GIF me volleyball or give me death #20

How you feel after a huge kill

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Something very peculiar about this weekend's NVL tournament...

Maybe I'm looking too much into this, or maybe this is a serious sign of things to come.  While the weather here in Chicago has been less than cooperative this summer as a whole, I again was help captive indoors, and turned down the opportunity to see the NCSVA regional as well as a local league tournament that many of my friends were playing in, and instead elected to watch the NVL online, from the dry comfort of my home.

The long lulls of ads between games made it more difficult to keep my attention span, but nonetheless I watched a majority of the games because after all it was fix for volleyball that Saturday.  It was then as I was perusing about facebook, when a couple photos (below) resurfaced and I had a brief epiphany.  

The pictures above are those of the brackets for both the men's and women's tournaments.  What stood out most when casually glazing over the two was that Summer Ross, a 20 year old, was listed as the #1 seed with her partner Morgan Miller.  I still expect BIG (and I mean REALLY big) things from her in the future but I'll save that for another post.  What next stood out was the lack of "marquee" players, but there are a few in mind that inspired this post.

I'm not trying to take anything away from any of these players, and I have the utmost respect for all of them to pursue a passion like beach volleyball.  I don't relegate them to a "lower tier" because what I've heard numerous times in other sports and seems to hold up everywhere is that once you get to the professional level, everyone is basically as good as you and there isn't much difference talent wise from top to bottom.  With that said, it is undeniable that beach volleyball has its star darlings that is will unabashedly force into the spotlight whenever the opportunity presents itself.  Thanks to the Olympics, athletes Misty May Treanor and Kerri Walsh are still household names, and I have even caught the casual fan name dropping Rogers and Dalhausser.  I don't shun beach volleyball for putting their brightest stars on display, it just makes good business sense.  What got my scratching my head was the lack of player support for the NVL this past weekend.

During the most recent beach volleyball recession I watched every YouTube video there was and probably many of them multiple times.  I watched these same marquee players give thanks to the NVL for stepping in when financially unstable AVP went belly up.  Pros like Ty Tramblie and Casey Patterson who have been as close to poster childs for the NVL since its inception were strangely absent this weekend.

Maybe the fact that Jake Gibb, who likely has a contract with the AVP, who has partnered with Casey Patterson, prevented Casey from playing this weekend.  Maybe Ty is battling an injury and was a late scratch.  Maybe since the prize money was never disclosed to the public, hints that it wasn't substantial enough to bring out the top ranked pros.  Maybe it's all of these things and maybe it's none of these things, but given my collection of sports knowledge over years of rabid and obsessive fandom, this can end in two ways.

The old saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention, so the first possible outcome in my mind is that in this financially strapped situation that we the state of beach volleyball in, will force the creme of the crop to rise even higher and faster.  Greater pressure to perform to compete for table scraps exposes the American athletes to more stress forcing an evolution, where those who are able to adapt survive, and those who aren't become a thing of the past.

That is the optimistic approach.  The gloomy perspective and what I fear might be more of the reality rather than just a paranoid delusion, is that a rift will form among players resulting in the lowering of talent and play due to the fracture of the talent pool.  To be the best you have to compete against the best, and having those who have already gained success to this point in tour separate from those who are still hungry to realize their goals, does neither side any good.

I know I rag on the AVP a lot on this blog but I feel it is mostly justified.  What is going to happen in the not so distant future when the player they are keeping to themselves are past their prime or retire?  Who will take their place?  Where will the next crop of young talent come from?  With no consolidation of talent, the next generation of young talent will never get those bitter sweet opportunities to be hardened while getting beat senseless in first round match ups against seasoned veterans, and conversely the top pros may not be held at the ready against the mid-level players, like the ones who competed in the NVL this past weekend.

You could probably call me a pessimist since my opinions of the current state of beach volleyball have not been very rosy of late but I really think that this is just the reality of the situation.  When it comes to other sports I only complain about my team's losses, trades, contracts, or officiating, but never that the sport as a whole is being managed poorly or is degenerating to sub-par quality.  Call me crazy but when the best news about beach volleyball of late is that the NVL got a new ball, it doesn't look good going forward.

New Playing Tip: High Line Pick Up

In this playing tip I go over every facet from start to finish to give you the best opportunity to cover the high line roll shot.

