Mark Burik (00:01.688)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Baric, fresh off of two Florida camps and I am here with Brandon Joyner who just run a cool clinic down in Huntington Beach and today we are going to talk about what you should be doing in the off season. So we're in November now, most tournaments are done and what are the biggest bang for your buck activities?
or things that you should be thinking about going into the winter, going into the off season and how to prepare so that you can hit the ground running next season. So that's what we're gonna be talking about. But just a few quick announcements. This weekend, November 9th, on Sunday, I'm gonna be running three hours of classes in Hermosa followed by a three hour how to work out for volleyball in person seminar where I'll be giving nutrition tips.
Workout tips, giving everybody workout plans so that they know exactly how many reps, how many sets every week and every month they should be getting in. And we're gonna be doing a lot of vertical jump testing as well as testing for mechanics. So there's only 10 spots there. So if this one comes out in time, go ahead to better at beach.com forward slash Hermosa.
and you will find the sign up there. On October 26th in Santa Monica, we have a men's B clinic. So if you are around the Santa Monica area, October 26th, we have a three hour intensive for men's level B players. And then our camp schedule Punta Cana is coming up November 29th to December 6th. That's an all inclusive camp.
Brandon Joyner (01:36.02)
November.
We're kind of stuck.
Mark Burik (01:54.574)
November 7th in Virginia Beach with Brandon. He's going to be out there. November 14th in Dallas, December 12th in Houston, December 19th. We've got a 10 person women's intermediate camp at my volleyball Airbnb in St. Pete. And whether or not you're going to that camp, if you want a volleyball vacation where you get to have an Airbnb with 11 spots,
and you've got a volleyball crew or you're there for tournaments or you're there for watching your daughter getting her recruited to a college which you've had a couple guests, please reach out to me at Mark Barak on Instagram. You get your own pool and hot tub and a private volleyball court with your Airbnb.
January 23rd, we'll be in Loveland, Ohio. February 6th, we will be at the Phil Dahlhauser Academy in Orlando. February 13th in Salt Lake City and May 29th in Long Island, New York. That's always our biggest camp, the Long Beach Camp where we partner up with East End Volleyball who is coming into its 50th year.
Brandon Joyner (03:04.244)
I was talking about them this past weekend. some reason, Mary and Rich came up and I was just like, man, I need to get back there for this year because last year I think we ran the San Diego camp the same week and Long Beach was, that was the first time I'd been there and like, one, seeing how much volleyball was around that area, the amount of leagues and nets they had set up and then Long Beach is awesome.
Mark Burik (03:20.59)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (03:34.784)
Palm Beach, New York is the best.
Brandon Joyner (03:35.236)
That's a cool little beach town. It's kind of funny, I have two favorite beaches. I love Virginia Beach and I love the Outer Banks. And I feel like that's a perfect mesh of both of them. Such a cool spot. So happy we're going back.
Mark Burik (03:48.427)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (03:53.558)
Yeah, so we got a full packed schedule and this has been our first year of really piling on the three day camps and people are loving them. I just did some stats in the back and we've got a 40 percent returner rate and the. The crazy thing is, like, we keep trying to bring beach volleyball coaching to cities where, like, they might not be able to find it, especially for adults. We always invite juniors. Somehow we just haven't.
tapped that market. We haven't gone after it aggressively, but we always end up with somewhere between like two and 10 juniors at our bigger camps. this it's been a journey with the, with the three day camps. got Marine doing all the coordination and booking, but it's been awesome to go in so hardcore for three days in a row with good volleyball minds. Like it's
Brandon Joyner (04:44.455)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (04:52.758)
It's again, just the stuff that I was wanting hunting down while I was playing while I was first getting into into volleyball. And we've had a number of people that are just getting crazy different results from their tournaments in their leagues. A lot of my one on one guys, they're just pumping through tournaments and now they're like kind of exiting their current player groups, which is really cool to see.
Brandon Joyner (05:18.054)
Yeah, it's cool time. Yeah, it's, I was talking to somebody about it and it's like, those three day camps are awesome because one, we really do get to get a feel for all the different communities, which there's like so many similarities, obviously in the volleyball world, but obviously these different areas, Ohio, New York, Florida, Arizona, like
They all have like their little niches, you know, like the way that they run things, the way they do things. and then on top of that, three days, it's a lot of volleyball, but I think it's like the perfect amount where we never lose that like energy of people wanting to be there. And by the end of it, see a completely different group. So it's like.
