3 Reasons Volleyball Players Should Keep a Training Journal

At some point or another your coach or trainer has suggested that you keep a training journal. Doing so can help you become a better volleyball player in a heap of different ways.

It can be a platform for a gratitude journal, you can use it to track your sleep and nutrition, and even help you manage stress.

Perhaps most powerfully, it can keep you focused on progression, on doing the daily things to improve.

Here are just three of the reasons volleyball players should journal their practices:

1. Helps you focus on your weak spots.

Need to work on your vertical? Your training log is the perfect place to monitor the addition of squat jumps and measure the progression of reps, sets and weights. If you are looking to power up your striking power—and your dumbbell bench press in the gym—you’d use your workout log to set goals for yourself in the gym.

From attendance, to effort, to doing the little extras a training journal helps you assess and manage the weak spots in your performance, whether it is on the court or in the weight room.

2. Gives you a grip on your lifestyle habits.

When you are journaling your performance in the gym–whether it’s the hardwood or in the weight room—you see clearly where you are doing well, how you are improving, and what to address moving forward.

But journaling your practices can do another equally powerful thing—show you where your lifestyle habits are helping or hindering your play.

The importance of sleep for athletes is critical to performance, and so is eating properly. All too often we dismiss these things because we simply don’t want to confront that we could be a little bit better.

Will journaling your practices and nutrition make it easier to put down that bag of chips? Maybe, maybe not.

But it will give you an accurate representation of how you are living your life outside the gym, and perhaps that will be enough of a push to clean things up a little bit.

See Also: How to Meal Prep Like a Boss

3. It’s a motivational tool above all.

There will always be those days where the last thing you want to do is lace up and go to practice. Where your sheets and pillows are whispering sweet nothings to you—“It’s okay, it’s just one practice.”

Look, we all experience dips in motivation over the course of the season. Particularly over the course of the winter when the days are short, the nights are long, and we are getting saddled with work. It can be easy to lose focus in those moments.

A training journal will help keep you motivated to workout by giving you your workout history and adding that extra layer of accountability to your training.

After all, not going to practice might make you feel good in the moment, but having to write out a big goose egg in your training journal stings for a while.

The Takeaway

No two training journals are alike. Which is awesome—it means that each athlete is working on the things that will help them perform at their best.

This is the way you should approach it as well—instead of simply recording your workouts, use it as a tool to become a better volleyball player by addressing the things you want to work on.

About the Author

Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national level athlete turned publisher of YourWorkoutBook, a 16-week workout log book and food journal for athletes serious about taking their performance to the next level. He’s also pretty tall.