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Learning how to jump higher for beach volleyball is a lot different than jumping for any other sport. Sure your typical polymeric exercises will help build up your leg strength and speed but that won’t be enough for jumping in sand. You have to know how to jump out of the sand. This requires some sand training.
You can’t do a typical jump approach when you are in sand that means that you can’t use your forward momentum like you would on a hard surface. You have to rely on leg strength to jump straight up in the air and not forward like you would in indoor volleyball. This means that your form is very important and will make up for the lost inches in your vertical jump in the sand. You won’t get nearly as high as you do indoor. You should expect to jump about 8 inches lower than you would be able to on a hard court. This means the net will feel 8 inches higher, and that is a huge difference for most people. You must rely on your arm swing as much as possible if you want to be able to jump high enough to hit the ball. The key to learning how to play beach volleyball is practicing your jumping in the sand. Practice jumping without even using a ball to hit. You must really stomp on the sand and pack it under your feet before take-off or you will simply sink deeper into the sand.