Mark Burik (06:08.705)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (06:14.764)
Yes, it's.
Brandon Joyner (06:15.528)
By day one, it's so cool. By day one, people know how to play volleyball. They just might not be able to do it every time. But by day three, by that Sunday, middle, actually, I would say it comes late Saturday. They're playing a different game. It almost looks like a different sport. And it's so cool to witness as a coach because you're like,
Mark Burik (06:24.291)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (06:38.56)
Mm-hmm. Playing a different game. Yup.
Brandon Joyner (06:46.196)
perfect. We did it. Like, we're showing people what volleyball is supposed to be played like and then once people wrap their head around all the overload of information and they're able to focus on a couple things, it makes
Mark Burik (06:47.808)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (07:00.558)
It's always like the intermediate players make this massive jump and it goes from like what I call like kids football where it's just scramble. Nobody knows where anybody is going, but you're putting the ball up somewhere near somebody. And then by Sunday, you see this intentional design players are trying to hit from specific locations. Their movement is better and they know exactly where to set. And then you see them
like judging their sets so differently than they were judging them on Friday, where they're like, that's the one I missed. I missed it by two feet. You you get that hyper accuracy in offensive design and all the light bulbs that happen in our defensive sessions is just, it's fun to look at the eyes and see them go like,
Brandon Joyner (07:54.74)
Yeah, no, cool. Yeah, and it's for everybody, right? Like you just mentioned the intermediates, but like it's kind of cool because beginners, you're learning all the right technique. You're starting off on the right foot. It's a great growth pattern for you because you're in blank slate, which we love. Intermediates, just like Mark said, you're figuring it out. But then those higher level players that open guys and girls.
Mark Burik (08:12.205)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (08:24.4)
they're figuring out they're finally able to like analyze in their own minds of like this is why I've been losing points and then once you figure out that answer then you have something that you can go back and fix and that's when we get the text back of like hey I just won my first double a I just won my first triple a like and it's cool because all it took it's kind of funny even the camp we did on Sunday in Huntington
Mark Burik (08:34.318)
Yes.
Brandon Joyner (08:53.394)
in the first like 30 minutes, someone was like, I've never thought about that. And it was something so simple, like holding your finish a little bit longer or something like that. And I was like, well, I'm happy you figured that out. And she was like, that alone was worth the price. And I'm like, you are the golden customer. Thank you so much.
Mark Burik (08:58.67)
Perfect.
Mark Burik (09:05.144)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (09:12.142)
Yeah
Mark Burik (09:15.95)
Yeah, we had in Florida at my Airbnb, we had a group of 10 Israeli guys, they're all between like 50 and 65. And they're a friend group. They had been playing, playing fours with each other. They're like a tight group. They don't have like this big thing. And I think only a couple of them have ambitions to play like two on two full tournaments.
Brandon Joyner (09:30.484)
That's awesome.
Mark Burik (09:43.404)
And then they're like, well, four on four gets too messy. So we're starting to play three on three. And I go, Hey, guys, this is your private camp. Like this is your group of friends. You booked the Airbnb, you booked me, however you want to run this. And then they kept leaning on me for recommendations. And I said, even if we're six on six, a two on two, three day camp or a practice will get you so much farther than any other style of practice. So I go my recommendation is partner drills. And then at the end, when we get into competitive drills,
Brandon Joyner (10:06.452)
Thank
Mark Burik (10:13.358)
If you want me to, to design a three on three or four on four, we can do that. Um, but we'll make that decision when it comes. And then every time they're like, no, no, no, we'll play twos. We'll play twos. Like it's better for us. It's better for us. Um, it was such a, that group of buddies was so fun. They like ripped on each other. They yelled at each other. And I was like, are these guys.
Brandon Joyner (10:26.293)
Yeah, it seemed like a fun group.
