Here’s a video of a player working on the mechanics of attacking. It involves a combination of things that I’ve definitely seen coaches use before, though not often together.
I’m not sure if the floor mat is meant to be a “start behind” or a “step over this” thing. I’m thinking the latter. If so, it’s a bit short, or ideally they place a bit more forward. It does at least get the player thinking in terms of striding longer on the penultimate step, though.
Then there’s throwing the floor disk on the jump back swing. That helps the player focus on how they’re using their arms to aid jumping.
I’d call both of these potentially useful constraints to put the focus on areas of development in the spike approach (see the videos here for information on the Constraints Led Approach). They are definitely externally rather than internally focused.
Then we have the tennis ball throw to replicate the arm swing. At this point things complete fall apart, in my view. It’s what I call a front-to-back swing. By that I mean there’s no torso rotation. The player is generating power from her back arch and her shoulder rather than using her core to generate force that transmits through the shoulder. No bueno.
If I saw this in my gym I would immediately get rid of all the other stuff and focus on that arm swing – perhaps using the idea shared in the podcast linked here. Her current mechanics risk back and/or shoulder injury and she’s likely to be able to generate more power by increasing hip-shoulder separation (pull the shoulder back rather than just the arm – like in this post’s featured image).
6 Steps to Better Practices - Free Guide
Subscribe to my weekly newsletter today and get this free guide to making your practices the best, along with loads more coaching tips and information.
