I play volleyball. I can't get the ball to ever hit my platform when I bump. Is there any hope? Any tips?

Question

I play volleyball. I can't get the ball to ever hit my platform when I bump. Is there any hope? Any tips?

Answer 1

Change your thinking.  You are not getting the ball to hit your platform (implies passive movement) you are passing the ball with your platform (be an aggressive passer).  First, every time you contact the ball, have a destination in mind, this applies to all aspects of the sport.  Second receive the ball in your mid-line, right in the middle of your body.  This requires moving your feet.  Get your feet to the ball.  As soon as the ball is contacted you need to know where the ball is going and be there first.  Watch the ball all the way into your platform and push your platform to target.  Hold platform to target for 2 seconds to establish consistency.

Answer 2

Keep practicing.  Start with tosses that are close and slow.  Have the tosser move back.  Be successful.  If you start missing, have the tosser move closer again.  Do not be in a hurry to succeed.  Make passes after passes close and slow.  Keep repeating at the slow and close speed to start and then have them move back until they are 45 feet away.  

Make sure your platform is flat.  Your hands need to have the heels and thumbs together.  And then watch the ball until it hits your arms.  Not until you think you know where it is going, until it hits your arms.

Answer 3

hun, there is always hope. dont worry about it, you`ll get it. you can work on your footwork so you can get under the ball. also, make sure you have a flat platform. hold you hands out flat, palms faceing up. put your right hand at a angle on top of your left hand, so it looks like a triangle kinda. then bring your thumbs in so it touched the top. this should help you get a flat plat form.

Answer 4

This will be hard to describe in email, but I'll give it a shot.

Footwork

As the ball is coming you need to move quickly to the "spot".  The "spot" doesn't necessarily have to be the perfect spot, it just needs to be a spot that is better then the one you were in.  What this means is that it is more important to be in a "better spot" and completly stable and maybe have to reach outside your body to pass the ball than getting to the perfect spot but being totally off balance and unstable while contacting the ball.  (man that is a brutal sentence)

Stability

While contacting the ball ideally you want your body to be totally stable ie. not falling down to your knee etc.   Some serves are crazy and you wont have any choice but to almost play defence on it.

Prepping for contact

overlap the fingers of one hand perpendicular over the fingers of your other hand.  Bring the thumbs and the thumb-side of your hands together.  Lock your elbows.  Shrug your shoulders forward.  Bend wrists down to flatten out your forarms.  Arms are away from your body.  Try to make contact on the flat platform of your forarms and not down on the hands.  

The Contact

You may have heard coaches telling you not to swing your arms and to use your legs to pass the ball.   This defeats the purpose of the stable platform, besides it is your arms that contact the ball.  They may have said this to avoid a lever type of swing from the shoulders.  

Prior to contact you need to place your "platform" (your forarms) in a postion that will "rebound" the ball toward your target.  Passing comes down to placing a stable platform/rebound angle in a position to achieve the correct bounce towards your target.  We help this by not letting the ball just bounce off our arms but by pushing at it  (not swinging at it) with the forarms.  THINK THAT YOU ARE PLAYING THE BALL AND THE BALL IS NOT BEING PLAYED OFF YOU.  Follow the ball, watch it right into your arms.

After contact.

Dont follow through with your arms.  Your arms should almost be in the same position as they were before you made contact.  The passing motion is very small, but you are "playing the ball" and not just letting it bounce off you.  Your hands should also still be together in the proper passing postion.  Think of yourself briefly posing for a photographer after the contact.  This photographer wants to get a picture of you in perfect passing form and not a pic of someone with their arms swung up over their head or theirs hands having come apart.

Coach yourself.

Watch where your pass went, and if necessary make the necessary corrections to your rebound angle.  For example,  If the ball went up and came down on the attack line, your platforms rebound angle was too high at contact.  If your pass goes over the net, your platforms rebound angle was too low.

Practice

When starting out, it will take some time to get comfortable with reading the path of the ball properly.  In practice (on your own), dont change your arm platform (bending your elbows etc.)  just to make contact with the ball on your forarm.  Let the ball hit you in the shoulder if necessary.  You need to develop your ability to properly read the balls trajectory and changing your pasing every time will prolong how ling this will take.  This will help your brain to better understand that you were in the wrong position for the flight of that ball.

Mindset

When receiving serve in a game, your mindset should be "I want the ball, please serve to me" you have to want to be the player on your team who passes the ball.  If you're thinking "please don't serve to me"  there's a chance you might get the hook from your coach.

I don't know if this make any sense from reading text but I hope something in this answer may have helped you.

Good luck and practice, practice, practice!