Pre-teen Volleyball Advice

Power Athlete Field Strong, simply omit movements she’s not ready for. Their warmups alone are legit teen workouts.:

ACL prevention needs to be high on priority list.

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Here in FL we have what they call a mini club season which is like July-OCT. Club season start in Nov/Dec usually.

I know Texas has many clubs- from my kid playing: TAV-Mad Frog-Skyline that are really good.

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She actually just finished 2 mini club seasons, not her cup of tea at all. It actually felt just a step above i9 volleyball. The mini club (at Skyline) doesn't cut anyone. They take the top 10 players (based off of their very brief evaluations; eval ~100 players in 1 hr) and put them on 1 team. Then everyone else is split into teams of 9-11. Both mini club seasons she was teamed up with girls that had never played volleyball before. She was one of 3 or 4 that would actually move to the ball. This last season, her "coach" never even attended practice; she only showed up for the tournaments. So playing against actual clubs with a team made of up mostly new players was brutal. Pair that with an absent coach and it put a bad taste in her mouth for mini club. She did however like the tournaments and the more disciplined structure that mini club had versus something like i9.

Suffice to say, she has moved on from mini club and i9. The clubs she's looking at have their tryouts in June and July.

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Power Athlete Field Strong

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power athelte is a great place to start, but i would suggest bedrock first

overtime atheltes is another great place to start

531 beginner prep school is another great place

bottom line is though, she should start lifting and lifting to get stronger, period.

i suggest 3 days. after an extensive warm up

med ball throws- 10 max effort throws

i highly suggest the following for main lifts-

box squats where you pause, almost pick your feet up and then explode up as your main lift 2 days a week, feet close power athlete style. trying to move the bar as fast as possible. essentialyl you are trying to eventually get to 1.75xBW @ 0.6m/s for maximizing speed

trap bar deads as your other main lift the other day until they get to about 15, then switch to wide stance sumo


both days followed by dumbell jumps. these are max effort. i would suggest vertical 2 days, broad the next. push the weights on these


then a circuit of 3-5 rounds, progessively adding weight over time

circuit 1
pushups variation- 10 reps
ring or fat man row- 10 reps
reverse lunge- 5 reps per leg
GHD- 5-10 reps
farmers carry- 50 yards


circuit 2
db standing press- 5-8 reps
chin progression-6-8 reps
knees over toes lunge- 5 reps per leg
nordic progression- 3-5 reps
suitcase carry- 50 yars



circuit 3
dip progession- 5-10 reps
DB row- 10 reps
cossak squat- 10 reps
GHD- 5-10 reps
sandbag carry- 50 yards



this is just a sample, but key is not being scared of progessing the weights.

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why? dont be scared to have the girl lift weights. its perfectly safe

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The quote below is why I was under the impression weights were bad before puberty. The other piece of it is she is too young to go to the gym with me (13yo min) and I don't have very much at home (just some light DBs and bands). The DBs may be enough for her and I can definitely pick up some other small pieces of equipment.

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A dogmatic approach to resistance training in the youth population has hindered the progression of a scientific consensus for decades. Axioms such as “Resistance training stunts growth” and “Resistance training damages adolescent growth plates” have stymied proper study methodology and forced an overreliance on expert opinion.

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(From your link)

Your posts are very detailed and provide a lot of reading material. Appreciate it greatly. Definitely going to bookmark and go thru the different suggestions.

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The quote below is why I was under the impression weights were bad before puberty

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the post from BM goes into detail why that is a myth. weight lifting aka resistance training, is support by the pediatric doctors association of america

LINK

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Children of all ages with proper supervision can benefit from resistance training

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pretty common myth that it stunts growth, actually quite the opposite.

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The DBs may be enough for her and I can definitely pick up some other small pieces of equipment.

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this is what i would do in your situation and not wantintg to spend a bunch


get a set of gym rings

build sandbags. just buy 3 bags of play sand from lowes for like $3 each. get a small and medium sandbag like this

use zip lock bags and make 5lbs bags of sand. tape them up. use that to adjust the weight in the sandbags.

between rings and the sandbag, and bodyweight she can get way way ahead



or find a place locally that trains youth in actual strength. where are you located? may be able to help

There are specific positions they will play. With substitutions if she is a labara or a back line player she won't have to worry about the net much.

Private lessons. And just hitting a crap ton of balls.

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get a small and medium sandbag like this

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Those bags looks awesome and would easily be enough weight for her.

Thoughts on getting her started on Grasshopper? Already have that plan and just about everything could be done with DBs and those sand bags.

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However, I'd like to try and get her approach and jump to be more instinct.

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All of the strength and conditioning stuff recommended is good, but it won't do her any good with instincts. She needs good repetition & coach to help with that.

Someone mentioned below that sand volleyball will help - and it will. The approach is different, but if she can jump in sand, she'll explode off the indoor court.

I just wrapped up coaching indoor 6th graders, and recommended sand to each of them. Sand helps with it all: tracking, timing, and approach.

Thanks all for the suggestions. She and I talked and we have a plan. I convinced her to try PPSA Grasshopper. It's an easy intro into lifting (3 days/wk for 4 weeks then 4days/wk for 4 weeks). Hoping to get her hooked on it like I did. Just took some slight bribing (agreed to buy her some work out gear and watch bands when she finished). Picked up 2 sandbags for her weights to pair with the light DBs and bands we already have. There is a really close park where we can workout and then hit the sand court afterwards. Looking forwards to a productive summer and some good 1-on-1 bonding!