[Music] hey everyone welcome to volleyball Pro mindset where we analyze professional volleyball players and games and learn how to apply their techniques work ethic and mindset to our own lives my name is coach Dani and I study coach train and play volleyball for a living and I'm obsessed with volleyball in this video series we are studying what makes certain Pro players so good make sure you watch my last video about Syed marouf who is one of the most deceptive and accurate Setters in the world for this video we'll be studying one of the most exciting opposite hitters to watch from Japan Yuji Nishida he is only six foot one or 185.5 centimeters and weighs 192 pounds or 87 kilograms and is only 22 years old he is currently playing professionally in Italy which is one of the best volleyball leagues in the world here are five things that make Yuji Nishida so good the first one is that he is physically very strong and well conditioned you can see videos of him lifting weights year round and taking his off the court training very seriously he doesn't just go through the motions for exercise like many other professional players do he's lifting heavy and working out his full body he also has a slightly thicker build compared to the typical volleyball player indicating that he has more muscle than the average pro volleyball player this is something he definitely put a lot of work into over a short period of time because he was much skinnier just a few years ago so how does strength benefit volleyball you see here how he doesn't even need an approach to still jump very high and Spike powerfully he can still execute even with a short approach as well for most athletes majority of their vertical jump and spiking power comes from the speed of their spiking approach which is how it should be but when you take away the hitting approach they become very weak but not Yuji Nishida strength is a critical component for increasing your power and speed as well as injury prevention if you want to increase your own vertical jump and jump like Yuji Nishida check out my jump training programs Linked In the description box below the second reason is he has a very aggressive penultimate step which means his second to last step is nearly twice the length of the previous step and if you want to learn anything about maximizing your vertical jump It's all about pushing as much power as you can through your penultimate stride which is responsible for majority of the power in your vertical jump you can see how he intentionally pushes into his penultimate step every time he jumps to hit the ball the third reason is he has a very aggressive back swing during his penultimate step which means he swings his arms all the way back and up near or above shoulder height with straight elbows and arms this allows him to generate the maximum momentum into his vertical jump which also carries into his arm swing many hitters make the mistake of having a shorter backswing by either swinging them below shoulder height or keeping their elbows bent this shorter style backswing does create a faster approach but you sacrifice a lot of vertical jump and spiking power when you're a six foot one opposite hitter you don't have that luxury and you need to Max jump every single time you spike the fourth reason is that he stays open to the setter when he's hitting from the right side this allows him to generate a lot of torque when he rotates through the ball torque is the rotational Force created by the rotation of the hips torso and shoulders this type of torque is very similar to the power generator from throwing a ball or swinging a bat this also allows him to put his entire body weight into the ball the fifth reason is that he maintains a mostly upright torso as he's spiking which allows him to keep the ball in front of his hitting shoulder and easily change the direction of his Spike whether it's sharp ankle seam or line this also allows him to jump straight up when he's spiking in the front row and maintain balance and control in the air as he's broad jumping from the back row foreign [Music] Force tip approach I think here he does a three-step approach so he goes right left right and we're going to emphasize some of the errors that we talked about so here he pushes off powerfully off of his right foot into that big stride so let's see how long his penultimate step is and how his back swing is really big so his arms are at Peak height behind him the moment his penultimate step hits the floor and as he transitions he has a nice wide base and see how he's upright even as he's spiking that allows him to stay in control of his body a lot of hitters make the mistake of Leaning one side or the other excessively and that throws off your balance and you just can't rotate as effectively when you're leaning one side so he's able to change the direction pretty easily there and I love his celebrations he looks like he just assassinated someone every time he gets a Kill now from the back row attack and a really great scene to kill wow he starts his approach all the way from the Baseline so now he's doing a four-step approach which helps which helps him get a little bit more momentum for an even bigger jump and that's the nice thing about being an opposite hitter is you don't have to worry about passing and receive if you just transition and just focus on hitting left right left right so he does that forced up approach here now notice that each step his steps gradually get bigger so it's small a little bit bigger really big back to medium and when he's jumping see how his feet are wider than his shoulder width that helps transition his hips it takes time for your momentum to transfer from horizontal to Vertical momentum even though it's jumping from the back row you see how he's still upright and look how open he is to the center you can see the number on the back of his jersey now if you're left-handed and you're hitting from the right side you want to open up because it's natural for you to