Relevance of Physical Benchmarks
Often times as a coach, player, or fan of a sport you will be bombarded with physical benchmarks and athletic performance metrics. At the professional levels of sport you will hear about so-and-so player's vertical leap, 40-yard dash time, or bench press. Think of the NFL Combine where they have potential NFL draftees go through a series of physical tasks in order to rank their athletic potential and performance.
But that is at the professional level, where the athletes would have already developed the necessary skills and knowledge to perform at the highest level. At that level, physical traits can differentiate between a good player, and a great player.
How is this relevant to the high-school juniors level of volleyball?
Simply put -- It isn't relevant at all.
I am constantly baffled by the insistence of high-school coaches, especially long-tenured coaches who supposedly know what they are doing, on having their players tested for physical performances such as the mile, shuttle runs, vertical touch, etc. It is one thing to test for these metrics, it is another to base your decisions at tryouts on them. When you focus on these types of benchmarks and metrics, you lose sight of what is truly important to the game of volleyball at the high school level -- performance of volleyball-specific skills.
I am going to break down the three examples I listed above, followed by a breakdown of some metrics that I believe are actually relevant to fielding the best possible high school team.
Mile Run time -- I'm sorry, what? First of all, if you are a volleyball coach and you make your players run a mile...you are an epic fail from the get-go. Running a mile has absolutely zero relevance to the sport of volleyball. There will not be a single instance where your players will have to run a mile straight during a match. And please, don't bring up the arguments about endurance. Running a mile is completely different from the type of endurance that a volleyball player needs. Volleyball is a sport of high explosiveness for short bursts of time, and a player needs to be able to ramp up and ramp down their performance in an instant. A player needs to develop the ability to calm the body down between points, then explode to the ball.
Shuttle runs/sprints -- This too is irrelevant, though to a lesser degree. Yes, you can identify which players may have some pre-developed explosive speed and agility (change of direction). However, making players run sprints and shuttles only identify which players are good sprinters and shuttle runners. It is a completely different situation when the player needs to first identify where the ball is going, react accordingly with proper footwork to get to the ball quickly, and then remain with good form in order to play the ball.
With the two above items, my main point is this -- We want to develop good volleyball players, not good runners. If a player wishes to work on their running times, let them do it outside of practice on their own time. We, as coaches, only have a limited time to work with our players on volleyball-specific skills. We should take advantage of every second of that time and maximize the amount of touches our players get on the ball.
Vertical leap -- Relevant to a degree, as volleyball is a sport of explosiveness and height of reach. However, for most high school programs, and especially at the younger levels such as freshman and JV, you should focus more on the development of volleyball specific skills. Take their vertical touch into account when making decisions, but do not base decisions on it. I will take a player with good hitting technique, a solid platform, and coachability over a player who jumps through the roof but can't pass for their life.
So if we don't pay attention to the above, what should we focus on?
Coachability -- A player's willingness to take direction, and ability to apply direction immediately without push-back.
Attitude -- A player's constant positive attitude towards playing the game. Genuine joy while playing and appreciation for the game.
Passing platform -- A player's ability to pass with a solid platform, and recreate the platform time after time.
Passer rating -- Rating passes on the 0-3 scale, how well does a player perform in serve-receive.
I apologize that this post isn't very in-depth, or more well written. This is really just a rant caused out of frustration.