Nobody taught me proper volleyball attack technique. One mistake I made was creating power with spine flexion. I overextended my spine and then rapidly flexed it. This is how I developed lower back pain. The worst thing wasn’t even the pain, but that I lost joy from playing because of it.
The proper technique is of course to generate power with torso rotation. But there is nothing wrong with flexing the spine. It was painful for me because my body wasn’t used to the forces. Over time I improved my technique. But the thing is — my pain was gone way before my technique got better.
Bad technique is unavoidable. You will make mistakes when learning. You will make mistakes when you’re tired. But I cannot train and play in fear of hurting myself when I make a mistake. That’s no way to play. And that’s no way to learn.
The way forward is with strength. What I did and what I suggest you do is develop strength in extreme positions. Over time, slowly. That’s how you build resiliency. Because poor technique is not bad in and of itself. It causes problems only when you can’t handle the positions you put yourself in.
So how do you get a strong lower back? Let me introduce you to one of my all-time favorite exercises. The most undertrained position in fitness. It fixed my lower back pain, knee pain, unlocked my pike, and increased my vertical — JZ Curl.
JZ Curl trains your spine in the rounded position. You curl your spine down vertebra by vertebra (Jefferson) while holding the weight in your elbows (Zercher). Then you go back up.
Any lift you do, people will scream at you, foam at their mouth, to hold your back straight and avoid any rounding or you will fucking die and burn in hell for eternity. I believe this is exactly the reason why so many people have lower back pain, especially people who do traditional strength training.
When you look at shoulder or knee pain, the weak link is usually a nearby area, like the rotator cuff. That’s because any pushing movement already works your shoulder. But with lower back pain, the weak link is usually the lower back itself. Because everybody avoids rounding their spine.
I can curl more than bodyweight for reps. And my back feels more protected than ever. But if you’ve never trained this, you probably think I’m insane and my back is going to explode. “This is not for me”, “This will hurt me”, “I can’t do this”.
You don’t have to start there. In fact, it’s a horrible idea.
Pick a weight that doesn’t look scary. If it’s no weight, start with no weight. Start with elephant walks. Get comfortable in the deep position.
After a week or few add a few kgs. Water bottles maybe. Your reps should be slow and controlled. A month later, you can curl 5-10kgs with a sandbag. From there you can add speed.
Always add speed first before you add weight. What you train is power. Power is speed × weight. With consistent training, your power level goes up over months, but it fluctuates day-to-day, set-to-set, and rep-to-rep.
It’s easy to fail added speed — you just slow down. With more weight — not much you can do. When you can curl 20kgs fast, you can curl 30kgs slow. This is how you progress safely.
Do not rush this. If the weight feels scary or uncomfortable, put it down. That’s your body telling you it’s not ready.
Each increase in weight should feel mundane. Not scary, just a tiny but more challenging. But a tiny bit compounded over 2 years, and now you can curl your bodyweight.
But you don’t even have to get to my point. The lower back is such an undertrained area that getting to any level is better than 0.
My volleyball pain disappeared when I could curl 25% of my bodyweight — that took a year. At 50%, I could touch my toes with no warm-up. Before that pike used to be my weakest stretch. At 75%, I touched the basketball rim for the first time — took me 2 years. Real progress takes time, but it’s okay.
I believe it’s always better to be strong so poor technique won’t hurt you. I still make mistakes. But when I do, my body can handle them.
I enjoy volleyball so much more now because fear doesn’t hold me back anymore. Being fast and explosive doesn’t cause me pain. It’s pure joy.
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You can find all the JZ curl progressions in my exercise library. And if you need help staying consistent with your training, I created a community just for that.