Mark Burik (00:02.018)
Hey everybody. And welcome to the better at beach podcast. name is Mark Barwick and I am here with my man, Brandon Joyner. So today we are going to talk about arm swing mechanics and jump mechanics. think a lot of people have a huge misunderstanding of how to actually generate power, both in your arm swing and from your jump. So there's a few technical keys.
that a lot of people miss or over-emphasize. And when we get to work with our people in person, these make massive differences. So a lot of people end up suffering from shoulder pain or they get sore shoulders and they're trying to figure out how to hit harder. And during this episode, we're going to give you the keys so that you can stop experiencing arm swing, try less and actually hit harder.
and the important keys that you need to know to be able to both jump high and hit harder. We're also going to touch a little bit on shot mechanics because arm swing mechanics for power can be can be completely different from shot mechanics and we're going to go over all of that today. So before we get started we've got a bunch of camps coming out we just finished I'd say the biggest better at beach weekend we've ever had we had
camps in New York and San Diego. I had about 75 campers in New York and Brandon had a full sold out camp at Wave Beach in San Diego. But we've got more coming at you. So Brandon's hometown in Virginia Beach, June 20th to 22nd, that is going to be a major camp and it's a lot of fun. I'll let Brandon talk a little bit about that.
Brandon Joyner (01:33.592)
Gosh.
Mark Burik (01:56.556)
But it's a cool town, really good community, and it's going to be at an indoor hall, which means we are protected and insured against weather. And everybody gets to feel super good because the wind and the sun won't mess you up. That same weekend, we're also going to be running a three-day camp in Santa Monica, California. Then June 27th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. July 18th in Des Moines, Iowa. July 25th in Bend, Oregon.
August 1st in Santa Rosa, California, August 22nd in Chicago, and Youngsville, Louisiana, October 3rd with many more camp dates to be released soon. If you want to get all of that information and get constant updates, consistent updates on our camps, then just go ahead to betterbeach.com forward slash camps. You can click any of the links below this episode.
And you will find all of the dates and information there. So before we get to these arm swing mechanics, how was wave beach? I love Matt Olson.
Brandon Joyner (03:02.294)
Dude, I was actually just getting ready to say, one, we got, think at some point we have to figure out a way to stagger those weekends because now that I've been down to San Diego, one Long Island, the camp that you just ran, that's like last year was my first year ever going there. And I love that area. Like it's such a cool vibe. The sand is great.
and like walking downtown, exploring that little city is just amazing. So I miss being there. I'm sure you guys had a blast. Wave Beach is like, I was a little hesitant at first because I was like, man, like we're going down to San Diego. We're not going to be on the sand. We're not going to be like at the beach. We're going to be at a facility. But my God, that facility is just great.
It's one, like I can't emphasize enough how nice it is as coaches and players to have enclosures. So like, yeah, the amount of reps that you get is just incredible. And then they've done an amazing job there. Like Matt Olson is one, just fantastic. He's just an awesome dude. They have an indoor club there that is like,
Mark Burik (04:03.992)
Ball stops.
Brandon Joyner (04:22.292)
attached to the sand courts that is one of the top clubs in the country. Like if you walk inside, see plaques for days.
Mark Burik (04:30.944)
Yeah. And nonstop private lessons. Like they're always running some form of training, whether it's team or privates. And those girls are like 14 and they're cranking with good arm strength mechanics.
Brandon Joyner (04:40.792)
They're so good. Yeah. And then the sand area is just, it's just nice. It's three courts. got two little baby courts where you can do like a little bit of work over there. And if you've never played baby court or like small court, so much fun. But yeah, it's some, there's some turf. There's like the greenery around the courts. You still get the atmosphere. You still get like to enjoy the sunny, like Southern California weather.
with a little bit of wind, not like nearly as bad as it is at the beach. Yeah, I loved it. I think that facility is like, you know, honestly, when I saw it, was like, beach facilities in California can work 100%. Like, I think you and I have had this conversation about trying to maybe bring something like that to the South Bay or something and something. I've always been like a little hesitant because I'm like, would people want to come off the beach?
Yes, the answer is yes. Like the fact that they have lines, the fact that they have court reservations, you know what court you're going to get. Sorry, they have nets like that, keep all the balls in play. And lights. So like during the winter, those people can still get out there and play. Yeah. Huge fan.
Mark Burik (05:41.385)
Thanks.
Mark Burik (06:00.326)
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. And Matt Olson, I love him. I wonder if we like worked together consistently, if me and him would either like really butt heads or if we'd get along, cause it's super like direct get things done, no nonsense. And I know like the team that I need around me, I need like one or two of those, but then I need some other people to take.
Brandon Joyner (06:02.229)
Okay.
Thank
Brandon Joyner (06:12.127)
you
Brandon Joyner (06:17.784)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (06:27.018)
I guess keep people happy.
Brandon Joyner (06:29.048)
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, they're I mean, he seems like, I think he told me they've been there for like 14 years or something like that. Yeah, and like, it shows. Everybody knows what's going on. It's it's a yeah, they're doing a great job down there. And Matt, like, I have no idea if he would ever listen to this or if other people would but like can't thank him enough for letting us come in. It was a
Mark Burik (06:38.86)
a long time.
Brandon Joyner (06:59.35)
We say it all the time, like that are, we're lucky with the people that we get to spend our weekends with and the camps and stuff like that. But like the environment alone, just how like he was standing outside waiting for us on Friday and was saying hi and like introducing himself to our campers. And like, you have no idea how much that, that helps the community as well. Like you're getting greeted by somebody that's hosting the camp and.