Brandon Joyner (10:32.753)
Yeah, like I can see us doing something like that like
you
Mark Burik (10:39.822)
Do I have to step in here? Like, I don't think so because they're buddies and they're always like kind of giggling afterwards and the way they argue with each other was hysterical. And I got our next podcast guest who is a dermatologist and he's going to come out and he's going to talk to us about all the science and all the like basic cookie cutter things that did. And I locked him into one question. was like, so blank question, sunscreen or not.
Brandon Joyner (11:08.72)
on screen.
Mark Burik (11:12.046)
And he brought up two stats. said, well, since we started pushing sunscreen, skin cancer has not dropped. It has inclined. It has like gone up. He owes lots of other factors there, but just so that we know that number and he goes, my best like blank slate recommendation is make sure you get sunlight on your skin. But if you know that you're going to burn.
at a certain time before you start burning, then add a low ingredient like sunscreens with as few ingredients as possible and just the right ones, which he's going to share with us on that podcast. But he's like, don't put it on right away. Get your son. And then before you're you're reaching a time limit where you're going to start burning is then you can apply like the the healthy ones with the good ingredients. But it was interesting to hear. Hmm. Since sunscreen came about.
Brandon Joyner (11:49.928)
Thank
Mark Burik (12:09.654)
skin cancer has gone up, of course, tons and tons and tons of other environmental and nutritional factors in there, but
Brandon Joyner (12:12.286)
Yeah, right.
Brandon Joyner (12:20.212)
interesting.
Mark Burik (12:21.334)
Yeah. So, to my Israeli guys, we had a bunch of fun, the Fort Laredale crew. you guys were awesome. And I didn't have to step in their language with each other. And like the way that they talked to each other was just arguing is the way we love each other. And we only had, two of them cramp out. So not bad. Yeah. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (12:37.596)
Yeah, for sure. I can imagine.
Okay, that's good. Cool.
Mark Burik (12:47.694)
And then yeah, Fort Myers was awesome. We're there with Steve who runs Naples Beach volleyball and Bryce Paxson who is becoming a fixture at our camps and we had 30 people there. Just a fantastic high energy crew and we had people from Canada, we had people from Kansas, we had a crew that came up from Fort Lauderdale. And again, like only a few people locally from St. Pete. It's hysterical when we go into a new city and all these people are like, well,
Brandon Joyner (12:56.564)
Yeah. Yes.
Mark Burik (13:15.864)
Just worked with my schedule and I'd never been to that city, so they fly out. But it's more than half of the people that are not from that local area.
Brandon Joyner (13:23.124)
Yeah, it's pretty common.
Mark Burik (13:24.983)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (13:26.132)
Crazy.
Mark Burik (13:27.726)
Anyway, it's November. So I'm going to share a little bit about what I used to do in November to prep for the next season and then things that you guys should absolutely do. coming up soon with our online players, the first thing that you guys should do is hopefully, hopefully, hopefully you guys have been filming. If you're not filming your matches,
Brandon Joyner (13:31.153)
Yeah, I'll see.
Brandon Joyner (13:39.688)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (13:57.134)
You don't have as many tools as you need to really improve and see what you need to improve on. But hopefully you're doing that. Have a sit down session. Use a Friday night movie night to watch all of your matches. if you don't know how to take stats, that's fine, but look for every error. Like if there was a pass, a set error or a hitting error, especially.
Figure out what situations that's coming about. For some cookie cutter stats that you should do, just say good or bad pass. Good pass is the front 15 feet of the court and that lands somewhere between you and your setter and that they can get there without still running or having to dart to the ball. Like did your setter look balanced?
And then just measure good verse bad. We have a three point rating system where a zero is an overpass or an ace, a one is something the setter can barely get their hands on. A two rated pass would be pretty good, but not exactly in that zone. And a three would be a perfect pass somewhere between 10 and six feet, 10 and five feet from the net. And the setter can have the option to set, to hit or set, right? If you can take those, then.
