Volleyballers, are you at a loss for what to do now that training has stopped? A silver lining to this tricky situation is that you now have extra time and energy to maintain or even make huge gains in your strength and conditioning.
Volleyball WA’s physio partners Star Physio have developed an exercise session with five of the best bang for your buck volleyball specific strength exercises you can do at home.
Working on your strength now means that when training starts up again, not only will you be healthier but your chance of picking up the classic pre-season injury is astronomically lower.
Lack of strength and poor conditioning are two big reasons why volleyballers might get an overuse injury and wind up seeing a physio. You don’t need a lot of fancy gym equipment to be able to get a workout in; there are a lot of household items you can use to your advantage.
BEFORE YOU START – SOME ADVICE FROM STAR PHYSIO
If you haven’t done any exercise for a few weeks, then start slow and just do it twice per week. If you’ve been keeping fit, then you can do it three times per week.
There are progressions in each of these videos so you can adjust the difficulty. If you’re unsure which progression is best for you, it’s always best to start with the easier variation on Day One and then progress next time if it felt too easy.
Remember, a bit of muscle soreness for the next one to two days is OK but what’s more important is that you can do the session again in two to three days, so pushing yourself too hard on Day One so that you can’t walk for a week would be…counterproductive!!
WARM-UP
As with all strength programs, it’s essential to start with a warm-up. A simple warm-up is a few minutes of skipping, or a short run around the block if you don’t have a rope. Once you’ve done this for a few sessions, then you can make the warm-up a bit more volleyball specific by doing 20 to 30 jump squats.
FIVE STRENGTH EXERCISES
With the main exercises, you want to start by doing 8-12 repetitions of each exercise for 2 or 3 rounds. Once you’ve done them a few times, you can begin to hold a bit of weight to make them more challenging. If you don’t have weights you can put a few heavy books in a backpack and use that, or hold some full bottles of water for the Y-press…there’s always something laying around the house to use!
- Split Squat / Rear Foot Elevated Squat
- Romanian Deadlift / Single-Leg Romanian Deadlift
- Push up / Weighted Push-Up
- Y-press (this can be done on the floor/off a bench/on a ball)
- Plank Variations
Stay tuned because in a few weeks we’ll release some of our top tips for fitness & conditioning exercises for volleyballers.
Remember if you have any niggles, Star Physio is still open and operating in West Perth and Mosman Park Clinics from Monday to Saturday. Star Physio also have a new telehealth service, where they can see patients via video-link and can help you with your own ‘home gym’! For any queries check out our website: https://starphysiowa.com.au/ or call the clinic on 9212 4254
Safe safe, stay fit, stay sane.