Mark Burik (07:05.399)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (07:24.013)
Nothing.
Brandon Joyner (07:28.726)
Like everybody felt super welcome and everyone had a good time. It was cool.
Mark Burik (07:33.134)
Nice. Good. All right. And big shout out to Rich Eilis, East End volleyball, who has an empire in Long Beach, Long Island. Just so you guys know, there are 77 courts set up all across Long Beach. He has fought tooth and nail just about every year. I talked to him about like financials and how he can manage to go and the amount of like mini fights and big fights that he's had to have it going for 49 years.
Brandon Joyner (07:48.408)
curious.
Mark Burik (08:03.054)
He always has to protect his business constantly and meet with the cities and the amount of money that bars make off of those leagues and not to mention tolls for the city to get into Long Beach.
Big ups to Rich Islas who belongs in every volleyball hall of fame there is for creating something over 49 years. That is the reason that I started playing beach volleyball. Like without people starting tournaments, I never would have been able to actually start. So it's a big deal. And if you guys see volleyball organizers, make sure you give them a high five. Okay.
Brandon Joyner (08:41.366)
Yeah, how is it going home?
Mark Burik (08:45.396)
Awesome. I missed my flight. There's a whole lot of other details, but I'm not going to bore everybody. cause we got to get into some arm swing stuff.
Brandon Joyner (08:49.569)
Hahaha
Yes, yes, okay, here we go.
Mark Burik (08:55.212)
Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go over the foundation. In other words, like the kinetic chain and what you should be going through some key points to look at jump mechanics, the actual perfect arm swing, and then how we can actually put it together. Plus some workouts and exercises that you should definitely incorporate when you are training to increase your arm swing and decrease pain. Okay. So
Let's, we're not going to start with the jump. We're going to do it a little bit in reverse. Okay. But you know, I, I got so lucky enough to work with Isaac new ball, who is a biomechanics expert pretty, I guess, midway through my career. And there are a few like crucial times in my career where somebody was able to say something or do something as a coach that made.
a huge change to how I played and immediately upgraded hitting percentage or power or my ability to get feet to ball. And my sessions with Isaac were a few of those. And one of the things that people do when they hit hard is they think of the word hard. And as soon as your muscles tense,
Like you start flexing your arm or trying to tense your hand in order to hit hard. It's hard not to do because when you're thinking of power, you're thinking of loading up your whole body, but the way power works is through elasticity. Snap. Okay. And if you lock your muscles, if you tense the muscles in your arm or your hand,
That's going to slow everything down. my, you know, my first key for everybody who actually wants to hit hard is try to chill, make your arm.
Mark Burik (10:45.606)
as numb or noodly as possible. And again, I just want to remind you that right now we're talking about max power arm swing mechanics that really has nothing to do with standing float serves or float serves or shots. We're talking about when you're ready to crank or you're ready to absolutely lay into a jump serve. And I'll be honest, most people will never get to the point where they can utilize max power arm swing mechanics. So unfortunately for the
This is reserved for people who are able to get, you know, the top of their head at minimum over the net. Or again, if we're talking about like jump spike serving, but the amount of power that the human body can generate through the torso and through the shoulders and hand, you have to be striking downward in order to do that.
So most people, while they look at these models of people who are absolutely cranking, again, you've got to find somebody. And this what we tell our online players all the time. Find somebody who looks like you and try to emulate them. And if everybody on the AVP is six, three or above and you're five, three.
You don't have models, so you've got to find the highest level model you can, that is your height and your size, and then try to start studying their game. know, one of the ones we point to a lot is like Kristin Nuss, where she has snap, but she's not ever hitting a ball as hard as she possibly can, right? She's darting things. So I want to start with that.
Brandon Joyner (12:21.272)
And just to add a little bit to that, if you are shorter and you can't get your head above the nut, can still, the goal, coming from a camp this week, and I'm sure you went through it as well, but if shorter players get set tight, you have no ability to put snap on the ball because
you're having to hit this ball up. we have a lot of, and a lot of people like getting set tight and I get it because you're closer to the other side of the net. You feel like you're able to get the ball over easier. But like, if you're this idea of setting has to change where it's like, if you're for me, I'm a six four hitter. love hitting. If I get set to one, two feet from the net,
I'm going for a tool. I'm not going with it down because the blockers too much there. So like if I as a six five hitter am most comfortable hitting like three, four feet off the net, then those shorter players, like we need to be venturing closer to like five, 10 feet off the net. If you want to, yeah, I mean, if you're like a five, four,
Mark Burik (13:22.222)
Thanks
Mark Burik (13:42.71)
Ooh, 10. Ballscape.
Brandon Joyner (13:47.64)
person that doesn't jump very well. mean, even if you do jump very well, being that far off the net, just changes what you're not scared anymore for some reason. And so now you can at least hit flat. And a lot of the stuff we're going to talk about today in this episode, like you can still do, but you just can't do it from that three or four feet range. Like you have to do it from the six to seven to eight foot range. And even though it feels like you're further from the net, you're going to be in a better place to score. So
Mark Burik (13:51.778)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (14:17.312)
Even though we are talking a lot about hitting, like, it can work for other people. just, it looks a lot different.