You're just going to get an average of good to bad, or if you want to use the three point system, what your passer rating is currently. Right. And that's the first start. Then you want to look at your sets and you say good or bad set with my one-on-one buyers. When we do it online, we take our cursor, we pause when the ball is in the setters hands or on their platform. And then we draw an imaginary line from the hitting arm of the attacker.
to about three feet from the net. And if that set doesn't fall on or around where we put the cursor, we're gonna call it a bad set. If it does fall like within, you know, a few pixels of the cursor when we're doing online, then we call it a good set. So then just measure your good versus bad sets. And then finally hitting percentage. Like you definitely, definitely, definitely need your hitting percentage. And of course,
Mark Burik (16:17.016)
When you're going deep and deep and deep in the game, you want to look at digs per game, where you got the most digs, are your feet still moving on every contact when the attacker hits? But this is the time to take all of this most recent stats and then figure out where the bleeding is happening and what fixes you need to make the quickest for next year.
Brandon Joyner (16:40.072)
Yeah, I think the idea of going back and I think it's always so hard, right? Because you've just finished a long grueling summer of playing in all these tournaments or practicing and now like you got to keep going, you know, and the best way to keep going is by understanding your weaknesses. You know, I think on our website, we have a free tools tab that has
Mark Burik (17:07.212)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (17:08.912)
access to a lot of those like, statistic worksheets, how to find weaknesses, how to create goals, stuff like that. And I think that those resources are fantastic because it just, allows, it gives you everything that you need, you know, and it's kind of a walkthrough step. So I think that those are, those are really, really useful. Yeah. And once again, they're all free. So.
There's really no reason to not use them. But yeah, like I think I kind of picked up on when I played beach volleyball, I think it kind of just happened naturally because that's kind of the person I was. And I knew what I wanted to focus on in the off season because I was able to feel and see what maybe lose games. But since I've gotten out of volleyball and now I'm in, I'm doing like
half ironmans and a lot of endurance sports. One of the things that I've realized is like how important it is to keep momentum. know, like when you're done with a race, you don't have to be training the, you shouldn't be training the, maybe the extreme that you were leading up to that race, but you should be able to keep your base, you know? And I think that's really important for beach volleyball as well.
And you know, I know it's hard because some of us might not have sand. We might not have access to two beach courts during the summer because of weather or just area. But if you have an indoor facility near you, or if you just have like indoor volleyball, you know, I think switching and playing that different sport we have. So this is kind of a big thing that's happened.
Mark Burik (18:54.179)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (19:03.174)
Almost on all of our Instagram videos or something that deals with setting, deals with attacking, deals with something. So many people comment and they say, yeah, but for indoor, it should be this. completely right. And I think it's important that we understand everybody in the online world. Beach volleyball and indoor volleyball are different sports. They are different sports.
Mark Burik (19:28.962)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (19:31.014)
Sure, they use a lot of the same technique. There are a lot of similarities, but they are extremely different. And it's kind of funny because I was like getting ready to comment on one of the comments that we got on one of our last videos. And it was like talking about indoor volleyball. And I was like, my comment was, I didn't send it, but.
Mark Burik (19:39.469)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (19:58.324)
My comment was, yeah, you're completely right, but we're going to leave that teaching to get better at indoor. It's like, it's like, all right, right. That's a little sassy. They'll, they'll do it. But, um, but yeah, it's a, but if you don't have the availability of sand courts, those indoor courts, you can get a lot of the same reps. And the big part is that you're just not losing momentum. Um,
Mark Burik (20:04.27)
Thank
Brandon Joyner (20:26.196)
There were a couple of times when I was in Virginia Beach that like, I would go hard on the off season, meaning like, oh, season's done, I'm done. And I would let myself kind of just veg out for a month, a month and a half. No, I went soft. Yeah, I went real soft. Yeah, but then it was always so hard because then January rolled around.
Mark Burik (20:44.414)
you mean you went soft and he went into full off season mode.
Brandon Joyner (20:55.492)
like my gosh now this uphill battle that I have to climb to get in shape and find my touch again like I'm doing the same thing every single year instead of growing and then when I moved out to California obviously I found that consistency which came with the location that I lived that I moved to but yeah I wish I I wish I had played a little bit more indoor during those years in the offseason because it would have helped me maintain a little bit.
Mark Burik (21:26.157)
I always liked the switch between the two sports. know, early on I was fired up to go overseas and play and I was getting my jumps in. was getting my training in, know, arm was getting stronger and hitting harder. And so that's, that's round the year volleyball development. And I was able to make that switch really easily. Like once I was on sand, I'm like, okay, now I'm a sand setter.