You can check out more tips in the tab above or at my YouTube channel

Dallas Open Winners

Congrats to Summer Ross and Morgan Miller for winning this weekend's NVL Best of Texas tournament on the women's side and the Canadians Josh Binstock and Sam Schachter on the men's side.

Also another shout out to the NVL for streaming the event live this weekend for all us fans to enjoy.  We look forward to the next one!

Watch the NVL Dallas Open Live!

Click here to go catch the live stream.

You have to have an Enet account or sign up for one (it's free), to get access to the live stream, but the set up is pretty easy.

NVL News + NCSVA Regional

There are couple a big updates that I wanted to share with you all

First, I guess you could say that the pro beach season is officially beginning this weekend with the NVL's first major tournament in Dallas, TX.  But what's more important is that you can catch some of the action live through the streamed broadcast on Enet Live but you can also find the stream link on thenvl.com.  You have to create an account to view the NVL's channel but the set up is rather easy.

Second it was also released today that the NVL is partnering with Rox Volleyball Inc.  Rox is an up and coming clothing brand catering specifically to the volleyball community.  I mentioned numerous times how partnering with major clothing brands has to be part of any tour's long term success, so I'm glad to see this happening.

Finally, I will have the privilege to watch the National Collegiate Sand Volleyball Association Regional here in Chicago at North Avenue Beach this Saturday.  I will try to get some clips of the action and create some new playing tips.  The tournament itself is very lucrative for the young players as the top 4 qualifiers will receive an automatic bid and free flight out to the NCSVA Championships in Long Beach, CA, and a wild card entry will be awarded to the NVL's West Coast Championships in Hermosa Beach, CA.

And with today being the first official day of summer I wish you all the best out there!

Experimenting with KT Taping for edema

I recently talked about the benefits of kinesio tape and how its innovation is taking sports treatment and athletes to a new level.  In that post I specifically talked about a new method of taping used specifically for edema, and since my body couldn't feel any stiffer yesterday after playing for 8 hours, I figured I would put it to the test.

I only taped my right thigh to compare it to my left as the "control".  Keep in mind that I don't have any certification or professional qualifications for this treatment, rather I just did some simple research on tips and application, but with that in mind I still recommend having a physical therapist handle the application for edema.

As for the results, I would say that it mildly improved the discomfort in my thigh.  I left the tape on for 4 hours while I slept, and took it off before I had to go to work.  It is very tedious to cut the tape yourself, so I would recommend getting the precut tape like the kinds from the SpiderTech brand.  I would bet that it works better for serious injuries opposed to just fatigue related discomfort, so I will still stand by my tried and true method for fast recovery with sound diet, light stretching, foam rolling, and ample rest.

Epic does not even begin to describe this!

You have probably seen the viral videos of soccer volleyball and the ninja-like maneuvers used spike the ball.

Well bossaball has taken volleyball hybrid games to a whole new level.  As if volleyball alone wasn't high flying enough.  Bossaball incorporates trampolines and a giant inflatable court into the mix.

Check out the promo video below on how the game is played.  I don't know about you but I got tired watching the video after about a minute.  Talk about a serious workout!

Credit to Volleywood for sharing this video on Facebook

New training/conditioning page coming soon

This is something that I've been meaning to add recently but just haven't gotten around to it, but I guarantee you that it will be up by next week.  

I know that this is one of the most important components for a beach player so I'll distinguish between training and conditioning, do's and don'ts, and how to target different areas of your body and game.

In addition I'll be focusing on updating the Health page, and as always putting new playing tips up. Feel free to comment or email me with suggestions.

Since we are in the midst of the beach volleyball season I will probably go over in-season conditioning first, and then cover pre-season and off-season workouts.

Volleyball Tournament in Peru - Red Bull Voley Barrio 2013

You know you wanna do this...

2 Added Tour Stops? When Did The AVP Do This?

As I was randomly perusing the AVP's website it struck me that their tour schedule this year seemed longer than when I last visited it, and as I did a double take, I realized that it was in fact longer.  I don't know when they added 2 new tour stops (Manhattan from August 23rd - 25th, and Atlantic City from September 6th - 8th), but I guess it must have been when I was incommunicado because I can't remember ever seeing it on my newsfeed.

