By Mississauga Volleyball research staff
Volleyball is an exciting sport to play, no questions asked. You can play this sport professionally or for fun. It’s widely known that volleyball is a physical activity that has many great benefits. On the downside, volleyball has a high risk of injuries. Whether you want to become a professional volleyball player or just want to become healthier from playing, your safety always has to be the number one priority.
According to the statistics provided by the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons, more than 187,000 volleyball-related injuries are reported every year. The most common injuries in volleyball are injured shoulder, ankles, knee, fingers (such as dislocations, fractures, tendon and ligament tears), strain, sprains, and others. It’s important to know that any type of injury negatively affects the athlete’s sport career. Obviously, volleyball players should do something about this.
Luckily, all types of injuries during volleyball can be prevented to some extent. It’s crucial for athletes to take preventive measures against injuries. The big question is – what do volleyball players need to do to prevent injuries during practices and matches? Now, it’s time to get the answer to this question. In today’s post, we will provide you with some volleyball safety tips to prevent various injuries from happening. Read on to learn more about volleyball injury prevention.
Always Warm Up and Do Stretches before Volleyball Practices and Games
First and foremost, you need to get your body ready for volleyball. There is really no better way to do this than do warm ups and stretches. Always start volleyball practices and games like this.
It’s possible to warm up before volleyball in a number of different ways. For example, you can warm up by walking or cycling to get your body ready for volleyball. There are also many great warm up exercises for volleyball. It will take you approximately 3 – 5 minutes to get your body ready for the sport this way. After that, you can also do dynamic volleyball stretches. These drills will help you reduce the risk of volleyball injuries dramatically.
Use Knee Pads to Prevent Knee Injuries
As we have mentioned earlier, knee injuries are one of the most common types of volleyball injuries. Oftentimes, volleyball players dive or fall on the court during the game, and risk getting a knee injury. That’s why it’s so important for volleyball players to take all the necessary measures to protect their knees. The best way is to properly use knee pads.
Wear Volleyball Shoes with Extra Padding
Another important thing that you need to be aware of is that a players shoes play a big role in preventing leg injuries. So, you must be very selective when it comes to picking your shoes. You’ll be able to avoid various leg injuries if you purchase the right pair of volleyball shoe.
Weight is one of the most important things that you need to consider when selecting your volleyball shoes. It would be better for volleyball players to use lightweight shoes. Keep in mind that you will find it comfortable to move on the court and play volleyball in lightweight shoes. Also, it’s highly recommended to select volleyball shoes that provide athletes with strong ankle and arch support. It’s a great idea to pick volleyball shoes that has good shock absorption.
When picking volleyball shoes, you also need to pay a close attention to an important part, padding. Padding is something that makes playing volleyball more comfortable and, most importantly, safe.
Use Padded Shorts to Prevent Hip Injuries
As you may know, the need to dive for a ball may arise during a volleyball game at anytime. When this happens, volleyball players take the of getting injured hips. However, this type of injury can be easily prevented. All that you need to do is to wear padded shorts (also known as defensive pants). It’s worth noting that these type of pants are padded from knees to pads. This should allow you to avoid hip injuries as well as knee injuries on the volleyball court.
Use Braces as well as Forearm Pads to Reduce the Risk of Injuries
Braces and forearm pads make it possible for volleyball players to avoid different types of injuries during games and practices on the court. These include injured elbows, injured forearms, injured ankles, etc….
Take Advantage of Mouthguards
Volleyball falls into the category of contact sports. Sometimes, bad things happen and volleyball players collide on the court. Unfortunately, collisions often result in various injuries (It’s impossible to avoid misunderstanding on the volleyball court). Nevertheless, it’s possible to prevent injuries that happen due to different types of conflicts. When these kinds of things happen, athletes often get their cheeks, lips, tongues and teeth injured. It’s a great idea to make use of mouth guards to prevent volleyball injuries like this from happening.
Stop Training If You Get an Injury
Taking preventive measures helps minimize the risk of injuries in the sport dramatically. However, volleyball players can get injuries during volleyball from time to time. The reality is, a volleyball player may get an injury even if they do every single thing possible to reduce the risk of injuries.
If this happens, an athlete has to stop the game as soon as possible. Otherwise, things may get even worse. First of all, the volleyball player has to be examined by a doctor. A doctor will analyze the volleyball player’s injury carefully and make conclusions. The athlete can return back to the game only if a doctor allows them to do so.
Sometimes, it makes a lot of sense to pause and take some time to recover from an injury. In this case, it would be best to take as much time as needed. Return to the game only after you’ve recovered from an injury completely and don’t feel pain anymore.
Stay Active During the Off-Season
When the volleyball season ends, some volleyball players choose to relax and take a break from training. As a result, their muscles weaken and the risk of getting volleyball injuries increases dramatically. Of course, this is something that should be avoided. That’s why it’s incredibly important for volleyball players to stay active all the time (even during the off-season). This can be done in a number of different ways.
Athletes can get involved in a variety of interesting activities during the off-season. they can take up running, swimming, weight training, play other sports and so much more. All of this will make it possible for volleyball players to stay active and be in a good shape during the volleyball off-season.
Do Volleyball Drills in the Right Way
Athletes often get injuries during the practices because they do the drills in the wrong way. That’s why it’s so important to do them correctly.
First, you should get a proper understanding of how the certain drill needs to be done. Make sure that you use the proper technique when practicing different volleyball drills.
Do you have any questions or concerns about volleyball drills that you are doing/planning to do? If so, you should ask a volleyball coach (or their assistants) for help. Don’t hesitate to ask a volleyball coach to clarify the concerns that you may have if something is unclear. You will be able to reduce the risk of getting injuries if you use the proper technique when developing volleyball skills. Of course, you should always follow coaches’ instructions carefully when developing volleyball skills. You’ll be able to avoid injuries if you use the proper technique.
Thank you so much for reading the article above. Unfortunately, injuries are a big problem for volleyball players. That’s the reason why volleyball players should always get serious about injury prevention. Train smart and follow our volleyball safety tips to minimize the risk of getting injured and prevent injuries during practices and matches. Best of luck!