Mark Burik (14:24.448)
Yeah. And I think some people want tight sets so bad, probably because they're consistently early and their approach length is way too short. So if they're trying to move forward through an approach and they start at nine, 10 feet, anything that's not one or two feet, you can't move forward in. So you're just constantly asking for this 10 foot set. So guys, the easiest, absolute easiest way for you to figure out.
how far you should start your approach from the net. Let's go to the net, extend your arms so that you can't touch the net by at least, you know, an inch. That's as tight as you should ever be set. Like where you're standing right there. Then turn around in place and take your full three or four. That's semantics, by the way, three or four step approaches. Like they're the same thing. When people get mixed up in it, you have to have gotten to your left foot by stepping on your right foot. So
In general, three and four step approaches are pretty much the same as well as five, six, seven, eight. But if you just stand, if you re about face from the net, right? From maybe two to three feet off the net. And then you do your four step approach into the court. That's where you should start your approach. Your own body told you that. And every single person that puts them behind half court at least.
And people are shocked when they do it. I go, Hey, I didn't tell you to do it. That was your own body. Right. So most people should start at three quarters, but back to generating power, right? The idea of the high elbow retreat gets people into trouble. We, confused getting your elbow high during the attack with retreating your elbow high early on.
Brandon Joyner (15:54.04)
Right.
Mark Burik (16:20.236)
And when you do that, a few things happen. Number one, like the space inside your shoulder girdle starts, it actually starts grinding. And so that can be a source of shoulder pain, whereas it can move freer when it rotates under you or at parallel. So if you guys bring your arms back, if you're listening at home, hopefully you're not driving while doing this. But if you retreat your arm back above your shirt or girdle or below,
below, can actually get your elbow further back than when you bring it up, right? Your body mechanics are meant to load you. If you look at how baseball players are retreating their hand there, when they're back and their ball is behind them just before they're about to throw their ball and their throwing arm are by their butt, right? They're like way back under the chest and then rotating through.
So if we can learn power from them and how to generate power, obviously they're not reaching through that ball. You know, they're, more of a 90 degree type thing, but that's how we're generating maximum power. the idea of the high elbow, number one, you don't get enough space and space and elasticity are what is going to actually generate that power. And a very quick and easy thing you guys can do at home is just make a diamond above your head. Right.
And then try to squeeze your shoulder blades and see how far your elbows get back. And now drop them to 90 or below and then squeeze your shoulder blades. And you can see that your elbows will get back four or five, six inches more. And imagine having four or five, six inches more space, like when you load up for a punch or a right hook versus the jab. so most people end up in a jab, where their elbow isn't retreated enough. And so that's absolutely.
limiting your power and again, probably starting to lead into some injuries. So when we load our elbow act like the, there's a shorter person behind you and then you're trying to gently knock them out or, you know, kind of like nudge them out of the way. Because again, if we tighten and you load your muscles, right. If you tighten that's wrong, but we've got to stay loose and low for the retreat.
Brandon Joyner (18:33.464)
Get him in the forehead.
Brandon Joyner (18:42.294)
Yeah, just to add a little bit more to that, like, it should feel natural. You know, I think like if you are going, if you are one of those players that like jumps up and both of those arms go up and then you keep that elbow high, sometimes we feel really stuck and like it should feel natural. And I think with what you're talking about, as far as like keeping that elbow low and like imagine you're throwing.
It's kind of crazy. Like I'll ask people at camp, like, Hey, have you ever been out on the beach and like just throwing a ball with a friend? And sometimes people haven't like that might be step one of like, just go out with a friend and like, just get a tennis ball or something. like, just throw the ball back and forth to find that natural, that natural movement for you. I, I played when I was in high school, I played with
Mark Burik (19:22.914)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (19:40.972)
I didn't have a whole lot of volleyball players on my team, but I had a lot of baseball players and it was crazy how natural their arm swings were. You know, like I actually didn't have an extremely natural arm swing. was goofy foot in high school. just like wanted to be big, but then I would watch like these pitchers or these outfielders just go up and absolutely whip on a ball. And I was like, man, like I didn't think about it at the time, but now looking back on it.
Mark Burik (19:45.71)
was great.
Brandon Joyner (20:09.132)
like wow that like that training alone helped them out so much in their arm swing. So yeah, keep it natural.
Mark Burik (20:15.673)
Yeah. Yeah. I got to enter, you know, after 15 years or maybe 12 years of baseball training. And then I had quarterback training. like arm swing mechanics for me were just built into me. And by the time I started playing volleyball, all I had to figure out was the approach and jump, but I could crank a ball comparatively.
with the rest of the guys. And I remember my high school coach, everyone's like, look how hard he's hitting. This is sick. We got to get him on the team. And my coach is like, he's hitting the back wall every single time. He just lost every single point. But easier to reel them in when you've had, you know, 10 plus years of arm swing training. And that's something that I tell parents, parents of girls specifically, right? For whatever reason,
Brandon Joyner (20:44.344)
Thank
Brandon Joyner (20:50.343)
Hahaha!
Mark Burik (21:07.864)
Parents will get out there, dads will get out there and they'll play catch nonstop with their sons and for, I don't know why, but they don't go out there and play catch and throw balls as far as they can with their daughters. And they say like, my girl just doesn't have power. My girl just doesn't have power. How many times have you gone in the backyard and just played catch with them? Like go out there, see how far they can throw. If you play catch with somebody for 10, 15 minutes a day at their max distance.
They're going to develop arm swing mechanics. Their body will figure out the best and easiest pathway. And then we can just calibrate from there. But, yeah, play more catch, throw a football, throw a baseball, throw a tennis ball. And, if you can throw a javelin, who I bet javelin players will be able to, are they called players? Javelin athletes. I bet they can absolutely crank on a volleyball. Okay. So we've got the retreat.
Brandon Joyner (21:59.5)
Yeah. That's cool. I mean, our, our, uh, sorry, our, like, if anyone has ever done our 20, fix your arm swing in 21 days, like we've made a lot of adjustments to that, but a lot of the exercises in there are throwing, um, just like throwing a ball. And a lot of it's because we had to develop those muscles and figure out that, uh, that form. So if you're interested in the course, picture, I'm swinging 21 days.
