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Volleyball

Volleyball

Exercise Description:

Volleyball is a team sport that has both social and fitness benefits. You can organise a volleyball game spontaneously at picnics, family gatherings, or group outings, or join a team in a league. Competitive volleyball is a running and jumping sport that requires agility, strength, and coordination. For long matches, you need both aerobic conditioning and stamina. Volleyball can be played indoors in a gym, or outdoors on grass, or sand.

What Muscles You Work:

Volleyball requires overall body strength due to its fast, explosive movements. In particular, it works muscles in the legs, hips, back, and shoulders.

Tips To Improve Your Volleyball Game:

  • Perform a total-body strength training program to help you jump higher, hit the ball harder, and move around the court better. Training with weights can help you gain strength and power. 
  • Practice jumping as you would during a game. Practice your footwork for blocking and spiking, and then jumping as high as you can. Pick a high target and jump to it 10 times in a row. Work your way up to at least four sets of 10 jumps each. 
  • Perform interval-training to increase your foot speed. Interval-training consists of going hard for short bursts in the middle of a lengthy aerobic activity - for example, sprinting for 50 yards at various times in the middle of a long walk. 
  • Strengthen your quadriceps (front of the thigh) muscles to stabilise your knees and your abdominal muscles to support your back. 
  • Drink water or a sports drink every 15 minutes, particularly if you are playing beach volleyball. Continue to take in liquids when you come off the court. 

How Not To Get Hurt:

Like any jumping sport, volleyball leads to back strain, due to the pounding the back takes as you land on the court after jumping.  Plus, players arch and twist their backs to go up for spikes, and then uncoil as they whip their arms to hit the ball. Like any sport that brings the arm up over the head, volleyball can lead to rotator cuff injuries in the shoulder. Jumping from a crouched position to block or spike the ball causes great force on the knees. Good flexibility will help you avoid these injuries. After warming up, make sure to stretch your legs, lower back, hips, Achilles tendon, calf, and shoulders, then cool-down and stretch again afterwards.

Essential Equipment:

  • Shoes that provide good lateral support and good shock absorption with sturdy, strong, flat soles.
  • For beach volleyball, sunscreen, a broad-brimmed hat and other protective clothing to reduce the risk of sun damage, and sunglasses rated to protect the eyes from harmful ultraviolet light.
  • Water bottle and drink water, water and more water. 
  • Good-fitting socks constructed of a fabric that keeps moisture away from the skin to prevent skin soreness.
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