Help with spiking!?

Question

i generally do everything correct when it comes to hitting (ie. the approach, timing, swinging arm and flicking wrists), but i can never get a good hit. either it goes right into the net or it goes out, missing the line by a few inches.

is there anyway for me to fix this? i'm short so it's somewhat more difficult to hit down and hard like extremely tall people do.

Answer 1

Hey girl I know how you feel I'm 5'4" and unfortunatly got stuck playing outside. It took me awhile to figure out what I was doing wrong but i'll do the best I can to explain what I've learned and hopefully itll help you.

When approaching the ball make sure that you don't have antsy feet aka your weight is on your right foot ready to go. Since we're not tall we can't afford to take any extra steps and little steps in between. Try and make the approach as smooth as possible.

When you go to hit REACH for the ball. That's the key for us short people we neeed to reach. Otherwise you hit it into the net or you hit it out (aka your problem). What you need to work on is how to hit the ball. Have someone watch you hit and if they see that you drop your shoulder when you hit then have them tell you. Eventually you'll learn to keep it up and reach. It's a hard thing to explain but when you go up to hit the ball your right elbow needs to come up high and if it ever drops thats when we get in trouble. That's when we end up hitting it into the net or out.

The best thing to do is just focus on reaching for the ball because since we don't have the height advantage we need to work extra hard on hitting on top of the ball.

Message me if you want me to go more in depth i have a lot of experience struggling with hitting from a short height. It's frustrating i know

Answer 2

Since your doing everything right it seems like you might need to try to jump higher. I know some short people on my team can get in powerful hits. The only other thing I can tell you is that the same players also don't hit it down all the time, but still get pretty powerful hits. Just work on your power and evetually work on your vertical. Eventually they will come together because you'll probably grow.

Answer 3

adjust your snap(wrist flickering) little by little. sounds like you are adjusting your snap too much after each hit. if the ball is going into the net then try just a little less snap to hit the ball alittle higher. repeat until you get it to clear the net. do this during practice and the warm up. little adjustments will help you better that one big one.

Answer 4

U r probebly not flicking ur wrist @ the right time or ur hend is comming down by you head....... To help jumping @the right time and wher u put ur hand throw the ball up in the air and do ur approch and pretend that u r going to spike it, but catch the ball in the air.. try 2 make sure thatt ur arms r fully extended so ur arm gets used to being that high...

Answer 5

It really sounds like your point of contact is just a very little off.  When the ball goes into the net, the ball is a little too far forward.  When it goes long, it is a little too far back.  You are only about an inch or two off in either direction.  Just keep practicing.  I wish I had a magical answer for you, but you just need to keep practicing.