Mark Burik (22:11.886)
Mm.
Mark Burik (22:25.282)
Yep. And we're going through it live in four weeks. So that's where we get to actually look at you guys. We'll have you throw, we'll have you swing, and we'll truly study and fix all of your arm swing and jump mechanics. So really good time to join. Right now we're working on setting. So everybody's setting at least a hundred balls a day, like bare minimum for our online students. But yes, arm swing mechanics. Now,
Brandon Joyner (22:28.482)
Thank
Mark Burik (22:52.45)
Going back to the elbow retreat, like when we have our double arm lift, if you guys don't know what a double arm lift is, it's throwing your hands back behind your body and then generating velocity through this kind of pendulum under you. And there's a few kind of misconceptions. People think that it lifts you up. So they focus on getting two arms up. If you watch elite hitters in slow motion,
their right arm is actually starting to retract on the ground. It's starting to pull back as they're taking off. So you don't have this full two arms extended in front of you and then retreat. There are very, very few athletes who can do that. And they've got 40 plus inch verticals because they have a little extra time.
to throw their arms and then retreat. But if you compare a 40 inch vertical to a six inch vertical, the amount of time you have from when you leave the ground to when you strike the ball, you've got to get your elbow back sooner. So your left arm will continue up, but your right arm, just as you're leaving the ground, will start pulling back. And so it should basically be back already on takeoff or, you know, maybe 75%, 80%, 80 % back. So try to...
get rid of the feedback for the coaches out there or anything like that. Try to get rid of that idea that two hands are coming up because that's not gonna happen. Your left arm is gonna lead and then your right arm is gonna pull back on takeoff. The left arm is pretty important though, because one, if you do extend through it, it can generate a little bit of opening or stretch in your obliques. And then once it's opened and stretch, then you can also pull back using
your core muscles to actually rotate and your transverse and your oblique, but it might be getting a little too biomechanicky for everybody. The next, the next thing, if we're pulling our shoulders back, right. And we know that they're relaxed. How do we get our, our hitting arm back and relaxed? Most people use their rear delts to do this.
Mark Burik (25:12.374)
And if you use your rear delts instead of a muscle called the rhomboid, it's one of the muscles between your shoulder blades. That rhomboid muscle helps retract our shoulder blades. So we get even more space. So again, if people tense their arms and you leave them so that your fists are in front of you and your elbows are at 90 degrees and tense your arms and then go back. If you come back and you relax your arms and just try to activate the muscle between your shoulder blades.
and then go back, you'll find again that you're getting another two, maybe three inches of open hitting window when you do that.
That's difficult for a lot of people who don't have kinesthetic awareness. In other words, like what's going on in their body. If you've been trained constantly, if you've been playing sports your whole life, it's a different story. You got a good sense of what's happening in your body and how to activate different muscles, but making sure that you can only squeeze the shoulder blades and your hitting arm should be dangly and loose while your shoulder blade is retracted.
And then the next part of the sequence is basically throwing through. So your right arm will help twist your body, but through your jump. And this is a little bit in reverse. Again, we're going to talk about how to jump through the ball, but your hips. This is a mistake I made for a long time. Your hips don't rotate when you're in the air. So everybody says like hit with your hips, hit with your hips. That's how you generate speed, but.
We can do some fail and some really funny videos. If people try to take approaches and then while in the air, try to throw your hips. It's you look like a salmon who just left the water. Your body just starts flopping around. When you take off, there's actually a little bit or should be a little bit, and again, power, right? There should be a little bit of extra push from your right glute, from the ground.
Brandon Joyner (27:02.882)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (27:18.732)
That starts a very soft rotation of your hips, but the hips act like the stable surface. And then your upper body, your torso rotates around it as you drop that elbow back. So if you're like me out there and you went through this, everybody telling you to hit with your hips and you jump and then you try to twist in the air, you're not going to get more power and you're going to end up throwing your back out.
So just trust that your hips will generate from the ground a little bit of forward lift. And this is why yes, beach players do broad jump so that you actually have that push through on your right glute. And then while you're in the air, if I took, so if you're a righty, and let's visualize for a second, you're a righty and I'm standing on your right arm, okay?
When you jump, and you guys can do this at home, it's so easy to film, just have somebody stand with your phone filming you from the side. When you jump, just before you're hit, if you're going again for max power, your hips would be forward at the net, but your chest would be facing the camera.
Brandon Joyner (28:33.976)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (28:34.798)
Okay. That's how you load up so that we get that twist and then that's going to allow our body to rotate through the ball and really generate power. Okay. And don't worry about twisting back so much. If you tell your rhomboid to rotate your elbow back, your body just kind of naturally follows that. And a big problem is when we have indoor players who end up with this left foot, this block step.
where your left foot gets way out in front of your approach, that is very good for indoor.
but it will do damage to you. In other words, you will jump lower and you won't hit as hard when you come out to the beach. So beach players should jump almost like their feet or skis or on railroad tracks sometimes I say, but it shouldn't be that turned left foot or double internal rotation that we have from indoor. So yes, there are different jump mechanics for indoor.
And for sand. And if you're one of the people that are like making sure your left hip and your left foot get forward every time you spike. That is not going to help you. And it's really going to hurt you, especially, especially, especially for right sides. you're going to end up blocking the ball from your body and then you won't be attacking the ball. You'll be receiving the ball and we'll cover that in another podcast about, why that's bad.
