How to be the best I can be..?

Question

I am playing volleyball and am a sophomore in high school. Our coach wants us to be a defensive powerhouse, and wants our speed to beat other teams. We are doing conditioning at home but what can I do at home to make me even better, I am very busy so I can't workout for extended amounts of time, please give some good ideas. I don't have access to a the Y or anything.

Answer 1

If you want to be good at defense have someone chuck volleyballs at you so that you can practice digging hits. Just for even ten minutes is fine and you can do it anywhere where you won't damage anything. Since you're doing conditioning already, practicing technique and getting enough food and water is all you really need.

Answer 2

A great conditioning workout if you don't have much time is interval training.  You can get a lot done in 20-30 minutes.  You can use either a treadmill, a stationary bike, or an elliptical trainer.

Warm up at a moderate pace for 5 minutes -- the equivalent of a fast walk.  Then crank up the pace so you're working at the equivalent of a medium to fast jog for 5 minutes.  Now the fun part starts!  

If you're on a treadmill, step off and turn up the pace to 6 mph.  Carefully hop back on and run at that pace for 20 seconds, then step off and turn the speed down to 3 mph.  Walk for 90 seconds.  (This cycle will take you 2 minutes with the changes of pace.)  Do another sprint at 6mph (20 seconds sprint, 90 seconds walk).  Next time, turn the speed up to 7mph.  Do two cycles at 7mph.   Then do two at 8 mph.  If you're up to it, do 2 more at 9mph.  

Cool down for 5 minutes, stretch, and you're done.  

To make it more difficult, increase either the pitch of the treadmill, or the resistance of the exercise bike/elliptical.  Then change the ratio of sprinting to walking -- increase the sprint to 30 seconds and cut the walk time.  

This is a very flexible workout because you can progress as your conditioning gets better.  The other thing I like about it is the pacing because it's almost game-like.  In a game, you go like crazy for 10-30 seconds, then you have 30-45 seconds to reset before the next serve, right?  Anything that trains you at that pace is good.  

Enjoy your season!