How You Can Train Like an Olympic Beach Volleyball Player
Professional beach volleyball players Tri Bourne and Trevor Crabb were slated to compete in the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, but with the competition delayed until next year, they'll need to keep their skills sharp. The pair, who were childhood friends in Hawaii, also compete together on the AVP circuit. They teamed up to show the Men's Health crew how they to stay in shape and train for their sport, which is extra challenging on the sand.
"A lot of these exercises can be done indoors or obviously outdoors," says Bourne. "And it can be done by anyone for any particular reason: to workout get in shape, or to prepare your muscles for really hard, strenuous workouts."
The Workout
Shoulder Circuit
Face Pull with Rotation
2 sets of 10 reps
"This exercise is a shoulder circuit with resistance bands," says Krabb. We use this mainly to get our shoulders ready since we're doing overhead actions a lot in volleyball: swinging, blocking, setting. It really engages out shoulder muscles and prevents them from getting hurt during the match."
Bourne demonstrates the move.
"He's working his external rotation now with the push up. So it gets the rotator cuff and the lats engaged and warmed up," says Krabb.
Band-Resisted Arm Swing
2 sets of 10 reps
"This exercise is to create stability and range of motion in the shoulder," says Bourne. "When we're playing volleyball we have a lot of high impact straight up above our head. And we want to get that range, but we also want to be really strong when we're in that position."
Bourne demonstrates the move.
"He's engaging his core because that's where all your power comes from," says Krabb. "He's bringing his arm back behind him, and that's where the external rotation comes in into those rotator cuff muscles as well. So it's really using a lot of the shoulder and core here for this exercise."
Tempo Straight-Arm Pulldown
2 sets of 10 reps
"This exercise is a lat pull specifically made for jumping," says Bourne. "When we're jumping we want to make sure we can get our arms as far back as possible so we can create as much momentum to get us up in the air as possible. So what we're gonna do here is a fast pulldown and then a slow eccentric load up. Work on getting those arms as far up as possible, and also as far back as you can while engaging the lats."
Glute Activation
Mini-Band Glute Warmup
5 to 10 minutes
"It's just to create resistance and get us working different ranges we're going to use during the game," says Bourne. "This is huge for us to warm up this way because we're constantly passing and we don't know if the ball is coming forward, to our side, or to our back until the very last second. So we need to train our muscle memory."
Krabb demonstrates.
"The angle of his feet keeps changing with every pass. This gets us ready for passing," says Bourne.
Lateral Shuffle with Ball Toss
4 sets each direction (4 reps)
"We use this exercise to help our defensive movement, fast change of direction, hand-eye coordination, and really to get the legs moving," says Krabb.
Adds Bourne, "One of the benefits to this drill is to get the hand-eye coordination going. That's why we use a tennis ball instead of a volleyball. You have to be a little more precise."
Want more celebrity workout routines? Check out all of our Train Like videos.
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