With day number four of practice firing up across Iowa fall sports, the big focus early on for ADM volleyball is conditioning.

ADM head volleyball coach Mary Beth Scott always has a big emphasis on conditioning but puts even more emphasis within the first two weeks of practice. Coach Scott spoke with Raccoon Valley Radio about her conditioning focus and and why endurance is a big aspect within that.

“The first week to two weeks, I’m kind of old school and so we get in shape. We spend some time moving our bodies and getting our heart rate up. I like to tell them it’s ok to be a little uncomfortable just because I feel like once you get to game five, you have to be ready to play game five. If you’re tired because you only trained to play three games, what happens if you play five? That’s kind of what we do, we start out the first few days, it’s not easy. They’re tired when they go home,” explained coach Scott.

Coach Scott also went on to speak how conditioning can help the freshmen athletes acclimate to the varsity level and to varsity expectations.

“We’re setting the expectation of calling for the ball, we’re setting the expectation of going after every single ball. We had the discussion it’s not an option not to go after the ball, you have to go after the ball. So that’s (also) what the first week or two is about is acclimating our freshmen because they have not experienced that before and just getting everybody to bond together and I find that when you are pushing them and you are expecting them to work hard, and to go above and beyond what they comfortably like to do at times it does it really does forge a team bond for them,” explained coach Scott.