Thank you so much Gav!
Despite a very busy season, the Canadian opposite took time to send us this short yet beneficial advice for all hitters out there.
Gavin says…
Keep your shoulder relaxed when swing. When swinging on a serve or attack people have the tendency to want to tighten up the shoulder and use their muscles to power the ball to the ground. But my Korean coach consistently worked with me on keeping my shoulder more relaxed creating a faster, and more fluent arm swing enabling me to actually hit harder than i could before. The idea is to create your arm into more of a whip than a bat.
Another thing my coach in Korea had me do was not hit balls 100% a lot of people want to hit every ball as hard as they can, but typically 80% is hard enough to score. By doing this i was able to increase the volume of balls i hit hard in a match without tiring myself out. You always have that extra 20% of power if you really need it, but using less really drastically increased how many more balls i could hit if i stopped swinging 100% all the time.
In case you didn’t know, Gavin has spent most of his professional career in Korea. Aside from hitting 100 sets per match, Gavin has won several Korea League titles to go with his MVP Awards. This coming season, Gavin will play in Russia.
As of press time, the Canadian star is currently in Poland with Team Canada for the second round of the 2012 World League.
Thanks Gav!