The Colin Sangster Blog
Summer Training Programme

 

The 2007/08 season brought a mix of fortunes for Glasgow’s favourite club: with the girls doing superbly well, the men’s first team having a mediocre year and the men’s second team struggling a bit. For most teams this would be acceptable, but this is not just any team – this is Su Ragazzi!

 
. A lot of the misfortune can be attributed to the loss of certain players to Great Britain training out in Holland – and subsequently some players having to rise through the ranks perhaps a little quicker than was planned, but Su are not the kind of team to throw blame around and panic – we endured a hard year and instead of rolling over and conceding defeat, we have done exactly what any team should do in that situation – we decided to get better!

So what have Su done over the summer? Well, for some 10 weeks now, we have been taking part in Motricity Training. Far from being something made-up by the coach to ensure that we actually did some exercise over the summer (as we suspected at first), Motricity Training is about building strength and muscle groups that will aid us in being stronger, faster, more powerful and, ultimately, better sportspeople.

 


With 3 four-week programs – drawn-up by the coach – the Su players started by increasing core strength and postural stability, went on to increase overall strength and are currently working on speed. The many different exercises – carried-out on Mondays and Wednesdays, with running days on Tuesdays and Thursdays and a flexibility program on Fridays – may not always seem like they are helping (see the picture to the right!) but they have been designed to make us fitter and stronger, and are also Volleyball specific. It would be fair to say that after weeks of training, we can stretch and dive further in defence, we can jump higher for blocking and spiking and we can hit harder – helping serving and hitting. We have better posture in the air and on the ground and have increased our muscle ratios.

I don’t think there is a team in Scotland who has worked as hard as we have over the summer – and we’ve barely touched a volleyball so far. The skills training is yet to come – but when you start with a team looking like we do now – it would be fair to say we have a huge advantage!

All I can say to other teams this year is: I hope you’ve been working hard over the summer, because Su are ready to re-take their crown!
 

 

  

 



Return to Headlines