Anyways, it was rumored that IMG was hoping to do the Manhattan in late August anyways so at least this year the players will get to play in "the grand daddy of them all".  Sports without tradition is just organized athletic chaos, so I'm glad to see the AVP have stronger representation on the West coast, opposed to the NVL which is trying to have a more diversified outreach, but in a time when the sport is very fragile and unstable in the US it would serve any tour to build off of their strengths, and that means rekindling the passion and enthusiasm in California.  The sport, and volleyball in general, lives and dies in that state.  It is the assumed leader and standard of both the indoor and outdoor game.   It leads the dance, sets the bar, and tells all of us to jump, and when we gaze upon its glory and rich heritage we will then know how high, but with out California we won't know how far we can truly go.

Click Here For The Full AVP Schedule

Side Note:
I'm sure it may seem that I have an extreme bias for the West coast and California in particular, but I am actually a born and raised Chicagoan, so I understand that if Jordan is healthy you don't let Scottie Pippen run the offense.  That means more Huntington, Hermosa, and even Mission Beach need to have priority as tour stops over newer markets like Vail and Toronto (yes, the NVL decided to take their domestic tour north of the border...why?...I don't know) 

New NVL Mikasa Ball Now On Sale!

A few days ago I showed the new design for the NVL game ball, and now they have announced that they are now available for purchase online.  Amazingly they are only $40 a piece which is even cheaper than the Spalding King of the Beach at roughly $45.

Click here to buy the ball

You can also visit thenvl.com and in the middle of the page there is a picture of the game ball that redirects to the same link I mentioned above.

Once I get one I'll test it out and post a review on it.

GIF me volleyball or give me death #3

The day after a long tournament

New NVL Mikasa Game Ball Revealed

The scenery of beach volleyball may not change much, but the ball that is used certainly has.  We went from the old school leather, to the new school leather composite, from the traditional 18 panel domestic ball to 10 panels on the international stage.  Now we can add a new player into the mix of the well established Wilson and Spalding brands:  Mikasa.

Irrespective of my predictions, the NVL is using a traditional 18 panel ball even though Mikasa produces a 10 panel one for the FIVB tour.

No word yet of where/when these will be on sale or how much they will cost, but one would have to imagine that they will be in the $50-60 price range.

The official game ball is the second from the top.  The top is an inflatable "beach ball" and the second from the bottom is a replica ball.  I liked the NVL's Wilson ball design more than this one, but as long as it plays true, and is reasonably priced I won't make many arguments against it.

Discounted beach gear!!!

In my "Must have's for every beach volleyball player part 1" I went over the differences between the 3 main brands of balls used on the beach including prices, but a friend shared this site with me that gives you all three, plus the elusive Wilson NVL ball at discounted prices with bulk pricing available.  If you are serious about training and working on different drills than a large duffle bag with balls is a must so that you don't have to waste time  running back and forth retrieving hits and serves.

The site features the Spalding at $45, Wilson AVP at $40, Wilson NVL at $46, Wilson Collegiate at $45, and Mikasa at $48.  (All the Wilson ball's are identical in size and weight, the only differences are in the color and design)

Click here to visit the site

Here we go again...

I don't think I've said it enough times, but the old way of doing things has been proven to fail.  The AVP, not once but TWICE, filed for bankruptcy with the assumption that you can simply take the game of beach volleyball, put on some bells and whistles, and sell that as a product, but once you get past all the glitz and glam of VIP packages, and stadium courts, the difference between the packaged product and the "free" product that you can find on any given day isn't all that different, but that is the point exactly, and the tour that I have been rooting for the most recently (the NVL), has been missing it completely, and appears to be taking off from the same failed path that the AVP left behind.

Maybe it's a lack of inspiration or creativity but I think it has to do more with a generalized and formulaic version of marketing that has been preached in higher education that has led to one of the most marketable sports hanging by a thread year in and year out.  Mass marketing and banner ads isn't sexy which makes it very difficult to sell a sport that itself is very sexy, and so are the athletes that participate.  I'm not saying that they should default to the "sex sells" strategy, because anyone can already see that in this sport out of the corner of their eye.

