Load Management in Volleyball

By Hilary Mallinger, Registered Physiotherapist

~Part 1~

As parents, coaches, medical staff and players, we want to see athletes participate in injury-free seasons and lifelong participation in physical activity. Athletes who participate in any high level sport are exposed to extensive training loads and competition schedules, and it is a commonly known fact that poor load management is a high risk factor for a variety of injuries in any sport. We can broadly define the concept of load as “the sport and non-sport burden of physiological, psychological and mechanical stressors as it applies to the human biological system” (Soligard et al., 2016). Two of the major mechanical stressors to consider with load management in the sport of volleyball include jumping and swinging.

In sports such as basketball and volleyball, which involve repetitive jumping and landing, athletes are exposed to risk of overload which can result in repetitive overuse injuries in the lower extremity. These include injuries such as Achilles’ and patellar tendinopathies, shin splints or tibial stress syndrome, mechanical lower back injuries including joint irritations and disc herniations, and more. The risk of sustaining these injuries is drastically increased with poor management of gradual increases in jumping and landing loads throughout the course of a season or playing career. Within the sport of volleyball, the number of jumps in a given practice, training block, or competition season vary from position to position. For example, setters tend to accumulate higher jump counts given the nature of their position, and we may see upwards of 200 jumps within a 5-set match. Opposites and outsides may approach the 150-170 jumps per match range, though typically with more vertical displacement involved. It goes without saying that liberos tend to accumulate a substantially lower number of jumps, though their position comes with its own injury risks. 

Data shows that in male high school athletes we may see upwards of 600 to 650 impacts in a weekly jump count, while this number may reach into the thousands for national team players (Charlton et al., 2017). As such, monitoring and appropriately increasing the number of jumps progressively as the season continues such that tournament, provincial, national and international competition loads can be tolerated is very important to keep players healthy and competition ready. An athlete should not be off the court for 1-2 months in the summer (or after an injury) and immediately start jumping 600 times in the first week back to playing! The goal should be to gradually increase the load in terms of jumping and landing over the course of the season in order to tolerate loads demanded by the sport of volleyball.

In volleyball, another repetitive task is swinging, which can contribute to overload injuries at the wrist, elbow, especially the shoulder, and in the lower back as well. Again, these numbers vary from position to position, and increase with age groups as the level of play advances. Monitoring swinging loads should be encouraged to reduce the incidence of common injuries in volleyball such as rotator cuff tendinopathies or tears, medial collateral ligament (or medial elbow) strains, and mechanical lower back issues. Swinging loads should be monitored both in terms of serving and attacking, particularly for outsides and opposites. 

While load management is an important concept throughout the entire season, and the duration of competition years for volleyball athletes, there are certain periods where we must be particularly aware of the risks of overloading, and perhaps modify loads leading up to or during these events. Examples include:

• Training camps, particularly those with multiple training sessions in one day.
• Athletes who play both beach and indoor volleyball. For example, as indoor tryouts begin during the last several weeks of beach season, athletes may be playing in provincial and national competitions and also attending tryouts multiple days a week. Here, we might see the frequency of practices and competitions go from 3-4x/week to 5-6x/week in a short duration.
• Athletes who play both club and high-school volleyball in the same season. Efforts should be made to increase communication between club and high-school coaches such that athletes are not being overloaded with jumping and swinging between two teams.
• Tournaments and competitions where matches occur on multiple back to back days or within the same day with little time for recovery between matches. 

For athletes who are working with multiple coaches or teams (for example, both club and high school teams), communication about loads between coaches must be encouraged to help these athletes with injury prevention. After all, our ultimate goal in this community is to encourage the growth and development of athletes in the sport of volleyball, and what better way than helping athletes remain in the game injury-free?

Hilary Mallinger is a Registered Physiotherapist who lives and works in Toronto, Ontario, and specializes in sports rehabilitation, particularly volleyball and running.