One of the most damaging and destructive keys, coaches can give to hitters is the PIKING motion. So many players are taught to crunch their abs and bring their shoulders forward as if to "scissor" their body. This type of motion, especially when over-emphasized causes players to bring their torso and arm DOWN. This causes players to get blocked and hit into the tape.

Instead, keep your chest up and almost throw it at the ball. At the moment of your swing, act as if you are actually trying to go up and bite the ball. This will help you get higher when you hit and your spine will straighten and lengthen, giving you a more solid core foundation.

The angle of your hand will bring the ball down if you are high enough. You won't need your BODY to bring it down to the ground.

Most of us know about the typical bow and arrow position. Your hitting elbow should draw back as your left arm extends to the ball. 

BUT, unlike pulling a bow, when you're trying to spike a volleyball, you don't want to pull from your shoulders. You should be activating this pull back and spreading your chest by squeezing your shoulder blades together. You can't HOLD this position while swinging but you have to activate it so that the pocket between your chest and your shoulder opens.

This does three things.

1) It creates space for your hand to generate speed.

2) It stretches your chest which means your muscles will snap back to place on their own, thus generating more power.

3) It creates more space for your shoulder joint to move freely, allowing you to decrease the risk of injury.

Isolating muscles that assist each other in the same motion is often difficult but to tap into your hidden power, you have to figure this out.

The muscles in your arm and shoulder have to relax through the shoulder blade squeeze and your arm swing. Your arm should feel like a lifeless rope. That looseness, allows you to generate a quick stretch reflex.

Tighten your arm and you lose arm speed. 

Try to go through the entire bow and arrow sequence plus your arm swing but while allowing your arm to wiggle and at the same time, keeping your shoulder blade down and back. It's incredibly difficult for a lot of people.

Separation is everything. In order to generate speed, you need the space to develop it. Think of it like a car or a sprinter. It takes a little bit of distance to get up to maximum velocity.

Knowing that, if you try to swing with with your hitting hand close to your head the whole time, your hand won't have the space to generate speed. One of the cues we always give our hitters and servers is to wave hello to the imaginary person standing behind them. If you can initiate the forward movement of your chest, shoulder elbow while your hand stays back, you will maximal stretch and in the end maximal arm speed.

I've been told from day one to use my hips when I hit. It never really made sense to me because throwing my hips in the air felt useless. 

You have no based to develop torque from so it just feels like you are flopping around in the air. Then I got the key that makes it happen. You hips LEAD the and your shoulders rotate back.

When this happens, you have a big stretch across your obliques. You don't have to THROW your hips, you push off of them from the ground and since your elbow is going back, the stretch sequence is initiated! 

To demonstrate this and encourage it, we no longer have our players stand sideways when attacking and it has been a game changer. If you keep both tows facing forward and you rotate your shoulders backwards, you'll get the rotational force that the "hip throwers" were trying to create all those years.

Give it a shot!