Hi everyone, my name is Matt Furbringer, assistant coach on the USA men's national team. And today we are here to talk about attacking, specifically how to attack with more power, how to attack with more range, and how to have better vision. So if you want to get better doing this, grab yourself a notebook, come back, and enjoy this tutorial.
All right, key number one, face your setter. So, what I mean by facing your setter is after you pass the ball, you're going to kind of start squaring up your shoulders early. And as you're coming in for your final approach, your shoulders are squaring up to your setter the whole time.
What I see a lot, especially in the younger age groups, is they're attacking and they are parallel to the net like this. And now for a setter, where they set you, the target is smaller. And now I don't have any power.
I don't have any rotation, right? No ability. So my my swing becomes like this, right?
You see this a lot. So, what we want to do is we want to face that setter as I like to face as early as possible, but at the minimum you want to be facing as you're jumping up in the air so that I can re go up and I have the ability to rotate. Okay?
This rotation along with your arm swing is what's going to give you that power to hit that ball harder, more consistently, and with less effort. Okay? When you start doing all these different types of swings this way, you can make some great swings, but you're also going to make a lot more errors and your power is not going to be as consistent.
So key number one, face your setter. Key number two, powerful step close. So step close are your final two steps.
So for our right-handed hitters out there, it's going to be right, left. For left-handed hitters out there, it's going to be left, right. But it's this last two steps that are the building block to you jumping and get building power in the air.
Right? So you could take a 10-step approach, be sprinting in, but if your last two steps aren't powerful, all that energy was wasted. You could take a three-step approach and those last two steps are powerful.
Then you're going to have power. Fast feet meaning a fast close, fast arm, more power. So, number two, powerful step close.
Okay. Skill number three that we want to get better at is reaching our non-hitting arm up towards the ball. So, it's for me, I'm a right-hander and I'm reaching that left hand up to the ball.
For you lefties, of course, it's the right hand up to that ball. But what I see so often is this left arm starts to go up or non-hitting arm starts to go up and then it goes down. We call this the swimming technique.
It goes down and now all that nice job he did facing the setter. It gets lost and now you're swinging like this for power or like this for power and we're losing what we want is this turn, this rotation for that power. Okay.
So, this the the way I always think about it is this is your trigger for your arm to begin. So, if I'm on my if it's a low set and I'm hitting my way up, my arm may not fully get up, but it's starting my arm swing. So, this is the start of our arm swing.
If it's a little bit higher set and I might have jumped a little earlier, I might hold that arm up just a little bit longer and then I'm able to come through and get this rotation. Okay, but the two keys work together, right? I have to face a setter and I have to get that that arm up.
Okay, but I can do all that correctly. And if I'm early and I don't have a powerful step close, then I just lose all that power. So, we need to face that setter.
Key number one. Okay. Key number two is a powerful step close.
Okay. This means you're waiting behind the ball. You're coming in and you're timing it correctly.
Key number three is getting this left arm up. Okay, so it maximizes power. So have this ability to rotate as an attacker.
When you do these three things, you get really good vision as well. Okay, so one of the keys I always tell my my athletes is if you are having a hard time hitting, wait longer behind the ball. A lot of times we are a little bit early.
So we lose our vision when we're early. We lose a lot of our power. So, if we want to have more vision, the number one thing I'm going to tell you is wait a little bit longer behind the ball.
Because the earlier you are, you have to think about it this way. The earlier you are and you're committing to a spot, the defense hasn't yet committed. So, there's not much yet to see, right?
So, if I'm jumping up and the ball's still high in the air, I have to look up and as I'm looking up, all of this in front of you is changing. But if I'm coming in on good timing, proper timing, as I'm stepping closing, because I'm I'm waiting and exploding to the ball, the defense is in front of me. And now I'm looking I'm looking up at the ball that's in front of me here.
I'm jumping up. And as I'm jumping, I'm able to see all these people peripherilally. All right.
So, just that little bit of timing. Okay. Comes in.
You come a little early and I'm looking up at that ball and I don't see anything here. I wait just that split second longer. I get a more powerful step close.
I get that left arm up and now I see everything here in front of me. So when the block and defense are making moves, they're in my line of vision. Okay, really important cues.
For some of you, the cue that's going to help you the most is a powerful step close because you just been going one speed all the time. For other people, it's going to be, hey, I'm trying to make a powerful step close, but I'm always early. So, you want to really make sure that you, you know, that you're waiting and coming in and that powerful step close, but those two things really go hand in hand.
So, hope you enjoy the tuto tutorial. Um, hitting such a fun thing. It's the art.
Keep getting better. Keep working hard. Keep watching video of yourself and other great hitters.
You guys have a whole library out here of hitters to watch and see what they're doing. But also make sure you watch yourself, okay? Watch yourself.
See what you're doing. Are you on your way down? Are you open?
Are you big? A lot of times when I'm working with the kids, they think they're doing all this and then they watch video and it's like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize I was doing that. " So, make sure you keep watching video and make sure you keep having fun.
