U . S . M E N ’ S N A T I O N A L T E A M
ball more,” Russell says. As he adopted a more aggressive attacking
mentality, he also developed a stronger physical presence at the urging of John Speraw, head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team. Speraw invited Russell to train with the team a year ago, before his senior season. The U.S. coaches felt Russell could have an impact, they just weren’t sure how big. But one thing Speraw was sure of was that Russell’s contributions would be greater if he got stronger. “I called Mark and asked him how hard
we could push Aaron through (the Penn State) season,” Speraw says. “There are matches in the EIVA [Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association] that Penn State knows they’re going to win, so I told Pav that, on those days, even though it’s a game day, I wanted Aaron to lift hard. And Pav was very open to it. So we sent Tim Pelot, our strength and conditioning coach, to State College last fall to meet with their strength coach and put a plan in place for Aaron. I think it had a tremendous impact.” Russell bought into it. As he puts it,
“Strength has always been a weakness of mine, no pun intended.” At times, though, it drained him. “I’d go to practice, and I’d be sore, and sometimes I’d be pretty wiped out,” he says.
“But it helped me a lot because not only was I able to build strength, it helped me play with fatigue.”
THE RESULTS HE GOT FROM THE strength program were almost hard to believe. Before it, he could touch 11-6. Afterward, he could touch 12 feet, which is still a bit shy of Anderson’s 12-3, but not shy of many other people on the planet.
A big key to seeing such major improve-
ment, Russell says, is proper quick-twitch training. “Tim (Pelot) tells me all the time, ‘It’s not
about the exercises you do, it’s the way you do them,’” Russell says. “Whether we were doing squats or dumbbell squats or hanging cleans, we were trying to make sure our movements were quick, so we would go down slow when we were squatting and then we would burst up as fast as we could. Sometimes people will go down slow and go up slow, but that doesn’t train the quick twitch muscles, which is what allows your vertical to increase. We used lighter weight, and that helps you train your quick- twitch muscles. Plenty of strength coaches will tell you the same thing.” It’s one thing to measure your jump, it’s
another thing to feel it in a match. That hap- pened last September at the FIVB World Cup in Japan, where the U.S. men won 10 of 11 matches to take first place at a triple crown tournament (World Championship, World Cup, Olympics) for the first time since win- ning the gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. “I noticed it most when we were playing
Russia,” says Russell, describing the second- to-last match of the tournament, which the Americans swept in three sets. “I remember attacking against Dmitriy Muserskiy (who is 7-1), and after I would get a kill I would think, ‘Man, I was actually above Muserskiy.’ It was pretty cool.”
Cool, too, was the way Russell came
through when it counted. You look at the points stats from the 11 World Cup matches, Anderson led the team in seven of the first eight, then Russell led in the final three, including 15 against Russia and 18 in the all-important tournament-ending victory over Argentina. That win, which came in four sets, was not only the difference between bronze and gold, it was also the difference between qualify- ing for this summer’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics and having to continue the qualifying process into this year. “Everything was on the line,” Speraw
says. “And Matt Anderson had taken so many swings the entire tournament, he was losing a little gas. Eleven matches in 16 days, and Matty was really, really good for 10 of them, but after the Russia match, Matty was done. And Aaron really carried that extra load during the final match. He was right there, still touching 12 feet, making some tremendous plays. I was really impressed with the way he was able to perform at the end of that tournament.” Russell’s take on his performance is under-
stated. “I’m just glad I was able to do my part. Matt carried us throughout that tournament, and he had all the right reasons to be tired, but the one time he actually showed it, I like to think I did my job. And I think the other team was paying a lot of attention to him, so that opened me up.”
AS RUSSELL STEPS INTO THE NATIONAL spotlight, it appears we’re seeing an uptick in second-generation men’s volleyball players who are driving Team USA’s success. In baseball, football and basketball, a lot of guys have dads and even grandfathers who played. Volleyball? Few and far between. There
An early concentration on ball control skills has served Russell well with the U.S. Men’s National Team. 34 | VOLLEYBALLUSA • Digital Issue at
usavolleyball.org/mag
are some. Karch Kiraly, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who is head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team, and Lloy Ball, a re- cent inductee into the International Volleyball Hall of Fame, both had dads in the game. But by all appearances, men’s players with parents who have a volleyball background are starting to surface in greater numbers. “You have Aaron, the Shojis (Kawika and
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