The Secret to Hitting a Volleyball Straight Down

A lot of volleyball players make the mistake of thinking that swinging harder will result in a better hit. This is wrong. More often than not, swinging harder will result in an out-of-control hit that sometimes goes in, sometimes not, and makes you look like you don't really know what you're doing up there at the net! So what can you do to hit the ball harder and get the respect you deserve as a hitter?

To spike a volleyball harder, the muscles you need to improve the most are in your legs. If this doesn't make sense to you, look at my beautiful pictures...

I hope so, because I wrote the answer on the pictures!

If you are shorter or can't jump very high, you have to focus on hitting the ball just right and with enough top spin so that it will land in the court with a full swing. But if you are tall or can jump high, you don't have to worry about those things as much. You can just smack the ball!

So what does this mean? The higher you are off the ground, the more straight down you can hit. Have you ever tried to dig a ball that was hit straight down? It can be pretty scary! Not only will your power be used to send the ball down, instead of towards the back wall, but other teams will be AFRAID of you! And if you want to pump up your team and be the go-to hitter in tough situations, do leg workouts.

To all the short girls out there: Work on increasing your vertical for volleyball and see the shocked look of your teammates when you go up and block them. It won't happen overnight, and you're going to have to work a lot harder at this than the tall girls, but if front row is something you love, you've got better odds of being there if you can hit that ball down!

To all the tall girls: Don't get lazy just because you're tall. Work your butt off, because it's going to suck the day you get blocked by the girl who's barely five feet tall! Plus, if you're wanting to be a front row player in any sort of advanced program, you've got your work cut out for you, so you're better off staying ahead of the game than struggling to catch up later on!

So talk to your coach, a PE teacher at your school, or just head to the gym and find out the best leg workouts for volleyball and get to it!