What has my experience as a strength coach for Volleyball Players taught me? At one point, we just worked on speed, general plyometrics and gradually getting stronger in the weight room. This definitely helped and still helps my volleyball players become explosive beasts on the court. We use to never test the vertical because they felt good about their performance in games and practices throughout the year training with me. They didn't care as much about the numbers at age 12-15. They're stats and performance were improving, they saw more photos of parts of their arms to hands above the net. But, when they started entering 16s year and attending more college camps as well as Prep Dig camps,the numbers on the Vertec (Which would then be posted to a recruiting profile),began to matter more. Are you an athlete who is hard pressed about the actual numbers majority of the time? Or is it mostly about how your performance feels over time, stat increases in games and how high above the net you see your hands going on a block/kill?

Anytime I am talking with Athletes and Parents about starting my Online Program, I tell them that we need ways to track progress. There are so many ways. While I do love getting numbers and shooting for better numbers, many are after simply just getting more athletic as they go from point A to B repeatedly, how high on the net their hands/elbows are, feeling more athletic and watching their stats grow. As well as their confidence. They track their athleticism through each Set of Each Match, Day 1 vs Day 2, etc. Energy Levels as well. While these don't directly provide me as a Strength Coach feedback about how fast they run sprints and shuttles, as well as how much further they jump horizontally and vertically, the qualitative feedback is noted and is still valid. Even while attacking better numbers from my performance coaching, these areas are part of the big picture. Honestly, it might matter more elementary through middle school. Not saying you can't care about Performance Metrics in these ages or you shouldn't, but at the same time you don't need to stress as much about these numbers in these earlier ages of skill development grows. Which can grow stats, right. As you enter high school ages and beyond, yeah, you want to care more because the more data the better.