rotate from left to right so it's open and he rotates his hips torso and shoulders and still up right there you could tell because he's Landing with control into that seam see how he's open whole chest is facing the center and he contacts it perfectly over his left shoulder and he finishes that's another thing we could talk about this is a great angle too this is a pretty decent seam here and Yuji Nishida also has very good Vision when he hits you see how he's following through where he wants the ball to go so you see how he's pointing look at his fingers they're still pointing in that direction so wherever you point and follow through that's where the ball is gonna go so contacting over his left shoulder following through toward the center of his body in order to hit the ball in the seam between two blockers I think this one Eugene Nishi is going to hit down the line which is one of the hardest things to do from the back row because you're jumping three meters behind the line and this is a great view of how he's going now we'll talk about his arm motions so he does more of a jogging approach which is more common on a four step so he's jogging see how when he's taking his first step with his left he's he's alternating his arms like he's jogging then he brings both arms up on the second step and then on the third step her arms all the way back now even though he's hitting the line he opens up toward the center because it's very important as hitters to always face the same direction and open up towards the same direction every time so the blockers don't know where you're going to hit so from this position he could still hit sharp angle he could hit in the seam he can hit down the line and at the last second he rotates just a little bit more so still in front of his left shoulder see how he's rotating all the way so his chest is facing down the line and more importantly see where his hands following through is pointing down the line in that direction very difficult to do from the back row so this one was a good one to look at where he's hitting in the angle out of system look at that adjustment there so out of system means when the pass is not perfect the set is usually going to be a little bit slower to give you more time to adjust to the imperfect situation so Spike good cover by the libero bump set from Ishikawa and what's interesting is that Nishida is actually starting his approach a little bit more inside and this is probably part of the Japanese system where if it's a bump set they probably want them to set it high slightly inside to kind of open up the court if it's going to be a high ball set so he still does this four-step approach left right left right but his timing is what's going to be really important so when they're in system he's leaving right before the Sarah touches the ball but when you add a system you want to wait to see where the ball is first so you see how Ishikawa is going to bump set it and then Nishida starts his approach after the bump set so it's a much higher set here all the principles still stay the same see how it's staying open to the court now this one's unique because he's hitting out of system into the angle so he's still rotating a similar amount except look at where his arm is falling through see how his arm is falling through away from his body so he's rotating still for power and then he sees the triple block and you see how much more court is open to the left side contacting on the inside of the ball and following through to the left of his body and look at where his arm is finishing is to the side to get around the block and he caught the right back from Poland cheating a little bit last thing we'll talk about is how relaxed nishida's arm swing is slow motion here you see how he brings his arms up so his right arm is up super high and you're that's called your aiming arm or your balance arm so when you're reaching high in the air this allows your hitting arm to match the same height on contact and see how his arms super loose really relaxes wrist is limp that allows him to whip through the ball and that's where you generate maximum power and speed is having a very relaxed arm here and it's so whippy that he's able to finish his arm swing well before he lands so see how he falls he's able to fall through all the way almost at the peak of his jump and then he's Landing there so if you want a fast arm swing one way to trick your body into having a super fast arm swing is to try to finish your arm swing at the peak of your jump before you land look at that great follow through there good torque rotational Force and actually let's look at his serve here so for a serve he does a three-step approach right left right now the mechanics are identical big penultimate step arms all the way back this is the most important position when you're jumping still open rotating for power great follow through now when you're jump serving you have to be much more purposeful about pushing into this penultimate step here so we're pushing see with this right leg he's pushing forward and that naturally lowers his hips into a squatted position and then he gets upright by the time he contacts the floor with his right foot look how relaxed his arm is really springy great contact over left shoulder and rotating look at that that hip rotation so hips are all the way open almost 90 degrees rotating to the core torso rotation falling through with the shoulders so that's how it is able to generate a lot of power without much injury he's putting his whole body weight into the ball there through the momentum of his approach but more importantly the rotation of his body now you've learned five things that makes Yuji noshida so good and one of the best opposite hitters in the world at only six foot one let me know in the comments below why you think Eugene Nishida is so good make sure you subscribe to this channel so you never miss a video by clicking right here and I know you're gonna love this video right here thank you [Music]