No one is going to spend 60 dollars to sit at home and drink so why do we routinely expect people to do this every weekend at a less convenient location?  If a bar has little interest in promoting their alcohol then the AVP and NVL should have just as little interest in promoting volleyball.  Don't get me wrong, because I want to see the sport grow, and the US return to dominance, but this rant has to do with the financial side of it which is essential in being able to offer clinics and camps to the next generation of beach volleyball players. As it is so succinctly and elegantly said in this documentary trailer, "what makes beach volleyball so great, is not volleyball", the idea of beach volleyball, the culture and the environment is far more profitable than the actual sport itself.

I'll admit that this isn't an easy task to take up, and it takes a rather delicate balance to uphold.  It is like looking at a painting.  If you stand too close to it, then you have no idea what you're looking at can't comprehend why you should care.  This is similar to building stadium courts, which brings this giant monstrosity of a magnifying glass onto one court and completely removes the rest of the beach and the atmosphere from your field of vision.  On the contrary standing too far away, doesn't allow you to appreciate the finer details, and hence allows your attention to shift to other focal points.  This would be on par to serving beach volleyball as a side dish on a diner that revolved around the partying, vendors, and free giveaways (like the Volleywood tournament in Chicago).  It would be like going out for a birthday dinner and you forget to pick up whose ever birthday it is.

There are still many other things that I feel are slowing the progress of the sport but for starters, the tours need to step up their merchandise game, and that doesn't mean slapping you logo on everything but partnering up with clothing staples like Quiksilver, Hurley, Billabong, and RVCA.  In addition make alcohol sales a viable option.  I know that this seems expensive as there are numerous permits to go through with each city that you visit but there is a reason why several beer companies are title sponsors for some of our biggest and most watched sports.  People want to go the beach to drink and have a good time anyway so find a way to invest into this problem and turn it around so that beach volleyball can be heralded again as the most attractive sport to attend as a fan.


Side note:  This post was inspired by the NVL promoting on facebook the sale of their "VIP packages".  If it took me $100 to have a great "fan experience", then I would have never followed or played the sport to begin with.  Seth Godin can teach them a thing or two about how free stuff can make you a lot of money.

New Playing Tip: Pulling Off The Net

Tired of giving up points off of easy hits because you keep tripping over yourself or always seem to be out of position on defense when you pull off the net?  Then you should probably check out this tutorial.

I go over both how to pull into the cross and down the line.  There are significant differences between the two so be sure to practice them both on the beach if are a blocker.

Blackhawks baby!

I'm just going to leave this here...

Lord Stanley here we come!

Blackhawks defeated the LA Kings in 2OT to advance to the Stanley Cup Final

The Purge: My Diet's Annotation

In the previous blog post I talked about the pitfalls of a beach volleyball player having to keeping up with their calorie consumption without having to resort to junk food. I made some suggestions and simple tips on how to go about doing this, but there was one thing that I wanted to leave out so that I could at least set a good example for you, and with the new movie called "The Purge" coming out, I thought this would be as good a time as any to expose my own weaknesses.

About every 3 weeks I have to "purge", and go on an "anything goes" rampage of binge eating.  It is what helps me cope 75% of the time, and prevent me from punching my way through the line at Taco Bell.  Now don't get me wrong, this "purge" is not a reward for 3 weeks of training and staying committed to a strict diet, and if that were the case then it would diminish the importance that I hold in my diet that it not only efficiently fuels  my body and helps it recover, but for the sake of being a healthy human being that would like to live a long comfortable life, it has many long term benefits that our distant future selves can't really comprehend.

But even during this purge my conscious still doesn't let me cross certain boundaries.  For one, I won't eat at any of the major chain fast food restaurants because I don't trust their quality of food, I don't want to support greedy corporations that have little interest in assisting the general public in living a healthy lifestyle, and over time I have just lost the appeal of some of their menu options.  But when it comes to local businesses serving up their fair share of saturated fat and grease, I will be more than willing to support during this exemption time frame.

If you were lucky enough to be raised on a diet that wasn't that what the average kid consumes, then you have a neurological advantage to avoid and resist all the temptations that our brain would love to tell you to give into so that it have access to rich energy sources, but if you were like me then I think a periodical purge will do you well.  One of my favorite quotes in relation to diet is that "One bad day won't cripple your diet but one good day won't make up for it either".  So the day off I take about once a month pales in comparison to the other 20 to 30 days, and being to instantly turn around, feel bad about what I just consumed, work my butt off to rid the poisons from my body, and replace it with better options is justified and very necessary in my book.

