and-a-half hours. For their weight training, they do a lot of Olympic lifts (i.e. snatches, cleans, squats). On days that the team isn’t weight training, they are doing cardio training, which typically lasts around 30 minutes.
Jessie Niles Jessie attended Strathcona-Tweedsmuir High school in Okotoks, Alberta and played on the Senior Varsity Volleyball Team there. For club volleyball, she played for the Dinos Volleyball Club in Calgary, Alberta. She calls Turner Valley, Alberta her hometown, but she was born in Smiths Falls, Ontario. Volleyball has always been part of her life having played since she was 13 years old. Like many athletes today, she didn’t play just one sport. She also competed in track and field, cross-country, soccer, and badminton. >> “Pre-season is the most physically demanding part of our season,” says Jessie. “We practice on-court five times per week from two-and-ahalf to three hours per day.” Additionally, the Pandas weight train two to three times per week with each session lasting around one-
“Since our season is quite long compared to others the fitness training that we do in pre-season really helps with maintaining health and strength the entire time,” she says. The attention and focus on fitness is one of the things that she feels sets the Pandas apart from other varsity volleyball programs in the country.
During the season, the team focuses more on the technical and team play aspects of the game, while maintaining strength and good health. “We have a team practice three or four times per week which lasts two to three hours per day,” she says. If the team is travelling, they typically leave on the Thursday and have a game-day practice every Friday and Saturday morning for about an hour. Their weight training drops down to once or twice a week in order to maintain strength but to ensure they have enough energy to play for the games on the weekend. Volleyball is a very technical sport that can be somewhat frustrating for young athletes to learn. Therefore, there are many important movement skills that are specific to volleyball that, if instilled at a young age, can be