Hitting: Strengthening Your Opp. Arm

Question: Hi, my name is Kelly and I have been looking all over the internet for an answer to my question. Nothing seems to be helping. My question is If I am a right-handed outside hitter, what could I do to strengthen my left hand so I could hit with both. I think it would give me a better chance to be a starter, and coaches like a player who can trick the other team, and it will definatly help my team score points. I hope you can answer and will respond. I greatly appreciate it! Thanks for taking your time to read this.

Thank you for your question Kelly.

I appreciate you asking this question because when I was in high school I wanted to know the same thing. I had to figure things out on my own due to my circumstances (if you don’t know my story yet please feel free to read the About VBHL page!) so I had to come up with any excersize or physical movements to help my body get used to using my non-dominant arm.

I am pleased to say that my methods proved successful for me and I can now hit with both arms, giving me an added bonus to my list of strategic offensive moves.

Ok, down to the point. My method is VERY SIMPLE. HITTING AGAINST THE WALL. There, I said it. It may seem like something not worth doing but seriously, if it worked for me I’m sure it can work for other people. You ever have a coach that tells you “every time you hit against the wall practice perfect form blah blah blah”? Well the reason being is because every time you hit against the wall that is one more opportunity for you muscle memory to learn the “perfect form”.

So, I started out by doing the proper form with my dominant arm (right), watching myself and seeing exactly what I was doing, and then trying my best to mimic the same motion with my non-dominant arm (left). Now I know you may be thinking “this is wonderful [-_-] *sarcasmmmm* but how is this going to make me stronger?” Well, the more you do it, not only will your body become more comfortable with it but it will become stronger as well. One thing most people forget to do when trying to mimic is the wrist snap. You can have the right follow through but if you forget to snap your wrist it’s not going anywhere you want it to. It’s a minor detail but remember, your body is not used to doing it on that side.

Another small thing to make sure you are doing is weights and shoulder bands. With weights, you need to make sure you are doing the same weight in lbs and reps for both arms. Neglecting one arm will make it weaker and imbalance your strength. Also, shoulder bands are very important to the health of your shoulder/arm. It tightens up the smaller muscles that keep the big muscles together, so if those are weak the chances of a shoulder tear or dislocation etc. are higher.

I hope this helps a bit! Please leave feedback!