It's a hard knock life: The beach volleyball diet

For the casual fan, beach volleyball is an immensely entertaining fast paced game featuring amazing athletic ability.  To the untrained eye, it may seem like the toughest part of the game is all the physical training that gets put into it to compete at a high level.  And then you get home, starved for anything to fill the bottomless pit that is your stomach.  If you aren't trying to eat everything in site after a long day of playing, then you aren't trying hard enough.

Of all of the tuck jumps, all of the sprints, all of the wall sits, plyos, and crunches, nothing is as tough as maintaining a healthy diet as a beach volleyball player in my opinion.  Beach volleyball offers a perfect storm of conditions that leads to extremely high amounts of calories burned.

1) You have high temperature conditions and direct exposure to the sun.
2) Added resistance, in the form of sand, inhibiting your every move.
3) Short bursts of explosive movements and sprints

Put it all together and you are burning roughly 1000-1200 calories in 2 hours of game play.  For an average day of 6 games at about 20 minutes a game would give you this number if you are in the 150 lb to 170 lb range.  If you weigh more, and play longer, it won't be rare to exceed 2000 or even 3000 calories in one day.  I also bike to and from the beach, a 20 mile total, (with about 15-20 lbs of gear on my back) each time I play, with a round trip time of roughly an hour and a half.  That round trip too burns around 1000 calories. as I usually bike at a feverish pace, not only as a warm up as I go to the beach but also so that I can get ahead of the oblivious motorists and keep them aware to watch for bicyclists like myself.

Here are some of the sources I checked with to estimate how many calorie you burn while playing.
http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/calories_burned.asp
http://calories-burned.findthedata.org/q/562/30/How-many-calories-do-you-burn-Volleyball-beach
http://www.healthdiscovery.net/links/calculators/calorie_calculator.htm
http://www.livestrong.com/article/449512-how-many-calories-are-lost-in-volleyball/

At the end of the day my body could be running a tab upwards of 4000 calories burned (it is definitely not out of the ordinary for me to spend 5, 6, or even 7+ hours at the beach, granted that not every minute spent was actually playing.  Some time is spent waiting for the next game, as well as breaks in between).  So when you put it in those terms, eating multiple burritos, boxes of cereal, bags of chips, and tons of fruit juices may seem totally justified, but as my impeccable youth has worn off, I have heeded the advice that has been spat at me for years and years:  You can easily waste all the effort you put into a workout if you don't eat right.

The problem with "eating right" is that the FDA, and the major food corporations (as well as any other major corporation that contributes to the pollution of the environment of the food we eat), are making it increasingly difficult to just grab items off the shelf without having to look multiple times at the nutrition label and ingredients list.  Additives, added "natural" and artificial sweeteners, preservatives, and the ever present risk of GMO's, make a healthy diet look like trying to walk through a mine field with a blindfold on.  So you must do your own research, look up ingredients, ask the Google machine, "what are the benefits of _____", "what are the health risks of _______", "what are healthy alternatives to ________".  As we now live in a world of information, ignorance has increasingly become a choice.

I have finally started (and trust me I'm only at the beginning of this transformation), my new path to an improved diet.  My recommendations for you would be to start small.  Start with the 1 or 2 most unhealthy things you consume off the top of your head without having to do any research.  We all have our vices, and the uber-rich landscape of sugar filled products should give you plenty to pick from whether it be cookies, ice cream, pop (or for those of you who refer to it as "soda"), candy, or "snacky" foods, just cut them out cold turkey.

After that, do your research.  Find the next 1 or 2 worst items in your diet that you probably didn't think were that bad.  A friend recently posted this on facebook, and it is a great read that should not only enlighten but it also gives good recommendations for alternatives.