Once I was on indoor, okay, now I have to set like an indoor player, you know, and there were a couple of small moments in an indoor game where I brought out my beach hands and the entire other team like grumbled, but the refs didn't call it. It didn't, it didn't do what all these coaches say that it like affected it negatively. had the opportunity to train my sport.
Brandon Joyner (22:09.608)
Right.
Mark Burik (22:22.464)
year round, it was just on different surfaces and with slightly different skills, but all of them did it. So if you're playing beach and there is no beach opportunity near you, like a facility or anything, get in a church basement and play some four on four and get the pass set and approach touches. Like the development that you can get through consistency is insane.
Brandon Joyner (22:50.004)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (22:51.29)
but I always enjoyed that switch and then it was, it did, even though you're playing the different sports, some of my beach skills would leave during the indoor season. And that was actually why I, one of the reasons why I ended up quitting indoor full-time was because I just, my high lines are automatic by August. And then when I got out back onto the beach for like the first week, I just couldn't hit.
this little square box that I drew and that I was like nine out of 10 the year before. And I was just like, I don't ever want to be this bad at beach volleyball again. I think I'm done with indoor.
Brandon Joyner (23:29.748)
mean, and like it's always easy to go back, but I think like if you had been able to like really wrap your head around that while you were playing indoor, I could have very well seen you at the gym 20 minutes early, just standing on the ground, hitting high lines, even with an indoor ball, you know, there are, and like when we go back to setting, even though there are those differences between indoor setting and beach setting, they are real.
Mark Burik (23:38.989)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (23:59.464)
Like we can't, you can't hide behind this idea of like one's right and one's wrong. No, they're both right. They are very well-defined things. and being able to do both of them is super important just for, just for the sake of your body control. Like if you're telling me that you can't indoor set versus beach set or beach set versus indoor set, all that tells me is that like, okay, there's a lack of motor skills.
going on or a lack of recognition of understanding of what these two feelings feel like because like there there are different type like I don't know the the right analogy of it you know but it's like maybe somebody's shooting a jump shot and somebody doing a layup like they're both right you can do both of them at the same time they're gonna be harder right
Mark Burik (24:48.823)
Mm.
Hmph.
Brandon Joyner (24:55.828)
If you're doing a layup from the free throw line sure that's gonna be a trickier shot than one right underneath but they're different they're different movements and Just understanding that and kind of going through it is pretty important kind of moving moving on one one of the things that I know for me was really important and I struggled with Pretty I think pretty common that I wish I would have acknowledged more
was my strength and my endurance. know, like I think during the off season, whenever I got to like end of July, August, I always wished that I did more, you know, and for some reason, I never really dove into completing that task. Felt like I was doing it, but then all of sudden late July came around and...
Mark Burik (25:40.014)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (25:48.686)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (25:53.138)
I wasn't as strong as I needed to be. I couldn't last in matches as long as I needed to. And so I think finding a good workout program, finding a good coach and setting up a training plan that's going to set you up for August, not for April. And I think that happens a lot too where people work out really hard from January through March.
All of a sudden the first tournament comes and now we're starting to dial back on our workouts or our endurance sprint training, jump training, stuff like that. But if you don't know what you're doing, like me, when I was in Virginia, I was like, dude, I'm just, I'm just trying to survive out here. It was tough, but now like working with Better Beach for as long as I have, it's like, yeah, this is easy. Like all.
All I have to do is I just need to tell you what you should be doing and then we can create this plan for you to help you get there. So I think finding a good workout program and having the right goals, which also comes from those weaknesses that we talked about earlier is super important.
Mark Burik (27:09.334)
You know, something that a lot of people miss with their workouts during the off season and preseason is actually your jump count. You have to build the long term capacity to jump and sprint. And just like anything else, when you see somebody who is yoked, like they are jacked, it's because that person has not stopped training for the past six, seven, eight years, like
The way that you build mass is through nonstop consistency and never getting hurt. the way that, you know, aside from mass, the way that you build speed, power production, the ability to jump high is by making sure that you get runs, runs and jumps in with your workouts. And I think a lot of people make this mistake of all they're doing is getting strong during the off season.