Brandon Joyner (29:43.416)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (29:56.918)
Yeah, I think another something that I've been saying at my camps is like when you're attacking whatever arm you are, if you had like a laser pointer on the center of your chest, it should always be pointing out of the sideline of the arm that you have. So like if I'm right handed, my laser pointer should always be the direction of when I'm right before I'm about to attack.
should always end up intersecting at some point on that right sideline. Another way to think about it is like kind of what you just said, like if you can imagine, I think a lot of the times when we go to attack, because I think a lot of people do approach straight on. So like their toes are facing the opposite end line, but then our shoulders are also facing that opposite end line.
Mark Burik (30:46.722)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (30:57.45)
If you can think about it, especially if I'm a left side hitter and I'm right handed, so meaning my right shoulder is in the middle of the court, then when I go to swing, this ball that's coming to me from the right side of the court, if it had, if it had like knives on it going end over end, like those knives should be able to cut me in half.
Mark Burik (31:24.941)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (31:26.718)
not like through the side of my head, but like through the middle of my chest. And that's like, if we're sure that like, that might be a little exaggerated as far as like where you want to be taking off and actually contacting this ball. But I think the idea of it makes a lot of sense. It's a little bit less if I'm a right-handed player playing on the right side, because obviously the ball is going to be coming from my left side and I'm going to be
Mark Burik (31:34.136)
Nice.
Mark Burik (31:51.191)
in
Brandon Joyner (31:55.64)
kind of opening up away from that ball. But if we can get that open up, it allows that like, we've talked a lot about elasticity. And if you keep your hips facing forward, and then you go with just like a torso twist, you feel like your body like that. What I say that that feels like is it's like a rubber band that we're pulling back on our finger and then snapping.
your body is the rubber band. once you, once you get to that full rotation, your body actually doesn't want to stay there. So it like, you're fighting that energy. And then at the last second, it pulls everything back in. So it's kind of the same idea as having a rubber band on your finger, like back in high school, trying to shoot one of your friends across the class is you like pull that rubber band back. But once you get to like the end of that rubber band, we don't like hold it very long. We kind of like
pull it back and then release it. And it's the same idea when we're going to swing. We jump with those feet facing forward, we open up that chest, pull that arm back so that that ball can intersect us. And then once we find that depth that we're looking for or that we have time for, then we just let our body kind of slingshot back into that same starting position.
Mark Burik (33:16.814)
And it's so easy to film it, guys. I know that I have our online players film everything that they do and then we get to go in and analyze it, but this is something you can do yourself from the back of the court or from the side of the court.
If just before you swing, and this is again on your max power swings, right? If you don't have a 90 degree separation between your chest and your hips, and one way, if you're sitting again, not if you're driving guys, but if you're sitting on a chair and you just rotate your chest, your hips don't move, but your chest does. And your body naturally just wants to come back to this neutral. And that's what Brandon's talking about. Like.
holding this stretch is uncomfortable, but you can feel that it's coiled and your body wants to come back to straight. So then you've got your torque, which we talk about a lot.
Brandon Joyner (34:10.496)
It's like cracking your back.
Mark Burik (34:12.598)
Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's one of the best exercises for volleyball players is rotations. do the elbow to instep to lunge twist. If you guys don't know what that is, you guys can Google it. but elbow to instep to lunge twist, can do just seated rotations, anything that's promoting chest separating from your hips.
Brandon Joyner (34:14.228)
A little Cairo.
Mark Burik (34:37.408)
is really good if you lie on your back and you drop two knees to one side and then you try to keep your back flat on the ground. That is a good exercise for volleyball players and most of them will rotate more.
to their hitting side because it is a little bit more open. Like if I open to my right, since I'm a righty, I've got a lot more range than opening to my left. And there is no science by the way, the fact that I can rotate more to one side and not the other and that it promotes injury. It doesn't. It is built. It's a motor pattern that's built that it allows you to do your sport.
Right? So same thing with tennis players. They can rotate more from their right side. javelin, same thing. Baseball players, same thing. You can rotate more to your right side and that's okay. We just like to have, you know, maximum range in both sides for life. But if you're a throwing or a hitting athlete, you're going to be able to rotate more to your hitting side. And that's totally fine.
Brandon Joyner (35:37.611)
Love it.
Mark Burik (35:38.102)
Now, next part of that sequence, once our elbow is down and hopefully below or equal with our shoulder girdle, the next thing that happens is our chest just slightly starts coming forward. So our body uncoils at the same time that our elbow actually rotates. And so if you have your elbow behind your back and you're kind of doing this with me, if you let your elbow...
rotate so that right now it's facing backwards or your elbow is facing backwards and then you rotate it so that the bottom of your elbow faces the ceiling. This takes surprisingly a lot of overhead mobility. Some people when they try to put their hand over their head they can see their bicep and ideally you want to be able to point with your bicep behind your ear
And if you can point to the back wall with your whole forearm, that is the overhead mobility we need for maximum power. And so if you don't have that overhead mobility, we have a 21 day strength and mobility program that will really help you here. And then any overhead exercises, I'm telling you, pull ups, like just.
being allowed to find that range and stretch your overhead so that you can at least be neutral. That's a good one. And then if you sit on a bench, and this is one of the ones from our arm swing program, if you sit on a bench and you hold weights in your hand, sorry, if you lie down on a bench and you hold weights in your hand, and then you let that weight pull your arms behind you so that your triceps and your biceps get behind your ears, and then you bring it back.
You want to try to relax in that position and then bring it back nice and slow in the beginning because it might be uncomfortable. But that's how you develop that range through weighted assistance and then being strong at the end of your range. And this is a little bit of the problem with some yoga stuff or slow moving things.