8 Foods The People Think Are Healthy (But Aren't)

As I like to say in reference to my training, "You gotta break down to build up".  So now that you've cut back, what are you going to replace those foods with?  Believe it or not this is the easy part.  Well, picking what foods to insert into your diet that is.  You already know what you should be eating.  You know that section of the store you've been ignoring, the vegetables?  Yeah, there's your answer.  Becoming a recently converted vegetarian about a year ago, has been a huge boost to my health.  I now look at it not so much as "not eating meat", but simply "eating vegetables".  Between meat and carbs, the average American diet probably only has room for about 5-10% vegetables, but adding this you diet will fuel you body with natural sugars and fiber, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, vitamins and amino acids for recovery, as well as protein.  That's right, there's protein in vegetables, all be it lower amounts that is often "incomplete", but it comes fat and cholesterol free.

Now back to the dilema.  After burning so many calories, how do we even come close to breaking even, or just under without eating junk food?  Well the first few hours after a workout are the most important ones.  This is when you are most vulnerable, on the verge of passing out, willing to fight a small child for an ice cream cone if it were the last one available.  Not only that but I've found in the following article that eating carbs after a workout interferes with you body's ability to burn fat and produce its own natural HGH.

Post-Workout Foods That Promote Slimness

Here is another great share I found on facebook that I'll plan to use to my advantage post workouts and playing, to stave off rabid hunger.

After all hunger is simply the transmission of your brain telling you that you need to eat because the volume within your stomach has been unoccupied for a long time.  Fill it up, and your brain shuts up.

Still we need to keep on muscle while keeping fat to a minimum.  So let me introduce you to your new best friends:  quinoa and chia seeds.  They are similar to rice or other grains but are complete proteins that also expand when ingested.  Couscous also contains protein but isn't complete so you will need to fill in the gaps of the amino acids you are missing, but is an easy to make cheap alternative.

I'm sure that you thought this was going to be just another health rant, but this is really just the beginning of having a well rounded diet to help give you the most bang for your buck when you workout or play.  You still need to get essential fatty acids (or EFA's), drink plenty of water, get lots of magnesium as it helps fuel over 300 bodily processes every day it it becomes depleted as you take in more vitamin D (which you get plenty of from the sun), as well as adequate rest for your tired body.  Once you do this on a consistent basis, only then are you going to start looking like a "freak athlete" on the beach, but this road to greatness is filled with lots of temptation and years of poor eating habits haven't made it any easier.


Final note:  If you ever need help assembling your diet, I highly recommend using this site...

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

It gives you all the info you need with great graphical visualizations to help you comprehend the effectiveness or lack thereof for different foods, and how you can fix that.

100 Things Every Volleyball Player Should Know

Shout out to Volleyball Mag for putting this list together.

Articles: 100 Things Every Volleyball Player Should Know — By Team VBM — Volleyball Magazine Articles

Yup for #s 2, 29, 52, 91, 94
Definitely for #s 29, 63

Who me? for #15

Always #100

Jump Training

Want a higher vertical? Of course, we all do.

After wasting my youth (my cartilage) on repetitive hours of plyometrics and heavy lifting, I've switched to doing most of my workouts using my own body weight as resistance.  The links below will give you some good ideas to help build muscle without punishing your joints.

http://volleyballmag.com/articles/42837-explosive-leg-development

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzyaOut_QxA [part 1]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SLg0HQr4FM [part 2]

Now when training for vertical it's important to do as many exercises that mimic the movements that you will be executing during a game, which is also why I've fallen out of love with squats, and grown favor toward wall touches and high skipping.  I'll give more details on my vertical regimen in a future post, but for now I think these are a good starter course.

Playing Tips now on YouTube

The Playing Tips page is now updated with YouTube links to all of the playing tips.

Visit my channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/daoofchi to see all tips and more beach footage.

New Playing Tips: Covering Multiple Shots [2 Parts]

In this advanced tutorial I go over how to fluidly adjust your defensive positioning as a play develops that allows you to be in position to cover multiple shots on the court.  Part 1 and 2 are listed below.

Level of play: Open
Featuring: Ty Tramblie

Covering Multiple Shots Pt. 1

Covering Multiple Shots Pt. 2

Playing Tip: The Appoach

Transitioning from indoor to the beach isn't easy but here are a couple easy tips you can practice to be a more explosive player

Level of play: A
Featuring: Sean Rosenthal and Sean Scott


All playing tips cans be accessed in the "Playing Tips" tab at the top of the page