Momentum Exclusive: The Missing Links in Arm Swing Training

“I want to hit the ball harder”.

We hear it from athletes every day – I even heard these exact words last night while working with a team!

Every volleyball player strives for a stronger attack (liberos we know how much you love your glory balls during the hitting warm up) and it is without question one of the most effective ways to score more points in volleyball. 

Unfortunately, we also see a lot of athletes, coaches, and trainers struggle to create significant and sustainable changes in the attacking pattern. It’s one thing to be able to identify what someone with a cannon of an arm is doing and say “I want my (or my players’) arm swing to look like that!” – and it’s a completely different skillset to be able to change the pattern and technique of an existing arm swing. 

The arm swing pattern can be extremely stubborn to change, no matter how many cues we may give as coaches to or strategies we may try as athletes. What we’re up against is a pattern in the brain (usually a very developed one, with perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of repetitions) and also an extremely demanding skill for the muscles, joints, and fascia. 

Transform Your Arm Swing

Over the next 3 posts, we want to share what we’ve found over the last 15 years of working on making these changes – successes, failures, and insights. Our hope is that we may unlock a slightly more complete understanding of what it takes to transform this skill in a sustainable way. 

Sustainable…we’ve used this word a few times, and it doesn’t mean we’re using any cool new green-tech to develop a volleyball attack – it means that whatever changes are made to improve attack velocity also need to preserve ongoing health of the shoulder and back. 

We could get you throwing a weighted ball for a month and you would probably be able to hit a little harder at the end of that. But then you would also have a much greater chance of not making it to the end of the season with a healthy shoulder. 

Why Is Sustainability Important?

A volleyball season is more of a marathon than a sprint (or more like a bunch of sprints back to back actually). To sacrifice health for performance at any point is not true high performance – since when that performance matters most is at the end of the season, when playoffs and championships come into play. 

We think of sustainability as synonymous with durability and resiliency – all characteristics that we see separating the teams and athletes on the top of the podium from those in the middle of the pack. 

So everything we’ll present in this series of articles has 2 goals:

1. Increase attack velocity through improved arm swing technique.
2. Reduce or eliminate shoulder and back pain related to attacking. 

Why we absolutely love working on the arm swing is that the better we come to understand it, the more we realize that the 2 goals above are achieved through the exact same pathway. If we try to pursue one of the goals without bringing the other along for the ride, we don’t get very far. 

3 Non-Negotiables:

Over the years we’ve seen so many players held back in their best efforts to improve their attacking because they haven’t understood or known how to implement the 3 essential qualities of a sustainable, high velocity attack: Mobility, Control, and Technique.

Mobility

The body’s ability to get into certain positions necessary for using the body like a huge elastic band – eg/ spinal, shoulder, and hip range of motion. 

Control

The ability for both the brain and body to coordinate and sequence movements through these full ranges of motion – at a variety of speeds, and under different loads

Technique

The pattern that emerges in a competitive setting, what the brain and body choose as the default pattern when there’s a volleyball in play and a goal of getting a kill. 

We’ve learned that these 3 aspects need to work together to produce the ultimate goal of improved attacking performance and the elimination of aches and pains. 

When the body can move through all the large ranges of motion necessary for a powerful arm swing, and can do this while keeping the core and spine strong and controlled, and when the brain learns to trust this pattern in all attacking scenarios, then we see magic happen. 

If, however, we leave out one of these aspects, changes are either small, or fleeting. 

Limited shoulder mobility is a common issue that holds players back from improving velocity, and can be a common source of shoulder pain.

A common example is an athlete who does all the best throwing technique drills and box attacking drills and watches video over and over trying to make changes in technique, but has a limitation in mobility. With a spine that doesn’t fully rotate or a shoulder that isn’t completely comfortable under load in maximal external rotation, the brain will never allow the body to develop that pattern – because it knows it can’t do it without injury. In this case the arm swing remains looking and feeling pretty much the same, and more technique work just overloads the limited pattern more and more – usually causing more pain. 

Without adequate control to use torso rotation as part of the arm swing, athletes commonly revert to hyperextending the spine and keeping the shoulder rigid.

Another example we see all the time is a very mobile, flexible athlete who can get into all of the necessary ranges of motion, but has trouble really hitting the ball hard and consistently. Their arm swing might look good on the ground but once they’re in the air things shorten up and the rotation and power is lost. In this common case the missing ingredient is control. It takes an incredible amount of strength of not only the muscles but also the tendons, ligaments, and fascia surrounding the spine, ribs, and shoulders to produce a powerful arm swing. Once we introduce more instability by leaving the ground, the body will often be unable to generate enough force and speed through those full ranges of motion, and so we see a pattern without lots of torque, possibly with a low elbow, and usually not much velocity. 

These are just two examples to show how these 3 key aspects all play together. There can be any combination of strengths and weaknesses within these 3, so a very important concept to understand is that each athlete will have a different pathway. 

Give an athlete with too much mobility and not enough control more mobility, and they will do worse. 

Make an immobile athlete more powerful but without improving range of motion? They will plateau quickly and very likely get injured. 

Take a mobile, controlled athlete and give them the right technique drills and practice opportunities? They will thrive. 

If we apply the right tools in the right circumstances, changes come very quickly.

Theory Into Practice

If you’ve been following along so far, hopefully you have a burning question in your mind:

How do I find out what I need?

“To know where you are going, you have to first know where you are”

Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

We’ll start by introducing the most fundamental mobility assessments that we use every day. If these are limited, then start here and try to master them by next month, and we’ll dive into the next layer of assessment and training. 

Specifically next month we’ll go further into control – how to assess and improve – and after that we’ll start to introduce the technique work that creates transfer onto the court!

If you come up with questions along the way or don’t want to wait until next month to learn more, check out www.athletewellnessacademy.com or email us at hi@athletewellnessacademy.com. 

Mobility Fundamentals:

1. Thoracic Spine Rotation

Pass Criteria:

1. No pain
2. Fingers touch the ground while your knee is at 90 degrees and stays glued to the floor
3. Able to complete on both sides

Unable to pass the Thoracic Spine Rotation Assessment? Try these quick exercises to start making some improvements!

2. Shoulder Mobility

Pass Criteria:

1. Fingertips touch behind back on both sides
2. No pain

Unable to pass the Back Scratch Shoulder Mobility Assessment? Try these quick exercises to start making some improvements!

3. Overhead Reach Mobility

Pass Criteria:

1. Back flat against the wall and both wrists touching the wall with straight elbows
2. No pain

Unable to pass the Overhead Reach Assessment? Try these quick exercises to start making some improvements!