ARTICLES, TIPS, TRAINING & GENERAL ADVICE

BROWSE LIBRARY

Related Articles

Additional Articles

Training Plans

Please be safe, consult with your physician before beginning any
new fitness plan.

Girls Volleyball 101-Forearm Passing

by Phil, December 30, 2007

I played basketball and football almost every day as a kid. I love sports, so when one of the parents approached me about coaching volleyball for the Boys and Girls Club, I jumped at the chance. This would give me the opportunity to combine my love of sports and spending time with my daughter. I began to research volleyball, trying to breakdown the sport to come up with some effective drills to help the girls improve their game.

Over the weekend I spent 10 hours in a volleyball clinic - a 3 hour session for coaches, and two 3.5 hour sessions for players (I went to the two sessions for 7th grade through High School players). I decided I would do a brain dump of all the things I remember - both for myself and for any other coaches who might benefit. This information is free - take it for what it’s worth.

This article is about Forearm Passing (aka bumping):

There are four major keys to the Forearm Pass:

Arrive (Hop to the Spot)

  • The player should arrive at the spot before the volleyball.
  • The player should plant their feet as they arrive so that it gives them a solid base (this looks like a little hop)
  • Legs should be bent giving the player a lower center of gravity - hence more balance.

Face the Incoming Ball

  • The player should line up their belly button to where the ball came from.

Create a Platform

  • Wrists down to thumbs should be together.
  • As long as wrists and thumbs are together, the rest of the hand position is personal choice. The exception is no interlocking fingers - it leads to catching the pinky and dislocating the finger.
  • Point thumbs down to create a natural volleyball groove with the forearms. This is where the ball should connect with the player.
  • The platform comes together after the player arrives at the spot.
  • The player should not run with arms together.

Tilt to the Target

  • Legs should face where the ball came from.
  • Tilt your platform to where you want the ball to go by dropping your shoulder.
  • Basically, you want to deflect the volleyball from the incoming path to the new path (ie where you want it to go).
  • The best drill to practive passing is to create triangles where the ball comes from one direction and gets passed to another direction.

Sources:

  • Western Washington University Volleyball Clinic
  • Winning Volleyball For Girls, by Deborah W. Crisfield and Mark Gola
  • Volleyball Steps To Success, by Barbara L. Viera and Bonnie Jill Ferguson

Digg this Story

LEAVE A COMMENT:

Vote For Us

Thanks to all of you who nominated Sweat365 for the Open Web Awards, we've made it to "The Final Round" of voting. Now it's really time to stuff those ballot boxes! The rules allow you to vote once (per email) per day between now and Dec. 15th... so let's get voting!

News

Join the Brooks Run Happy Challenges!

October 28, 2008 by Brad Hefta-Gaub

Sweat365 and Brooks Sports have teamed up to create the Brooks Run Happy Group.

As a member of the Brooks Run Happy Group you can join challenges (for prizes!), easily track your workouts, blog about what makes you Run Happy, and connect with other runners and Brooks enthusiasts. This coming November-January, we’ll be offering monthly prizes of Brooks running shoes and apparel for the most miles run,the most calories burned, and the most hours exercised.

Join The Brooks Run Happy Group at Sweat 365 Today!

Run Happy!

Sweat365 and Brooks Sports

August 5, 2008 by Brad Hefta-Gaub

Sweat365 is very excited to announce a new partnership with Brooks® Sports.

Brooks is a leading running company that designs and markets a line of high-performance running shoes, apparel and accessories. Entirely focused on the run, Brooks is dedicated to inspiring people to run and be active. Sweat365 is dedicated to supporting your everyday fitness, no matter what your level and no matter what your goals.  At Sweat365, we are honored to work with a partner like Brooks that shares a common vision of inspiring people to reach their fitness goals.

Sweat365 will be powering the social media platform for Brooks. In addition to providing Brooks with a fully hosted state of the art social media publishing platform and access to a growing community of everyday athletes, over the next several months we will work closely with Brooks to deliver several exciting new programs for them to engage with their customers using the Sweat365 platform. Stay tuned for more.

In the mean time, please check out the new Brooks Blog at http://talk.brooksrunning.com.

News Archive