Nationals Coach
2006 and 2009 Junior Nationals Participant
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps (We still have weeks available for summer site camps!)
Author, “I Can’t Wait” Drill Collection and Ebooks
www.coachhouser.com

volleyball training | tom houser | volleyball drills

WARNING: NOT for everyone..:)

Enjoy and have an awesome day!

core exercise | extreme push up

“What are good techniques or strategies to improve my volleyball teams’ confidence and chemistry?”

Well, I went to Coach Tom Houser for the answer.

Check out Part 1 – Team Confidence (part 2 in a few days)

Dear Training For Volleyball readers:

I got an email from Barry a few weeks ago and it was a question that he said he often receives from coaches.  It was, “What are good techniques or strategies to improve my volleyball teams’ confidence and chemistry?”

To me, this should be split into two separate questions.

First, let’s talk about team confidence.

Below is a series of texts between a college volleyball player and me last fall.

Coach Houser, how can I get my team more motivated to win in game 5?  I’m just tired of losing like that.  We have improved so much this season and we’re starting the second half of our season.  We just need to believe we can win.

It’s normally not motivation; it’s often nerves and/or lack of skill that make the difference.  Realize that the last 5th game was made intentionally shorter than the other four to make it unpredictable, nerve-wracking and exciting.

I don’t know.  We could have won both of our last matches, but I don’t know what happens in the last game.  We just get scared of losing or something.

“Scared of losing” is exactly what I was trying to say.  It’s typical for a player to be scared of losing.  But it’s not normal!  It’s a learned behavior.  Players are either coached into playing with abandon and with confidence; or, they are coached to be careful, not to mess up, and not to lose.  This may have occurred when the player was 14, 16, 18, or 20.  But after a player is chastised — and even punished — for making mistakes in pressure situation, it’s really hard to her to shake it.

Well, I know most of it is probably confidence because of our old coach.  He would make us think that we couldn’t mess up.  We’re just getting so close, but can’t win.