Mark Burik (37:40.662)
Yes, it opens up your range of motion, but then we have to be strong and explosive at the end range and you will get flexible faster if you add strength moves or weights to the end of your range of motion. So we'd like to try to do that at home. And again, the arm swing program and our mobility program both have things that promote that and those programs are banger.
Brandon Joyner (38:07.287)
Yeah, I think.
Mark Burik (38:07.34)
So now that your elbow is up, the last thing that follows is your hand coming through. So if you guys take a look at really elite volleyball swings and you watch them in super slow motion, ready to pause, there will be a moment. In the best arm swings in the world where the elbow is completely up, but the forearm is laid horizontal. And this happens in motion. So you're going to have to pause that video, right? But your elbow comes through.
as your shoulder rotates. So if you kind of almost act like you're giving yourself a buzz cut, right? Or your hand is over your head and you're giving yourself a stripe over the middle of your head. That's the type of motion that happens. And some people call this the S curve on the swing, but your hand will rotate back.
and then it should unload. And again, that happens all in one sequence. So if you try to think of each position individually during this arm swing, it's really not going to happen for you. You have to develop it in motion.
Brandon Joyner (39:08.982)
Yeah, I think an easy idea to think like some people who have a problem with this, all they're worried about doing is touching the attack. So like that's when they like to get their arm forward. They like to see that ball coming down and they also like to see their hand meeting it. Right. A proper arm swing is you're going through that motion, exact, all those, all that conversation, sciency stuff and
body stuff that Mark's talking about, except at the end, you're just throwing your hand naturally and the ball gets in the way. But like your motion should feel very similar. That's why like, it's pretty common for like, especially if you're watching jump servers, it's pretty common for jump servers to have missed contacts.
And a lot of the times aces come out of those because like they have a little bit of a squirrely spin on them. But it's really cool because sure. A lot of these elite level players are finding extremely good contact. They're extremely consistent. They're finding that ball, but they've just gotten really good at the timing and, finding a way to get their hand on that ball when they're going through their arm swing. But
That would be my challenge for you guys is like, if you feel like you're lacking speed, try a couple reps where you're just throwing your hand and you're using all of your other, you're using your approach, you're using your jump and all that stuff to get the ball to land in that same window. But don't concentrate so much on making contact, concentrate more on going through that arms, arm circle and arm sequence, and then hope that the ball gets into there at the same time that you do.
Mark Burik (40:47.374)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (40:59.594)
If you don't, then we might have to adjust like our timing step. We might have to adjust our jump time or jump speed, whatever it is, but going through that natural arm swing is, the most important and you can find the consistency again. like, if you do that drill and you feel like, wow, I'm one ball on my hand, one on my fingers, one on my heel, one on my wrist. That's okay. Like
feel what that feels like and then we can always, maybe you watch the ball a little bit longer, maybe you slow down your arm swing a hair or something like that where you're trying different ways but finding that consistent sling and kind of movement is important.
Mark Burik (41:40.076)
Yeah. I mean, even if we start on martial martial arts, right. where everybody's breaking bricks or breaking pieces of wood. The key to doing that is not trying to actually hit the wood or the brick. It's moving all of your energy through the bottom stack or like to the face of the coach that's holding that wooden, that piece of wood.
Right. And if we think about touching the face of the ball, when we're, when we're swinging, it's the same thing. We're not going to get power because that's where you're aiming. So that's where you're stopping. So you really need to swing through the ball. sometimes we say like, swing at the ball behind the ball. And just like Brandon is saying, guys, if you could just try, just try to move your arm as loose and as fast as you can possibly move it.
and then have the ball just get in the way. Yeah, you're going to get those forearm and sloppy touches, but you'll learn how to generate the speed and then the rest of the timing sequence will help you. And that kind of also leads me to like, people say, what do I do with my hand? Like, should it be open? Should my fingers be closed? Since it's so relaxed, it's just going to kind of flash open.
right before the ball contacts, right? If we stiffen it or we hold our hand, that's gonna tense our forearms, that's gonna micro tense our upper arm, and then you're gonna slow down. So your hand should be numb and loose, and then it's just kind of gonna lazily flash open so that your fingers don't contact the ball. But you've got to focus on keeping your hand loose along with everything else in your body. So don't worry about.
closing your hand when you spike. Definitely don't try to leave your hand as wide open as possible when you're getting max velocity. Just think about lazily flashing it, almost like a heartbeat. You know how it goes boom and then it just relaxes, just boom, boom. That's gonna be the level of hand contact that you need. It just kind of flashes open on contact.
Mark Burik (43:52.078)
All right. So that's a quick crash course in arm swing mechanics. I'm just going to go through a couple of really key things for jump mechanics. We already touched on that. We're not using the block step and we're not turning our hips like we do in indoor when we take off. But let's talk about from your, this is called the pen ultimate step or the step before your last two, right?
So it should be if you're righty, right, left, right, left, and we take off of our right left, but that step, the second step, or if you're using a three step, your first step, right? That step should be from low. You should be in a sprinter position because it should take you horizontally so that your hip level does not transition or wave up and down when you're going from your left to your right left.
From your left step, your hips should already be at the point where you would max jump from. So they should already be at the height where you should max jump from. And then we're going to have the fastest possible translation of horizontal energy into vertical energy. And you won't waste any of the time on your last two foot contacts to be able to jump. So.
Make sure that if you walk tall on your first step, on your right step, you sink and you get into a sprinter position on your second step, and then you go straight forward. You shoot your hips and legs out in front of you, and then make sure that you're not stabbing your toes into the sand. Your right heel should hit or almost roll.
