What kind of fitness testing should I do at the start of preseason? That’s a question I see a regular basis each year as volleyball coaches prepare for the start of the new season. It’s query that begs follow-up questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I emphasized “direct” for a specific reason. Certainly, we can all agree that players who come in to camp out of shape are potentially at a disadvantage. They may get cut or miss out on playing time because they simply cannot keep up with everyone else. That’s different than saying, “Anyone who doesn’t do 50 push-ups won’t make the team”, or “You won’t play until you can do 50 push-ups.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I would be VERY hesitant about using fitness test results to determine who makes the team and\/or who plays. For one, what if everyone – or at least a large number – fail? Or the wrong player(s)? Second, are you even testing things that really matter? I’ll focus on that second one more in a minute. For now, though, I’ll just say I think it’s a very risky proposition to make hard and fast rules. They tend to paint you into a corner. Imagine if your best player(s) failed the test? Nightmare scenario!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you do, then it makes total sense to do some kind of initial assessment of the players. That helps calibrate the workout program, either broadly or individually. I should note that testing on the first day is probably not the best idea in this case. See my Coaching Conversation with David Gil and Natosha Gottlieb<\/a> to hear when strength coaches think is the best time for assessment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you won’t have a workout program, and thus will be focused on volleyball, then what’s the purpose of testing? Seems to me you’re just wasting potential practice time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think the old timed mile test has mostly gone out of fashion, thankfully. It is completely useless for volleyball purposes<\/a>. Most of the reasons I see given for it have nothing to do with the sport and could be handled better in other ways. Ours is not a steady-effort sport, unlike running a mile. It instead comprises short bursts of activity with rest periods in between. The work to rest ratio is about 1 to 3 on average. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So basically we want our players to be able to perform short-duration explosive movements, then recover, repeatedly without performance degradation. For example, to be able to jump just as high at the end of the a set as at the beginning, or at the end of a match as at the start. This can be hard to measure, unless you have access to technology such as VERT. It’s also hard to train for specifically outside of actually playing volleyball (see conditioning via practice<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, there is also the actual physical performance of the movements involved. Think jump height and floor movement quickness. Also arm speed for hitting\/serving. This stuff is easier to measure directly. A step below that is assessing how players do in the weight room on things like squats that presumably feed into the actual performance movements. You’ll want a strength coach involved in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWhat do you test?<\/h6>\n\n\n\n