You know, so they'll like lift weights and they'll think that they're doing it. But then if you haven't taught your nervous system to max jump and explode at your max capacity, you've got it. You've got to upgrade that. And that was the advantage that I had from indoor was that my jump count stayed high throughout the off season. And I mean, at the very least. Get 100 jumps per week.
Like go jump and touch something, jump and spike a ball, jump, go into an indoor squash court and take a jump spike serve and hammer it against the wall. But when your weight training, there are definitely good workouts that you should do good exercises that you should choose. But I was telling somebody, in the, in the Florida Airbnb group, I was just like, cause he was a big CrossFit guy and he was just kind of.
learning the jump technique of the step close. I go, you do a lot of CrossFit, right? He goes, yeah. I go, all right. So it's a lot of box jumps. He goes, yeah, we do it all the time. I go, anytime I do a box jump, I turn it into an approach. So all you need is the left, right, left, or the very least like the right left step close with the double arm lift. And then when you're doing those box jumps, don't just step down and jump up.
Mark Burik (29:31.79)
turn it into your approach so that you can keep dialing in your body's neural pathways to make that easier going forward. And if you're not a weightlifter or you just hate working with weights, fine, but get some body weight squats, get some lunges, sprints, and then take approach jumps and either touch something really high that's just at the edge of your limit or jump up onto a box.
And you'll get that jump count so that you do have the endurance in July and August I just think too many people turn it into like meathead season or they go completely off You know and then nothing that you built throughout the summer stays with you Like your body has a little bit of of long-term memory where you will get back into shape
Brandon Joyner (30:11.341)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (30:20.286)
Mm-mm.
Mark Burik (30:27.992)
Faster than you did the first year and then if you take off again, you'll get back slightly faster than you would like the second year And then of course age comes into play where you know building back up to that can take forever but keep jumping Find a way to jump jump jump take approach jumps do swing blocks against your garage That that is so important to keep your sprint and jump during the offseason
Brandon Joyner (30:57.928)
I have two questions for you. So that jump, the jump count that you're talking about where try to get a minimum of 100 jumps a week. Would you suggest, and obviously this is like the bare minimum of workout training, but would you suggest that if I did 100 jumps a week in December, in January, should that number go up or should I stay at that 100?
Mark Burik (31:08.814)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (31:28.188)
Like should those increase over time or just find different ways to do it or.
Mark Burik (31:34.058)
Well, as a baseline, having 100 is just like the minimum that you should do. So if you jumped 15 times per day, you you warmed up and you got at least some hops, some jumps in that's going to increase as you get into like preseason. You just got to know that what's your goal for each part of the season is your goal to.
continue to increase your vertical, continue to increase your workout capacity, and then you design your workouts for that. If it's to become a better passer and a setter, then we all have a certain time allotment. So you need to understand, okay, you know, I'm going to do it quicker in the gym. I'm going to get a few squats, couple RDLs, maybe some shoulder work, well, definitely some shoulder work. And then I'm going to get out onto the court. This is so
Continue to increase your jump capacity. There is a limit that you can get to where it's going to start exhausting you and then you'll have declining effects. But if you can draw some type of line or like what I do in the garage where I hung duct tape at certain heights, if you find that your jump numbers, like you can't reach that duct tape anymore over time,
Then you've got to lower your jump and workout count because you're starting to exhaust yourself. I'm not talking about once or twice, but if it's like two or three weeks where you haven't been able to touch the same place that you're used to touching, then you need to slide back for half a week, maybe a week, and then rebuild it up there so that you can stay at that high capacity. There's always this fatigue and, and energy wave that happens.
Brandon Joyner (33:05.044)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (33:27.476)
think that would be a cool little 21 day challenge like our mobile October, like a 21 day vertical increase that we could run. I think that would be kind of Just like that has everything between like jump ropes, skip bounds.
Mark Burik (33:34.542)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (33:50.668)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (33:50.708)
agility, agility, just like all the stuff that we used to that we've done or we used to do in our, I think you still do it, but that we used to do in our like preseason training. That would be, that would be pretty fun.