And then your left foot should plant. we don't, we want to make sure a lot of dancers, soccer players, ex gymnasts. And then I said this at camp and some other weirdos, they, jump with their toes stabbing into the sand and that'll probably generate some knee pain because it's putting a ton of pressure on your quads.
Brandon Joyner (45:46.744)
you
Mark Burik (45:56.888)
Okay. And it will definitely not allow you to get to the highest vertical because it's a breaking mechanism, but you're using the wrong part of your body to actually break. You end up using a lot of your quads and ankles and shins, as opposed to rolling on that left foot where you would stop from. And so that's that combined with the double arm lift, a solid double arm lift is really there. have a few videos on YouTube that you can check out. just Google attack better at.
or Google jump mechanics better at beach. And we can take you guys through that. But that's also what we go through in our arm swing mechanics course. We go through a lot of jump mechanics and usually we can get people one to three inches of vertical jump just by fixing their technique. And that can happen in like a 20 minute session. So you don't necessarily, well, you do need to get stronger. You do need to get faster, but
we can get you to jump higher just by adjusting your technique in one session. Finally, we'll touch on it, but we'll do this in another episode as well. The arm swing mechanics for shots.
Answers. You don't need that full open power when you're shooting. And you can use the same sequence of chest, elbow, hand or
You can actually just shoulder press. So if you get to that same retracted position, the retracted position is key for you to get into whether you're shooting or whether you're hitting because it will hold the defense. They have to believe that you might hit. If your elbow comes in front of you after the jump, then you're giving away that you can't hit. What does that allow the defense to do? It allows them to peel and your arm becomes a little bit more predictable because it just moves in one plane.
Mark Burik (48:00.094)
If you get to that retracted position and then from the retracted position, you just literally do a shoulder press and then you brush the face of the ball. That's one version of a cut shot and a high line. And if you watch guys like Nick Lucena, right, he didn't really have a snap and arm swing mechanics for his high line. It was a lot of shoulder press action and shoulder press action for his cut shot and for his high line. Okay. That's one type.
of shot mechanics. You can also go with the carvey type where you dust the bottom corners or the side, or if you're jumping super high, the top corners of the ball. And that's where we, some people talk about thumb up and thumb down swings, but that is a mechanics choice of which type of shot you prefer. Okay. Your job as an athlete is to figure out which one is most devastating when you do it, which one are you more accurate?
You're going to need each one at some point in a play through your career. So you want to practice the carve style and the thumb up, thumb down, but you also want to practice the shoulder press. And if you watch players kind of like try born when he hits his cut shot from the left, it is a straight shoulder press. If he's off, if he's tight and he could see it, he could snap on top of it using elbow hand, but
That press shoulder press is a devastating cut shot and a devastating high line. And so long as you do it from the elbow retracted position, it can be really accurate. And in recent camps, when I've had people just do the shoulder press shot a lot, like I'm saying a lot of our athletes found that they were way more accurate than when they're using the arm swing mechanic and carb shot.
So just consider that as you're developing your arm swing for shots that you don't need to use the elbow to hand sequence where your elbow comes forward and then your hand comes forward and then you dust or carve the ball. If you've got that type of touch, super cool, then you can look like Adrian Carambula and using that like slice touch, but you don't necessarily need it.
Brandon Joyner (50:20.76)
Yeah, I would say the only thing I'll add to that, I think that you said that really well is you have to make sure that you're behind the ball in order to do all of that. You know, I think we can have all these conversations we want about arm swing, about everything else, but if you're jumping from underneath the ball or even in front of the ball and having to jump backwards, you're just surviving.
Mark Burik (50:30.242)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (50:48.686)
You
Brandon Joyner (50:48.704)
The ball is the one that's attacking you. You're not the attacker. You're just touching the ball. So like with all that, I think one of the common things, and I think you somewhat mentioned it, but whenever we have like indoor players and beach players, there's this kind of, there's a statement that happens where it's like indoor players should be broad jumping a lot. Beach players should be jumping straight up.
Mark Burik (50:54.039)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (51:16.436)
I think beach players, we're not that far behind indoor players as far as what our jump should feel like. You should still be covering some ground. For some of us, it might be if our indoor jump is four or five feet of broad jumping, then that same person on the beach, maybe they're only broad jumping three to four feet. Maybe, like I would say a safe statement is no matter who you are, you should at least
be covering a ball's length. Like imagine that you're just jumping over a ball, landing on the other side of that ball. Like we have to have some form of forward jump because along with all of this stuff that we're talking about with mechanics and jumping and all that stuff, just the forward momentum alone of jumping through that ball adds a lot of power and it becomes a full body swing.
Mark Burik (51:48.482)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (52:14.24)
rather than just a shoulder. So like if you're jumping straight up, you're only relying on your shoulder. You might have a little bit of a torso twist in there, but it's not generating enough power that it's gonna help you. But if you can multiply the momentum of your approach, kind of like an airplane taking off, right? Like we kind of wanna be the in between, like imagine if they gave like a running start to a rocket ship and then shot it off.
Mark Burik (52:16.237)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (52:40.212)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (52:42.968)
70 degrees or whatever. But if you're jumping straight up underneath this ball, all of these conversations, sure, you might, you're probably gonna find a little bit of a better contact, but you're still not utilizing the full momentum and swing that you have. Like hitting the ball should feel easy. If it feels difficult, you're probably too far underneath it.
