Club Volleyball Off-Season Strength and Conditioning Program – The Outside Resource Model

Conditioning Program – The Outside Resource

Model

By: Ken Kontor

Originally Published in Coaching Volleyball Magazine - AVCA

One of the most difficult tasks in club volleyball is to create an offseason program that produces results. There are two ways to do this: in-house at the club or utilizing outside recourses to get the job done. In this article, we'll take a look at the outside recourse model with an example of how it can work seamlessly. The club we are looking at is headed by Seng Chiu of the new Dulles Volleyball Club. He is currently the 2014 CHRVA High Performance Youth National team head coach. His team won a silver medal at the USA High Performance Championships in 2012.

The outside resource is Rob Rose of the TrueAP which he founded in 2009. Here are the dynamics of how this relationship works to the benefit of the club volleyball player.

The Time Element: After the high school season and recovery, Seng has carved a period of physical development with focus on strength. The goal is to set the stage to not only maintain strength through the season, but to actually improve it. To get started, he met with the parents and emphasized that they not only improve their daughter as a volleyball athlete, but to improve their performance by preventing injury. The club season starts on November 8 with tryouts. The athletes have 72 hours to decide which club they will attend. The eight-week offseason program starts on November 17 and runs for nine weeks, which includes one off week for the holidays.

The Program: Enter Rob and TrueAP. During the nine-week period, he works with the girls a couple times a week with the holidays serving as built-in recovery period. The primary focus during this time is not volleyball skills, but strength training and conditioning. During this time, the athletes will work with Seng doing some volleyball skills for one or two optional days. One day is working individual volleyball techniques in small groups, not game situations. The strength training/skill work relationship eases the worries of the players/parents that volleyball-specific skills will suffer during the off-season. The key in making this work is the communications with Seng, discussing the priorities each week with Rob at TrueAP. Specifically, he communicates what the athletes are doing in jumping, first step and movement training, specific to the game. These are called transitional activities.

Enter the volleyball transition specialist. Seng's specialty is volleyball, Rob's is strength training, and the transition is in the hands of another TrueAP staff member, Bruce Tran, who is a former volleyball player with specialties in jump and movement training. The transition is seamless. As the season nears, the communications start to shift from Seng and Rob to Seng and Bruce. The key here is that this has become a partnership with Rob and Bruce creating more and more trust in the program over time. The continuity and established way of doing things goes a long way with the parents. The trust starts with Seng and his volleyball coaching staff and carries over to Rob and Bruce. There is a lot more to this, and volleyball coaches will be able to view how Seng, Rob and Bruce work together, the program they implement, and how the exercises are done at the AVCA Annual Convention in Oklahoma City this December. Here are the details:

1. Title: Developing an Efficient Strength and Conditioning Program for Club and High School Athletes. Date/Time: Saturday, December 20, 3:15 - 4:15 p.m.

2. Title: A Guide to Volleyball Specific Speed and Jump Training Techniques. Date/Time: Saturday, December 20, 4:30 - 5:30 p.m.

If you can't attend the convention, you can still learn more about their program in the most recent issue of Performance Conditioning Volleyball. To subscribe go to performancecondition.com/volleyball. Either way, you will learn more about how to fit off-season strength training, with volleyball jump and movement training, into a busy club season.