WHAT BENEFITS DOES PLAYING VOLLEYBALL HAVE ON YOUR HEALTH?

Playing volleyball can benefit your body in many ways. The maneuvers performed during an average game or practice serve to tone your frame, as well as strengthen your heart and lungs. Also, volleyball players often experience sense of team camaraderie that makes the sport an exuberant way to get fit. By practicing the typical techniques and skills of the game, you can significantly enhance your total physical well-being. Muscular Development Many of the motions executed while playing volleyball serve to build and strengthen lean muscle. "Spiking" the ball into your opponent's court employs the muscles in your chest, arms and shoulders. A leaping "serve" stimulates these areas as well, while utilizing the leg muscles to jump. Bending down to press the ball up into position mimics a "squat," which is widely considered the most useful exercise for building strength. Visual Acuity Playing volleyball will also improve your reflexes and hand-eye coordination. By serving, you will develop the ability to follow the ball with your eyes and strike it at the ideal point of contact. You must continuously coordinate your actions with the speed of the ball and the course of its movement. This will enhance your capacity to recognize visual cues quickly and produce the appropriate response. You will also increase your sense of awareness, by monitoring your position on the court, as well as other members of your team. Cardiovascular Health As your body meets the rigorous demands of playing volleyball, your heart will become stronger and more efficient. To fulfill the physical workload, your heart will pump faster as your body improves its capacity to absorb oxygen. Your lungs will also grow more powerful and productive, allowing you to exert more effort with minimal strain. Balance Competing in volleyball, requires poise and agility. While learning to move as your eyes stay on the ball, you will develop a solid sense of natural equilibrium. Lateral-movement practice drills strengthen your abdominal core, the sheet of smooth muscle wrapped around your mid-section. Developing these muscles can improve your posture, mobility and balance. References

Atlantic Coast Conference; Visual Skills and Volleyball; Barry L. Seiller, M.D.; October 2004 PersonalPowerTraining.net: The Importance of Cardiovascular Fitness

Article reviewed by Allen Cone Last updated on: Apr 26, 2011 Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/403388-what-benefits-does-playing-volleyball-haveon-your-health/#ixzz2EVYTw0ny

Artery injury signs common in pro volleyballers (Reuters Health) - About one in four professional volleyball players surveyed in the Netherlands had symptoms that could suggest a potentially serious injury to a shoulder artery, according to a new study that urges doctors to keep an eye out for the condition. After encountering arterial aneurysms - dangerous bulges in a blood vessel wall - in the shoulders of a half dozen pro volleyballers, Dutch researchers canvassed nearly 100 players to see how many more had possible signs of the same injury. The main symptoms - cold, blue or pale fingers during or right after intense play - which according to the researchers could be the result of little blood clots emanating from the damaged artery, were reported by 27 percent of the volleyballers. The study did not actually examine the athletes to determine whether they had artery damage, though. "We only did a questionnaire and we still need to relate whether the questionnaire is in accordance to a vascular problem," said Dr. Mario Maas, senior author of the study and a radiologist at the Academic Medical Center/University of Amsterdam in The Netherlands. Maas and his colleagues at the hospital had seen six cases of blood clots in the fingers of male pro volleyball players in the course of three years, mainly in each man's dominant hand. In each case, they traced the problem back to arterial aneurysms in the athletes' shoulders on the same side of the body, and performed surgery to repair the injured blood vessel. The players were able to return to competition after a few weeks. Daan van de Pol, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health that the problems can be due to compression of an artery in the shoulder when a player is going for a smash or a serve. The overhead reaching movement squeezes the artery "like a tube of toothpaste," the authors wrote in the study in The American Journal of Sports Medicine, potentially causing clots to shoot out and circulate down to the fingers. The injury has also been documented in professional baseball pitchers, they noted. The unusual number of such cases seen among volleyballers at one medical center prompted the researchers to survey more players to find out how common the condition might be.

