Three years ago, Victor Fitch was, in his own words, “a strung out drug addict.” Weeks away from being homeless, from losing all contact with his son, Fitch enrolled into a treatment program. We hear of the 12 step recovery process often.

It’s rare that we hear volleyball is one of them.

In his treatment program, Fitch discovered a love and passion for volleyball. It’s a sport he describes as “church, it’s my connection to the sober community and a huge outlet.”

Last week, at a Better at Beach camp in Salt Lake City, Fitch was given the opportunity to take a week off of his job at Netflix and, well, go to church.

From 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Fitch was playing volleyball.

Many in the beach volleyball community have heard of VolleyCamp Hermosa, which is exactly what it sounds like it is: a beach volleyball camp in Hermosa Beach. But the company, founded and expanded by longtime professional beach volleyball player Mark Burik, rebranded,...

If you're interested in this blog on serving and how to play defense in beach volleyball, you may be interested in our serving course, which, of course, is the first line of defense in, ahem, defense. It'll will have you serving more accurately, with more power, in just a few weeks! We'd also love to have you drop by one -- or more -- 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]

The high line shot is the most common offensive shot in beach volleyball. It's the equivalent to a fast ball in baseball, or an elbow jumper in basketball: If you're going to play beach volleyball, you need to have a high line shot. 

Even Phil Dalhausser -- gigantic, physical,...

On this episode of the CROSSNET Volleyball Podcast show, USA Indoor Volleyball Olympic Gold Medalist Ryan Millar, talked with me about my path through the game. It's always fun to talk shop with someone you haven't met but then you realize that all of your experiences are so tightly aligned.

"AVP beach volleyball professional and the owner of the Better At Beach YouTube Channel, Mark Burik. Mark and I discuss our experiences playing professional volleyball in Europe, different ways to compete at CROSSNET , Mark’s #1 underdeveloped beach volleyball skill, and his deep desire to help as many people as possible become better players at beach volleyball. 

Enjoy this fun interview with a great ambassador of the game."

You can also subscribe to the podcast and listen here.

Apple podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crossnet-volleyball-podcast/id1513197489?i=1000484591974

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/...

20 Practice Plans: The Ultimate Beach Volleyball Training Companion!

This is our latest and greatest product in the Better at Beach, beach volleyball training series!

Have you ever planned to do drills with your friends or team, then show up to the beach and wonder what you should be working on? This practice plan will give you a minute-by-minute printable guide and video examples of each drill. We take the guesswork out of it for you!! All you have to do is show up and focus on improving your game!

The program was created by current professional beach volleyball players Brandon Joyner and Mark Burik, who have years of combined coaching and playing experience on the AVP and FIVB and NORCECA world tours.

There are five areas of concentration: Passing, Setting, Attacking, Defense, and Gameplay. The drills progress from basic to advanced, and is great for coaches and players of ALL LEVELS!

We know you will absolutely LOVE this comprehensive training guide to help you get...

If you're looking to learn how to be one of the best setters in beach volleyball, you've come to the right place! At Better at Beach, headquartered in Hermosa Beach, CA we run beach volleyball setting drills every day! And if you'd like to enroll in our online setting course, you can do that year-round, day in and day out, partner or no partner. 

However, you don't have to wait for one of our beach volleyball classes to start learning the fundamentals. We mainly teach sand volleyball but if you play indoor volleyball, fear not! The principles and drills are almost exactly the same for bump setting and hand setting in the two sports. 

Yes, the first thing nearly every coach preaches is pass first, pass first, pass first. There’s a reason for that: Every single offensive action you could possibly take, whether in serve receive or defense or waiting for the beloved free ball, begins with the pass.

Yet it’s the second – and likely most...

Hey guys! We have an awesome product coming out for you and we're so excited about it. It's 20 full built out practice plans with every detail, all of the time, all of the drills that you could ever need.

Coming from the East Coast, Brandon Joyner ran into a big problem -whether he was a coach or a player- of showing up to practice and not really knowing what he was going to do. He spent so much time talking about what his focus was going to be that day and eventually he just ended up doing the same drill over and over again every single practice.

So, we thought it'd be a good idea to bring you guys something that makes your volleyball life a little bit easier. With these drills we set them up into different categories, whether it's dealing with a defensive day, passing day, attacking day, blocking day, and we've outlined those drills for you including videos of how the drills work, descriptions of how the drills work, and how much time you should be spending on them.

Mark...

Watch Mark Burik and Ian Satterfield of the United States battle it out with Canada in the Men's Beach Volleyball at the 2019 Pan American Games.

Join the Better at Beach Elite Performers Tribe and Stay Connected to the Best Minds in Beach Volleyball. Our community forum gets your most important beach volleyball questions answered by top level coaches and professional players. Consider it a full time Q and A with Professional Beach Volleyball Players! Just $1.99 a month! https://www.betteratbeach.com/offers/4THMDqSg

This is a challenging two touch pepper drill for beach volleyball. Dig to yourself, look for your partner's sign and hit at either the high or low sign. Two touches. Dig. Look for the sign. Hit to the sign.

Hey guys, I'm Mark. I'm Brandon. We're here with Better at Beach and we are here to bring you our serve receive course. Our serve receive course has 19 full on video lessons for getting you better at serve receive. It takes you from the very beginning, the very basics and all the way up into advanced professional beach volleyball techniques that you're going to need to win a world tour event. So if you're a beginner and you're looking to just get some fundamentals, this is for you. If you are a current professional beach volleyball player and you're looking for great reminders and new techniques to be able to bump your passing up, this is for you. I know that we've had some struggles in our careers with serve receive. This is something that I wish I had. Serve...

Block Touch Footwork for Attacking

(This is a transcript of the video below. You can skip to the video if you like.)

A lot of times beach volleyball as a blocker, we find ourselves stuck at the net. When a bang bang play is happening. Maybe I'm a blocker and I just touched the ball that went behind me and I need to make myself available to hit. We just have a simple backwards or lateral leap to create that space from the net. I'm going to block, I got the touch. Now I'm landed and I'm going to step and hop, a big lateral leap, off of the net to create space for my hitting shoulder. One more time block, step-hop and right now I've created about 14 feet of space between me and the volleyball net. All of that is setting window for my partner. If you don't open up, your partner is pinched. If you land and you just wait by the net, now your setter has to be so perfect that they've got a two foot window. Instead, can use a block and a step-lateral leap sequence.

I've gotten good...

Deep Middle Transition Spiking Drill for Beach Volleyball

It is important every now and then to incorporate some type of conditioning into your volleyball training and this is an example of a drill that we can do while still playing volleyball.

Our player needs to hit a hard middle seam ball. After they hit that, they’re going to have to get behind the line, at either half court or three quarters. You can choose - as a coach or somebody who's designing your own drill - how far you want to get behind that line.

In this drill example, we want to make sure that we get behind the line, drop our player to the knees to make sure that we're simulating some sort of defensive action, and then he needs to get up and calmly take an approach, then smack that deep middle seam.

If this drill video or any of my other videos are helping you out and you want to go a little bit deeper into beach volleyball, you can subscribe and you'll get 36 Beach Volleyball Drills in your...