The “Athletic Position” the Squat and Volleyball
Young Volleyball Players should learn the basics of proper movement ASAP. So simply learning how to do a bodyweight squat and understanding what good posture is seems simple but is often overlooked. The obvious aim is to land or explode from what is called the “Athletic Position”. Knees in line with feet and head up/shoulder back and butt out and soft resilient landings. So lots and lots of repetitions of proper basic bodyweight squats and proper coaching and feedback is needed.
Females in particular collapse inwards and so technique and strength has to be devleoped hand in hand. Thus if one travels OZ and screens lots of good female volleyballers for example and tells them to lunge and squat and side lunge and so on , one sees the good, the bad and the indifferent. Knees collapsing inwards, bodyweights teetering on the balls of their feet and toes or total collapses of the upper body in a lunge, weak backs etc. So a critical step is first to master the basics of movement and then progress to correct landing techniques.
And even in good players a step backwards is often needed. No use trying to get 16 year old girls to do power cleans with weak backs and no core and collapsing knees. Often though players have weaknesses or range of motion problems that need addressing to allow proper techniques.
Teach kids to squat, lunge, side lunge, stepups and so on and coach them. Get them to balance on one leg and hit good postures and do basic core work. Basic stuff that one sees every day but is not covered in many young athletes. No rocket science here. Then check their landing on one and two legs and see what happens. At the end all movements have to be practiced and learnt at the same speeds as in a game but no use constructing a building without the foundations.
So many players can play Ok and look Okish on court but when analyzed closely that 5 to 10% is missing. We see this a lot in young tennis players in OZ. Great players and their parents have spent their mortgage on tennis lessons but these kids often have poor movement skills or strength and ROM deficits and these issues have hurt the development of the sport of tennis in my opinion.
A simple article with a good shot of bodyweight squats is on this site.
http://www.senecapt.com/_articles/ACL_Prevention.htm
Research by Dr. Hewitt in preventative research for ACL injuries in female basketball athletes and other sports is very interesting. He has promoted the development of a how to jump and land protocol . This research and plyometric based program produced a dramatic reduction in ACL injuries. But before these jump and landing programs are done, in my opinion basic skills have to be learnt and core and strength needs must be addressed.
- Certainly in his most recent research ( 2007) where specific “jump” training was used he alludes to the need to do more specific training on high risk players. Thus drawing from this type of research on ACL’s and looking at general development my opinion is that the basic movement skills must be mastered in many “at risk” players or “poorly conditioned players” before plyometrics and advanced power methods are used a lot.
So keep it simple and make sure basic skills are taught ASAP.Differential neuromuscular training effects on ACL injury risk factors in”high-risk” versus “low-risk” athletes.
No comments yet.
loris bertolacci 
Leave a comment