Ninety-nine Dutch professional volleyball players, with an average age of 24, answered a questionnaire asking whether they ever experienced pale, cold or blue fingers during or after practice and competition. The survey also asked about family history of heart disease. The researchers found that 27 players had experienced cold fingers during play, 18 had had blue fingers and 20 players said their fingers had been pale. Among those who reported feeling symptoms, eight said they had cold fingers often, while four said they had blue or pale fingers often. The researchers did not follow up with survey participants to determine the exact cause of their symptoms, and van de Pol said it's possible they might not be due to a vascular problem. "We know one in four athletes have these complaints. They could have nothing like vascular injury, and also players without symptoms could have vascular injury," he said. The group is doing follow-up research to see how well their survey actually identifies people with blood clots caused by a vascular problem. Their report urges doctors, especially those treating elite athletes, to actively screen for the signs of potential vascular injuries. "I think the condition itself is rare, and for that reason it's not...a condition players at a recreational level are going to experience," said Dr. Jonathan Reeser, the physician director in the department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Marshfield Clinic in Marshfield, Wisconsin, who was not involved in the study. "That said, it does happen, and usually it happens in the more competitive athletes, and so for that reason you really don't want to miss it," he added. Maas said that although the finger symptoms seem to be common among elite athletes, for athletes at high school or other less intense levels of competition, the risk is not high. Still, Reeser said, "I think it's quite important to at least keep that in the back of your mind when you're evaluating somebody with shoulder pain or, in this case, hand symptoms. If you miss it, you could potentially have as a consequence more serious, long term deficit of function," he said. SOURCE: bit.ly/RFDedd The American Journal of Sports Medicine, online August 27, 2012.

Competitive Pressure In Volleyball

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Competition breeds pressure. This is especially true in the unpredictable volleyball environment where emergencies are often the rule rather than the exception. Some players feed off competitive pressure, improving their focus and raising their game to a higher level, while others allow themselves to be overwhelmed by pressure, choke, and fold. How can individuals respond so very differently to the same demands? Athletes at all levels experience increased physiological arousal (e.g., butterflies, nervousness, perspiration) as a result of competitive pressure. These natural responses increase as the match becomes more meaningful to the individual and the ability levels of the players become more similar. They are the normal results of sincere effort rather than pathological anxiety states. Evidence that competitive pressure can enhance performance is seen in the fact that most Olympic track records are broken in front of massive crowds, when the pressure is greatest, rather than in practice. Although performance is often improved following normal increases in arousal, the complexity of fine motor skills required in volleyball dictates a guard against over-arousal. As such, responding to competitive pressure with additional increases in arousal due to cognitive anxiety (e.g.,worry, concern, self-doubt), inevitably destroys performance! It also steals attention away from what is important, wasting it on irrelevant fears. It is unrealistic, and perhaps fruitless, to try to eliminate natural competitive pressure. However, studies suggest that the way an individual appraises stressful events determines whether the experienced emotion will be positive or negative. In other words, differences in the way individuals evaluate competitive pressure situations, rather than the situations themselves, explain why some athletes thrive while others wilt! Competitive pressure appraised as negative will inevitably lead to unhealthy anxiety and less proficient volleyball performance. In contrast pressure welcomed as a necessary challenge of the thrill of competition guards against over-arousal caused by needless worries, increases attention to the task at hand and improves overall performance. Here are some guidelines to help you manage competitive pressure more effectively:

Play out points in practice. Training sessions should be as realistic as possible, with lots of competitive opportunities. Never allow your coach or practice partner to stand in one place too long and feed balls. This will only ensure that you become a great practice player. Enter as many tournaments as you can to gain necessary experience in a competitive environment. Believe in yourself when the going gets rough. Nervous energy is a natural part of the game. Trust your preparation, stay focused, and hang in there to win the internal battle. Welcome the uncertainty of competition as one of the most exciting parts of the game. It never gets boring when you have a good struggle on your hands!

In summary, competitive pressure is a natural component of match play which should be accepted and eagerly embraced in order to crush the demons of self doubt and anxiety (as well as your opponent). Republished with permission from Tom Kohl Copyright 2003-2007. Austin Volleyball. Privacy. Site by Venable.