Mark Burik (34:05.934)
Well, if you guys are at home and you check out our kettlebell program, I wanted to make a weight training program that was a little bit shorter than our 60 day max. So 60 day max, like we've said before, but there's an average increase in vertical jump of over four inches for the people that complete every workout and report their numbers. And then for a 21 day agility conditioning and a little bit of weight training.
That's where I designed the three levels of the kettlebell program. and it is a buildup into your conditioning and sprints. So like week one, I go, Hey, we're going to do a hundred yard sprints, but you're doing it at absolutely 50%. Like you're not going hard. You need to teach your body. you go into a cold and you've, you haven't done it for years or months, something's going to pop.
Brandon Joyner (34:56.818)
something.
Mark Burik (35:01.122)
You got to chill. that's why I built that kettlebell program, which I'm a big fan of. and I use a lot of the workouts on a very regular basis. And just, even if you did the conditioning portion of that and, not the weight training, that's a good series. So if you're looking for a flat out workout program, number one, if you're coming back from injury, you're just getting back into it. Go for the mobility program, the mobility and strength foundations.
Brandon Joyner (35:02.452)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (35:29.33)
If you are ready to kick it into high gear for two months and you want to see your biggest vertical leap increase that includes all the weight training exercises and the conditioning and a heavy mobility and injury injury prevention program. And if you're just trying to feel it out and you want to get faster and more, more agile and more explosive in a short amount of time, then I would start with a kettlebell one, which you guys can find at better beach.com forward slash workout.
Brandon Joyner (35:58.642)
Nice. and we're doing a, in January or yeah, January, we're doing a combined 60 day workout. Correct.
Mark Burik (36:07.082)
Actually, we're doing two. So we have a, a cohort that's going to start November 10th, and we're going to push those guys all the way through the end of January. And then we're starting a second group in January. So there's going to be two live groups that I'm going to meet with you. I'm going to doctor your workouts. We're going to do the program together. and we're going to have live meetings every week. So.
Brandon Joyner (36:08.564)
Okay.
Brandon Joyner (36:14.407)
or nice.
Mark Burik (36:35.56)
If you want to get in shape this off season, we're doing two rounds and they both come with live coaching so that we're there to answer every question and everybody will be doing the same workouts every time. So people will do the pre-assessments, meaning you'll take your, your jump and sprint times before, and then we're going to take them at the end and see all of these numbers pop and the community aspect, seeing that everybody else is doing the workouts at the same time. That's why I like to run through live courses.
Brandon Joyner (37:04.35)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (37:05.966)
You get people who get results just because they're motivated by seeing other people doing it at the same time and they don't feel so alone.
Brandon Joyner (37:14.196)
accountability. It's a heck of a thing. And you get to avoid your Thanksgiving and Christmas bellies, which is also a thing. That's good. And then my second question, this one's kind of funny, but I'm thinking about Eric Zahn. And one of the things that I remember about him, rest in peace, was he would go absolutely ham.
Mark Burik (37:16.846)
heck of a thing.
Mark Burik (37:21.646)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (37:42.672)
on bulking season and he would send us these pictures of him eating at all you can eat restaurants and like devouring menus. Do you think bulking season is a thing? Like is that something that we need to get away from in the volleyball world?
Mark Burik (38:00.978)
There's really no benefit to it other than if you are pushing weights and jump training hard because like in in season you have to measure it. You can't leave yourself fatigued for a tournament. So for like there should be a slight slight increase in your speed times and things. But depending on your injury, how hard tournaments were travel. Usually we see a little bit of a of a decline.
if you're, if you have a great strength coach and they're communicating with your practice coach, then you're keeping an eye on those numbers to know like, Hey, we've got to back off at practice here, or we've got to back off in the weight room and do some recovery. But, the off season is really this time where you get to put as much energy as you choose into your conditioning. Right. And if you're going to put a lot into your conditioning,
The number one thing that you need is great sleep. And then the number two thing is making sure that your body has all the best nutrients so that you get the most out of every recovery. and your, muscles have something to feed on. So if you're trying to like increase your vertical and you're trying to get stronger because that's one of your goals or you felt like you were fatigued at the end of, at the end of matches or at the end of tournaments, then you're going to need to go hard.
in lifting so that you can keep some increased muscle capacity before it starts that really slow decline in the season. and if you want to keep working out like that, you've got to eat, you know, so it really just depends on like, there's no bulking season if you're not working out. That's just, yeah. Yeah. so if you're working out hard.
