Keys to Spring Conditioning
By: Todd Laux MS, ACSM HFI, NASM PES
The beach season is fast approaching an in order to be in the best possible shape and avoid injuries your main focus should be on conditioning. Now some of you might have had the opportunity to play outdoors all winter long, most of you probably didn’t. Hopefully everyone was able to play on at least a semi-regular routine over the winter whether indoor or out. Regular exercise in the off season is a must for pre-season conditioning. Pre-season conditioning or spring conditioning should be just that…conditioning only. Don’t worry about touching the ball right away or getting on the court. Your body is a highly complex piece of machinery and needs to be tuned first. Before you start any exercise program it is advised that you consult your physician first. Be sure to take care of any past injuries before you start.
Your first priority should be placed on aerobic exercise. Making sure that you can move around the court without getting winded is key. Find an aerobic exercise that fits best for you and go with it. Start off gradually and build up your time. The key is building up your endurance. As you get later into the spring you can make your workouts more specific ex. sprints, suicides...etc.
It is also important to focus on flexibility while conditioning. Remember the more you do the more you need to stretch. Flexibility can make a huge impact on how your body strengthens and recovers over time. Remember to also warm-up properly before each workout. Active and dynamic flexibility exercises are perfect for warming up. Along with improving your aerobic capacity and flexibility you also need to focus on your strength including core strength.
Overall strength training is fine, but you should focus on muscles that are going to have the greatest demand put on them. This is where you need to build up your base strength through exercises such as squats, lunges, shoulder press, lat pull-downs etc. As with the aerobic exercise, you should change your exercises to more specific and balance based as the season approaches.
An important part of strength training includes core training. The core is where your body’s center of gravity is located and is where all movement starts from. An efficient core improves posture, maintains muscular balance and provides stability for the body. Here are some examples of exercises that will work the core: Drawing-In Maneuver, Tube Walking, Floor Bridging, Ball crunches. Be sure to focus your core exercises in all planes of motion and to slowly progress your exercises as you become proficient at them.
The last but not least key ingredient to any conditioning program is diet. If you are not eating correctly you will never get the most out of your conditioning so be sure to focus on proper nutrition. Make sure you eat a well balanced diet and pay close attention to what you eat on those days that you train. For a more specific eating plan, contact a local registered dietician in your area.
Look for more beach volleyball conditioning and prevention articles throughout the spring and summer. If you have questions for the performance enhancement and injury prevention specialist, please send an e-mail to: tlaux@pnc.edu