I also was able to do some unreal cross training with my local trainer name Marc St.Joules (www.stabilizertraining.com) at his Athletes United (www.athletesunited.tv) training headquarters. He runs a series of sport specific high performance training camps and I was able to get into some great training with excellent hockey players. I created a few videos of training which are featured on our facebook group (reader/sewell beach volleyball) or on Youtube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oQTPNbfbh0&feature=channel_page. My fitness and conditioning elevated in just two weeks and my explosiveness through weighted sprinting drills improved. I was also doing mixed martial arts cross training at the Comox Valley Boxing club and really enjoyed the fighting focus and mentality. There were many points in fighting I was able to apply to my beach volleyball game and I look forward to digging deeper into fight training and its mental practice to improve my overall athleticism in the future.
I left the Island to start my 3 week training camp in California but managed a stopover in Vancouver to play a weekend tournament on Kits beach. It had been a while since I played at Kits and just as long since my family had seen me play. My mother and sister came over to Vancouver to support and as per usual, we had about 15 other family members there to watch and cheer on. Ray and I won our pool play and then won our round of 16 game against a solid western Canadian team to move to the quarter finals Sunday morning. It had been a while since we both played ball and the 4 games on Saturday destroyed us! I took a 9 hour coma Saturday evening and returned to Kits beach the following morning sore but well rested. We played quite well in our quarter final match and moved onto the Semi finals against Anton Hauser and Ryan Cawsey who have been in the beach circle for years. We won the first set 21-19 but lost the next two sets. I was really disappointed with the loss but realized that with just under 3 weeks without playing any ball, we were far more rusty and out of touch than I thought we would be. Amazing it only takes a week or two for highly learned skills to slip away, even after training in Brazil for 3 months!
I am now in California to train for 3 weeks and will be taking a few days off due to a really sore lower back. The plane ride here was the most painful ride I have ever had in the air and it is has seized quite fiercely. I hope the daily California Bikram yoga will help!!
Until the next post,
Martin