Well ,no team is going to win all their fifth games regardless of what they do.  But the team that wins the most fifth games is the team that has the most support from their coaches.  Those coaches want the players to play as if the game was the first, second, etc.

~~~~~~~

Coaches:

While I was texting her, I looked at the team’s website. They’ve won only 6 of their 18 matches, but the last two have both been 8 – 15 losses in the fifth.  So I feel her frustration:  Losing and losing, then her team has two matches that they can win, and they fizzle in the 5th.

When my club team began attending tournaments in January, I discovered that some of my players would not aggressively swing at a ball.  This wasn’t obvious at practice.  It just started occurring when there was a scoreboard, an opponent, i.e. pressure.  I knew exactly what was up.  My players were scared.  They had been taught that mistakes lose games, and if they made mistakes, then they were in trouble, and they were the reason the team lost.  I knew that my job was to undo that!

What I’m going to share with you now not only applies to deciding sets; but, it applies to the game in general.

The Game Is Already Hard Enough! This game of volleyball is already mentally challenging to play.  The parents even think it’s a game of momentum.  Little do they know!  Haha  Then when coaches punish players for hitting balls out, bench them for missing serves, chastise them for being aced, etc., the game is made even harder!

Yes, I believe that coaches should fuss about mental mistakes.  I do.  These mistakes include not covering, running the wrong play, not calling the seam, not knowing if the opposing setter is back row or front row, etc.

But for a coach to get angry when his players spike a ball out, or get aced, or miss an occasional serve, I’ve just never understood.

Why Do Volleyball Coaches Get So Upset? I guess volleyball coaches think this game is just like softball or baseball, where each little error is monumental.  WRONG.  Or maybe they think that since a girl has time to think about the serve, time to think about where to hit that set, time to see the serve coming at her, etc., that the girl shouldn’t make mistakes.  WRONG.

Volleyball is more like tennis and basketball.  There are going to be a multitude of mistakes.  When Andy Roddick plays a tough tennis match, he will make 50 or 60 mistakes.  The Boston Celtics will have dozens of mistakes a game.  So will volleyball teams.

Does A Volleyball Coach Believe That Fewer Mistakes = Victory? Most volleyball coaches believe that team that makes the fewest mistakes has a better chance of winning.  Is that the case?  If we’re talking about mental mistakes, that’s probably true.  If we’re talking about physical mistakes, I don’t think they’re much of a contributor to losing.

What did I just say?  I said the number of physical mistakes a team makes is rarely correlated with losing.  OK, physical mistakes may contribute to a middle school loss; but, my assertion is absolutely true on a highly skilled high school or college team.  I have seen it over and over again.  On Monday a team makes more hitting errors, yet wins.  On Wednesday, a team misses more serves, yet wins.

How? It seems counter-intuitive.  The fact is that the team that’s the most aggressive will make more mistakes; yet, they will also have many more kills, aces, digs and blocks!  And thus will often win.  It’s pretty cool.

What Does This Teach Us? As volleyball coaches get more mature, or more experienced — or maybe just wiser, regardless of the age — they learn that to pull on the reins of the thoroughbred will cause it to buck!  The coach learns that some 5th games will be lost, and some will be won.  But if you make your team scared of making mistakes, and they play carefully, then the team will lose more 5th games than is necessary.

How Does This Affect Our Practices? We must stop punishing and fussing at the players for making physical mistakes.  I do the opposite.  I create drills that require them to be physically aggressive.  For example, I will tell the girls, “You get 1 point for a big swing.  You get a double point if it’s a kill.”  The players say, “What if we get blocked?”  “That’s a point for a big swing.”  “What if we hit it out?”  “No points.”  “Tip?”  “No points.”  “Setter dump?”  “That’s the next drill. Haha”  So, with these type of drills, I force aggressiveness rather than punish it.  And if a girl is making preventable physical mistakes, she is coached on how to reduce them.  But eliminate them completely?  Not possible.

You can make aggressiveness a habit with your team.  Or you can make your players scared.

And How Should The Coaches Act During Matches? I tell my players to “GO FOR IT!”  I tell them to hit the good set, serve where they’re told, step into their seams, and cover like it’s the last time they’re ever going to play the game!  We don’t mention mistakes, being careful, etc.  And over the past 5 years, my teams have won 73% of the deciding 15-point games!  Last week at our region bid tournament, we won 3 of our 4 fifteen point sets.  The only one we lost was in pool play to the eventual champion.  And the set we won was the only set they lost the entire tournament!  I can live with that!  

Finally. Playing scared and careful is not the way you want your team to practice, and that’s not the way they want to play!  They want to run like a stallion!   So let them.  Your better athletes will blossom with this type of coaching.  A few of mine did this year.  They may get punked right back down this fall; but, for a few months, they could be beasts without the fear of a coach’s wrath.

Tom Houser
Head Coach, 2010 New River Valley 15’s Nationals Coach
2006 and 2009 Junior Nationals Participant
Director, STAR Volleyball Camps (We still have weeks available for summer site camps!)
Author, “I Can’t Wait” Drill Collection and Ebooks
www.coachhouser.com

tom houser | volleyballl drills | volleyball training

Generation Y meaning youngsters who get praise for ANYTHING they do, instead of getting praise for things that truly deserve praise. If a volleyball player gets a serve over the net that is great, but it is worth a high five, $10, a shopping spree or Player of the Game from mommy or daddy? NOPE!

Here are some good tips from volleyball coaches and how they see it and handle it. ENJOY!

“Hi Barry,
I always enjoy your articles. This is a topic that hits home with me. I have found over the years that many players are unrealistic about there abilities and both on the Men’s and Women’s side complacent. While I traditionally focus on instilling belief and confidence with my teams. I have started my season off by having the team set individual and team goals. I then use these to keep the focus on improvement. I also spend a lot of time talking about the next level, as well as, showing the differences. Let’s face it for everyone there is a next level. So a praise may sound like this. ‘Hey that was a great back set, now how cool will it be when you can do that while faking the block to the outside or middle!’

I find this is a positive way to get someone excited about improving! I also have found that being heavily involved with the parents in a way that opens the doors for communication is very important. Most parents if they believe you have their childs best interest at heart will want to hear and know if there kid is under performing, or not trying.

Warm Regards,
G
————————————

“I had not thought about the correlation between the drive to improve and the parents praising too much. It does make sense though. I have, unlike Rob, found it to be more prominent in the girls. I have coached both boys and girls at the high school level. I really enjoy coaching the boys because they just did what was asked of them. The girls would just try to do enough to get by. With that complacency in mind, I made it as general rule to not move Frosh up to Varsity. It seemed as though the Frosh would push themselves that first or maybe the second year and then stop (I had only done it with a very few players over the years). “I was good enough for Varsity then, so I am good enough to stay” type attitude.

And it wasn’t as if we won our league every year, they seemed happy to be in the middle. I challenged them to improve. Play club to make themselves better players for their teammates! Play on sand to improve their quickness. Some did and some didn’t and by the end of try-outs it was hard to tell who had played and who had not. It is almost like the way education has turned, teach to the lowest. Some kids would almost “dumb” themselves down on the court. How do we counter that? Or is it that we have become content with mediocrity? I have 2 boys that have been challenged by me to do well in school and sports. I praise them just as I do my players, you get a “job well done” when you show hard work. You get a high five when you go above and beyond that. And you get cheers when you push that 110%. The wins and losses will fall where they fall. But as John Wooden says, “Motivation must come from the belief that ultimate success comes from giving your personal best.”

Later,
Sue

————————————————————–

Barry,
i completely agree with rob,the girls i coach in Volleyball are way more aggressive and team oriented in getting better as individuals and as a team then the boys i coach in Basketball.They are much more open to being pushed and challenged and want to prove their worth. Kids these days are very coddled and we try to push the kids to expect more of themselves.Its why i i’m very pro-active to parents and to what my expectations are to avoid any conflicts. Confidence Always!!! is what we preach!!!

Brian

OK..there are just a few. What are your thoughts?

Can you send some advice to others? Please feel free to leave a positive comment to help your fellow coaches, in turn helping the young athletes.

FYI – Drills N Kills is a HOT topic! People from all over the world are ‘DIGGING’ it! Gotta love the vball peeps!

volleyball drills | drills for volleyball | coaching volleyball