Canadian beach volleyball player Sam Pedlow explains how to strength train like an elite beach volleyball player. Sam is one of the fittest guys on the world tour. In this free training video talks about the importance of not just strength training, but strength training specifically for beach volleyball and why that is so important. Join Sam and AVP pros Mark Burik and Brandon Joyner for this lively discussion on effective strength training for beach volleyball.

Ready to jump higher? Hit harder? Move faster? Of course you are. Get going with our 60-Day Strength and Conditioning Plan For Beach Volleyball. Learn to jump like a Polaris missile leaving a submarine with our workout plan for huge verticals. Turn your arms into rockets for launching the ball across the net. Enjoy greater strength, speed and flexibility. Never before has a program been so meticulously designed to focus on the beach volleyball player.

We've got beach volleyball...

This current epoch of quarantines and stay-at-home orders could be viewed in a number of ways for those in the beach volleyball community: Lonely. Solo. Boring. Idle. Partnerless. 

And yet, there is little need for those descriptors. Now, in fact, could be the optimal time to improve quicker on the beach, learning more about how to play beach volleyball, and to play it well, than you ever have. You don't need the sand -- in...

To watch a beach volleyball player warm up is to watch a menagerie of exercises, stretches, and odd rituals of varying use. Some of these are critical. Some are useful. Some are, well, some are just odd and could be downright harmful to any volleyball player and athlete. 

Which is why we brought in Doctor Domenic Fraboni, a doctor of physical therapy and lifestyle consultant who was kind enough to walk us through three essential stretches for beach volleyball players.

Dr. Dom is one of a number of experts we've had featured on Better at Beach, and we've compiled a 60-day course to have you jumping higher, hitting harder, and powering through the sand. 

But before we can get you jumping like Troy Field, hitting like Phil Dalhausser, and digging balls like Taylor Crabb, we need to get you properly stretched out and warmed up. 

Enter Dr. Dom. 

This video on Three Essential Stretches for Beach Volleyball features Domenic Fraboni or, @DrDomPT if...

When recalling an answer to the oft-asked question of beach volleyball serving -- "Is it better to serve with power or with accuracy? -- two images come to mind. 

The first is of Jeremy Casebeer. If you missed AVP Seattle this past year, where he won with Canadian Olympian Chaim Schalk, that's perfectly fine. It's on Amazon Prime if you'd like to re-watch. Or you can simply read...

To run through the list of the all-time greats in beach volleyball is to also run through some of the fittest individuals in the sport's history.

Karch Kiraly's sand workouts pre- and post-practice are the stuff of legend. They're also what led him to a 40-plus inch vertical and a career marked by more victories than anyone in beach volleyball. 

Brazilian beach volleyball gold medalist Emanuel Rego, perhaps the best player in the country's storied history, practically floated on the sand, so agile, limber and explosive was he. Ditto for Sinjin Smith and Mike Dodd, a pair of Hall of Famers. When looking at the current generation of beach volleyball players, the top is marked by much of the same characteristics. 

Anders Mol, the FIVB Player of the Year two years in a row, is an athletic marvel. Taylor Crabb, one of the best defenders in the world, is second to none when it comes to quickness and leaping. Troy Field flew up the AVP ranks behind an astounding...

A little more than a month ago, gyms and beaches across Southern California closed, bringing the same question to the forefront of nearly every beach volleyball player's mind: What now? 

How could volleyball players of all shapes and sizes and abilities, ranging from the beginner beach volleyball player seeking his A rating to the pro beach volleyball player seeking his first AVP Sunday, stay fit? 

How could they stay tournament ready? 

The volleyball community has proven, as it always has, remarkably resilient. Garage and home gyms have popped up. Roofs and walls are the new partners. Stretching and remaining mobile, helping to prevent injury, is the new heavy squat.  

It has proven that, honestly, you don't need a loaded up trap bar to be jumping higher and hitting harder and pier-bouncing in Huntington Beach. You just need a little bit of space, and the mindset that, no matter the adversity, you're going to become the beach volleyball...

We also run beach volleyball classes, private lessons and training camps for adults and juniors in Hermosa Beach, CA and Salt Lake City, Utah. We run volleyball vacations in exotic locations around the world. We can even run beach volleyball clinics for your group, club or team in your hometown! Send an email to [email protected]

Throughout time, there have been hierarchies of all types and shapes and sizes. The order of most can be boiled down essentially to a single element: Resources. Whoever has the resources, be it in quantity or quality, is the one at the top of the food chain. And with gym closures and beach closures and, well, everything closures, the volleyball players at the top of the totem pole today? 

They're the ones with the home gyms. 

Home gyms can vary, of course. Some have dumbbells and bands set up in their living room, getting a good pump in while watching Netflix. Some have tricked out garages. And, of course,...

So often, I’m asked questions about the best ways to warm up or workout for beach volleyball. Professionals have extensive warm up routines that armor their joints and work on their weaknesses. If you’ve been anywhere near a volleyball court in your life, you’ve seen somebody rubbing and rotating their hitting shoulder while their face winces in pain. Even after you've learned how to how to hit a volleyball properly, you can still experience some pain and injuries.

Why are shoulder exercises so important for beach volleyball players?

Injuries in beach usually develop because of muscular imbalances. Micro-tears in your muscle fibers develop into scar tissue when they aren’t given time to heal properly. If you’re pushing your body to the max, that just becomes a part of the game. BUT, when a muscle becomes less pliable, other muscles take over for it and these compensations have a tendency to build on top of each other.

Don’t ignore the...

Welcome to Better at Beach, where we are dedicated to helping you become the best beach volleyball player you can be. Doesn't matter if it's A, AA, open, or professional, whether you're located in Hermosa Beach, CA or Salt Lake City, Utah., we're here to help you get fit, serve tougher, hit harder, and, in this case, breathe most effectively. 

It has perhaps reached the point of being a vogue topic, not just in beach volleyball or in sports, but in life in general. It isn't a fad diet, or a "get fit quick" workout program, rather much the contrary. It's something we do every day, every moment, awake or not, conscious or not. 

It's breathing. 

Mindfulness and meditation, as ancient a practice as it is, has quickly become one of the biggest topics in health and sports, including, if not especially, beach volleyball. The vast majority of professional and NCAA teams travel their sports psychologists who espouse, among a number of practices, breath work....

If this beach volleyball blog is of interest to you, you may also be interested in our Beginner Membership, which can be  of benefit to anyone, living anywhere. We'd love to have you take one of our beach volleyball classes, private lessons and training camps for adults and juniors in Hermosa Beach, CA and Salt Lake City, Utah. We run volleyball vacations in exotic locations around the world. We can even run beach volleyball clinics for your group, club or team in your hometown! Send an email to [email protected]

Sometimes we can't get out to play beach volleyball with our real partner -- but we still have plenty of options. We can play with the roof. The wall. The street. Those, of course, are also not our real partners, but at least they won't complain about a bad set or pass. 

Even better, however, than our ever-reliable inanimate objects and surfaces around our houses and neighborhoods, are our roommates,...