Mark Burik (53:08.374)
Yup. Yeah, that's one of those. Yeah. There's so many like techniques that we tried to take from volleyball. And then we either went to the complete opposite side of the spectrum where it's like, we can't broad jump in beach. like, wait a second. We brought jump less than an indoor, but, but still we broad jump. you watch grass players, ton of broad jumping. If you go to Florida and super shallow sand,
I mean, guys are covering like seven, eight feet in their jump. think the people who say that you have to jump straight, you get punished when it's deeper sand and you're still trying to really broad jump through. So that, that also changes. And I don't want, maybe we should do a whole episode on a sand depth and how to play differently in there, because if you can broad jump through a ball and stay way behind it in some super shallow sand,
Again, like there are so many beaches in Florida where it's pretty shallow. There's a bunch of big broad jumpers and guys are absolutely thundering on balls that they never would thunder if you're in Manhattan or Hermosa beach. It's like Manhattan or Hermosa. If you get a set eight feet off the net, I'm probably peeling, because you don't have that power or the ability to broad jump through it. If you get a set at half court in Florida, I still have to block you because you can crank.
Brandon Joyner (54:25.026)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (54:33.646)
using the broad jump and plus you're getting more vertical because the sand doesn't push out from underneath you. So there are plays that you actually have to change or calibrate to depending on the depth of your sand. And yeah, I think that'd be a pretty cool episode. Maybe Huma can put it on the list of how to play in different sand depths.
Brandon Joyner (54:53.016)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (54:58.464)
Okay guys, so just a couple of quick exercises that you can do. Number one, for jumping, jump. Like straight up, drop your butt, jump as high as you possibly can. The more you jump, the more your body gets better at it. And if you haven't jumped recently with just the intent of jumping as high as you possibly can, then you're not training to get yourself to jump higher.
Most often when we train when we jump to attack a ball, we're probably somewhere between like 60 and 90 percent For most attackers every now and then yeah, you really load up and you try to jump as high as possible But usually we have to time the ball and aim so much that we're actually not Max jumping as high as we possibly can And if you're just squatting or you're doing some kind of hops at some point during the week, you have to pick the day
or two days where your effort is maximum effort, just put some Post-its on some wall and see if you can just keep reaching high or above that Post-it. I use chalk sometimes, I'll hold chalk and I'll jump and see if I can get the next little notch there. But you can do that with two feet.
You can do that with super lightweight. If you've got great technique and you want to put the barbell on your back, not one that I would really recommend to a lot of people because you need real technical efficiency and strength, but you can also do them holding dumbbells. If you just max jump holding dumbbells, then you're getting a little bit of strength and power and you can do this same thing from a lunge. So lunge and then jump as high as you possibly can land in the next lunge.
take off again at maximum height. So those are just the most simple, basic exercises. It doesn't have to be complicated. And I guarantee you they will work to get you jumping higher. For arm swing mechanics specifically, if when we talked about the whole elbow thing and you had a lot of trouble getting your elbow behind your head or your biceps, one of these can be chest tightness. So if your pecs are tight, okay.
Mark Burik (57:18.54)
There's something called a diamond stretch where if you put your back against a wall and it's flat, so sit and keep your entire back against the wall. Now, if you can't put your hands in a diamond above your head and keep your elbows flat against the wall with your hands in your forearms, you're probably a little tight in your pecs. Chest flies. Now, typically people like associate this with bodybuilders, but it does not have to be.
because we can open up our range by lying on our back. Hopefully it's a high bench so that you have a lot of range from the ground. Open it as much as you possibly can and then just bring them back forward. So we're getting stronger in a deeper range for our pecs. Okay. And then to open up our lats and our overhead range of motion, if you just keep lying on that bench, so you're on your back and you can take a plate.
You can take dumbbells or you can take a barbell or even a medicine ball and hold it above your head and drop it back behind your head and then bring it forward again. You're going to start getting more range for your attacks. So your pecs have to be mobile and strong. Your shoulders have to be mobile and strong. And so do your lats. Okay. And then finally, for your back, like let's start doing some legitimate pull-ups or if you can't do pull-ups yet.
Just start with hangs. Just hang onto a bar and see if you could hold on. Just do three or four sets of 30 seconds hanging straight. And that will start helping opening up your overhead range and adding strength. And then we could add pull-ups and chin-ups to it later. But with your palms away from your body, just go for some 30 second hangs. And that will be really helpful in getting your overhead range of motion.
Brandon Joyner (58:59.606)
What's, what's the?
Brandon Joyner (59:08.908)
What's Mackenzie's record at these days? Have you guys tested recently?
Mark Burik (59:13.036)
We don't have any, so we're in Florida right now. I'm at my volleyball Airbnb here and she hasn't been hanging, but she's doing a lot of swimming. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (59:22.04)
Okay, all right. We gotta get her back on the bar and see, I think, what was her record, 27 seconds? Something like that? 26? I mean, that was a couple months ago. We gotta get her going. Yeah.
Mark Burik (59:28.686)
Yeah, 26. Yeah.
Mark Burik (59:34.944)
I know, I know dude, she looks strong and long. You're gonna be shocked at how long she's gotten. She looks tall. It's crazy. All right guys, I think that's about as much as you can handle for a one hour session in arm swing mechanics. Again,
Brandon Joyner (59:38.941)
She does look tall.
Mark Burik (59:55.104)
If you guys wanna join our course, we look at your arm swing, we look at your jump mechanics, and we give you the exercises to fix it so you're not just watching videos and doing it, you're actually doing homework, and then we're checking your homework and giving you your next steps. So you can find that on our website. And if you wanna join us at a camp, we will be stoked to see you and help you do it in person.
Alright, cool. That's it from us at Better At Beach. We will see you on the sand.