Brandon Joyner (39:50.418)
Yeah, that's just kind of getting overweight. Yeah, that's funny. Okay.
Mark Burik (39:58.56)
eat hard. And that's what we tell people at camps like guys, during this camp, you should eat more during these days than any other day because you're putting out this energy capacity that's unheard of.
Brandon Joyner (40:04.296)
Yeah. You earned it.
Brandon Joyner (40:13.492)
One last thing I know we got to wrap up soon, but one last thing that I would always suggest, and this is coming for me when I was in Virginia, is during the off season, I would always try to plan like two, minimum one, but I would try to plan two weekend tournaments that were happening. Like, and a lot of times those happen in Florida, they happen in California all the time, so like.
You might have to take a flight. You might have to take a drive or something like that. Sometimes like Southern Carolinas or Southern like Virginia will have a random tournament, some indoor tournaments, but giving yourself something in the near future that you're excited about. You know, I think whenever you have something on the schedule of like, okay, I'm going to play in this tournament on this weekend.
Having that plan and know that you need to get yourself ready for it is great, but just don't put pressure on it. Like just understand that you're doing it as a check-in. Like you're using it as a way for you to motivate yourself to kind of keep going. I think we need those outside motivations a lot. And that's something that worked a lot for me as it was like, okay, it's January.
Mark Burik (41:11.438)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (41:25.806)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (41:32.54)
I'm not going to play a real tournament until probably April, May, but maybe end of January, early February, I'm going to go down to Deerfield Beach, Miami Beach, St. Pete, whatever. And I'm just going to play in a tournament. Just one, it's kind of cool. You get to feel some warmth. You like get a little sun on your skin. And then it also like brings you back to how fun your summer was. And you're like, okay, cool.
Mark Burik (41:49.315)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (42:02.054)
looking forward to this again. And then when you go back home you've got a few more ideas that you can focus on for the next couple months before your first real tournament. But yeah having that thing on the schedule I think is pretty cool.
Mark Burik (42:15.52)
Yeah. Cool. So if you're an off season or you think you're going into the end of your season, number one, go back to film, take some stats. If you need some help with that, you can book us for a private video lesson and we'll walk you through it. Number two, recover. If something has been hurting or injured, check out our Mobility and Strength Foundations program.
You can get that and that'll get your body back and ready in condition for a three week period, which is 21 days. And then number three, choose your goals. And if your goal is to make sure that you're more physical next year, that starts today. Keep your jump count reasonably high. And if you really enjoy lifting and weights, which are pretty darn important, get into the weight room. And if you need a plan, we got that for you.
Brandon Joyner (43:09.94)
I like it. Also, huge shout out to your shirt today. Love, love the family vacation 2025 shirt. That's fantastic. I'm actually a little bummed.
Mark Burik (43:11.694)
All right.
Mark Burik (43:15.306)
the Berg family vacation?
Mark Burik (43:19.874)
Thank you. With the OAR quote on the bottom.
Brandon Joyner (43:24.872)
When I see your face I remember I own, I feel home. Wow, there you go. Man, I'm a little bummed out. Do you have any extra? Can I get a donation?
Mark Burik (43:29.08)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (43:33.134)
Mackenzie might be grown out of her soon.
Brandon Joyner (43:37.712)
Okay, cool, I can make it into a halter top. Perfect. All right.
Mark Burik (43:44.888)
Cool. Guys, thanks for listening and I really appreciate the messages that you guys send when you do listen and hearing from some of the friends that I didn't know listened to our podcast and then some of the other ones. So if you enjoyed this, please go ahead and share it with somebody else. And if you haven't, shoot us a review and subscribe to us on wherever you listen to podcasts goes a long way. And if you want to join this next round of our live
vertical max group that is going to start November 10th. So get on our email list, check the emails. We're also gonna be posting it all over Instagram and YouTube so that you can see some massive improvements this off season.
That's it from me from Brandon from everybody at Better at Beach. We will see you on the sand.
