Push It Real Good

Sleds and stuff

We’re at installment number 5 in the Friday Fitness series I’m running this spring. Let’s jump right into it. Quoting from the first article in this series:

Suffice to say, over the past 15 years I’ve had everywhere between “zero” and “near-total” control of the physical preparation of teams ranging from U12s to National Teams. There’s been tweaks here and there, but overall I felt that I found a formula that worked well. To sum it as succinctly as possible:

A base level of strength using the most bang-for-the-buck, dummy-proof exercises. Heavy sled drags or pushes are the preferred. Trap-bar deadlift can be appropriate for some. For younger kids just holding the basic volleyball defensive positions for 30s works well. Barbell back squats avoided at all costs.

Force absorption via landings off a box. (Or more basic drills if needed).

Plyometric bounce. Jump rope is the entry point and that will last many kids a long time before they need to advance to more challenging hops and hurdles.

Some upper-body stuff in shoulder flexion3, mostly pull-ups (regressed, for most kids especially girls) and band stuff. Although I increasingly think that all you really need to do is hangs. I used to do some push-up type stuff but increasingly I think that pressing strength (like bench press, overhead press) is somewhere between irrelevant and actually-counterproductive. Bear crawl stuff might be helpful because you mobilize your scapula.

Test and compete (against yourself and others) in your jumping ability and spike velocity.

In situations where I led the programming, this is what I would do. In situations where I was working with a strength coach, I would make sure these qualities were being addressed. There were also situations (such as USA WNT) where I had no input into the physical prep but I was fortunate enough to get to learn from some great people in those various roles.

So let’s talk about sleds (baby).¹

I like sleds because they are an idiot-proof way to build strength while also being a technical aid to acceleration mechanics. Chris Korfist is a guy who knows a lot more about speed than I ever will (and I really like coaches who have been successful at both the high school level and working with elite athletes), and he has an excellent 3-part series on acceleration:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

A significant portion there is a bit of wonky fine-tunery that’s more applicable to track-specific athletes coming out of the starting blocks. But there’s a few points that are relevant to us as volleyball coaches.

1. Acceleration is important because players need to quickly move a couple steps or dive for balls and stuff like that.

2. Acceleration is primarily generated by pushing through the back foot, not pulling from the front foot.

3. Leg and hip strength is probably important for acceleration.

4. Leg and hip strength probably doesn’t matter much if it can’t transfer through the foot.

My first draft of this article ended up being several thousand words long. I lopped off most of it and put it in a to-publish-later file that I’ve been kicking around for a while. It’s probably going to be titled something provocative like There’s No Such Thing As Lateral Movement. But, let me rein myself in and come back to what the heck sled pushes (or pulls, or various other exercises) even are and how/why you might use them.

Here’s an athlete pushing a sled.

I looked back through various video and found that this is the only one I had saved. It’s not perfect, but it’s not a bad example. It’s not perfect because this athlete is bent past the ideal acceleration angle. There’s nothing more beautiful than watching these elite track sprinters get into these perfect acceleration postures with a straight line from back big toe to crown of head.

Volleyball athletes are never going to be quite like that, but they can get close. Here’s a mini screen grab of one of the best to ever do it:

She has to have her head up to look at the hitter but you can see that she’s got a ton of extension through that back foot up through the top of her body.

What you’ll find is that your non-elite athletes won’t be able to get into positions like that. They’re actually not powerful enough to “fall” far enough into those body positions and then rebound out of them. So they’ll break a little earlier and they won’t extend as far and they’ll never get there.

Here’s a screen-grab from Part 3 of the referenced presentation.

Your strength coaches love to have your athletes squat. But it’s questionable whether that helps them jump and almost unquestionable that it probably doesn’t help them sprint faster.²

But wait, I thought our athletes weren’t strong enough?

True, but it sort of depends on how you define strength. What we’re talking about here is:

1. Strength that needs to be expressed quickly.

2. Strength in specific body positions.

3. Strength not just in the legs, but through the foot where it hits the ground.

The great thing about sled pushes is that, with only a minimum amount of coaching and programming attention, they can sort of take care of all of those things without your athlete really even needing to know about it.

What It Looks Like In Practice

Let’s assume you’re interested in sled work, think they might be helpful, and want to start incorporating them. Here’s how you might do it.