Why you should add the weight room to your sport routine: the full guide

The weight room matters even if you already play a sport, because the court trains the movement, not the qualities underneath the movement. Strength, the ability to absorb load and balance between your two legs are built with weights. With one condition: the weight room goes inside your training week, not on top of it.

That's the point most articles on this skip. Adding two lifting sessions to a week that already has four technical practices and a match doesn't make you stronger: it makes you more tired.

What the weight room gives you that the court doesn't

Strength the movement itself won't build

Jumping in practice improves your jumping technique, but it doesn't add much to maximal leg strength. That gets built with loads you never meet in the game. It's the main reason a volleyball player who only trains on court hits a plateau in their jump.

The ability to handle load

Tendons and joints adapt to progressive load. In the weight room you can dose it precisely, which is impossible during a match. That's why strength work is considered one of the most sensible ways to cut the risk of certain overuse injuries.

Symmetry between your two legs

Every sport creates imbalances: your take-off foot, your dominant arm, the direction you rotate most often. Single-leg and unilateral work in the gym is the most direct way to notice the gap and close it.

Structure and progression

In the gym the numbers are visible: sets, reps, loads. You can see whether you're progressing, which on court is far blurrier.

And the downsides? They exist, better to say them

• Total load too high. Stacked on a packed calendar, the gym becomes a problem. The body doesn't tell court fatigue and weight room fatigue apart.
• Generic programming. A bodybuilding sheet with twelve exercises and a lot of volume isn't what you want: you're after strength and power, not hypertrophy for its own sake.
• Sessions at the wrong time. Heavy squats the day before a match take your legs away when you need them.
• No link to the sport. If all you do in the gym is machines and isolation work, the transfer to the court is minimal.

How to organise sessions if you already play

1. Start from the calendar, not from the programme

Write out your week as it really is: technical practices, match, days off. Then look for the gaps. If you find two, do two sessions. If you only find one, do one properly: that beats two done badly.

2. Keep the heavy sessions away from the match

As a rule of thumb, at least 48 hours. On the days close to a game, if you really want to train, go light and fast: few jumps, low volume.

3. Few exercises, the right ones

A useful session for a jumper fits into five or six items: a leg push (squat or a variation), a hip hinge (Romanian deadlift, hip thrust), single-leg work, a pull for the upper body, core, and calves or ankles. The rest is accessory.

4. Slow, written progression

Add load a little at a time and write everything down. Without a log you don't know whether you're progressing, and feel is a terrible adviser here.

5. During the season, cut back

In-season the goal isn't improving your maxes: it's keeping what you built in pre-season, with less volume and the same intensity.

Measure first, train, then measure again

If you add the gym to your week, the only way to know whether it's helping your jump — and not just your lifts — is to have a number. Strength in the weight room can go up while the jump stays put: it happens, and it's useful information, because it tells you that you need to add speed work.

The jump test is free: you upload a two-second video, you get the height in centimetres worked out from flight time, and the video stays on your device. Do it before you start your gym block and repeat it at the end.

If you'd rather not programme it yourself

Building a plan that fits inside an already full week is the hard part. The JHP programmes start there:

• JHP Gym Edition — 16 weeks in the weight room on maximal strength and power, built for people who play. €60.
• Jump Higher Program — 10 weeks bodyweight, if you don't have a gym. €60.
• Volley In-Season Workout — 16 weeks across pre-season and in-season, so you don't lose what you built. €90.
• La Bibbia dello Stretching — over 50 mobility exercises to run alongside the strength work. €20.

The JHP membership includes them all — 13 programmes, WhatsApp support, cancel whenever — at €99 a year. The catalogue is on the JHP courses page.

You might also like: The best exercises to increase your vertical jump · How to jump higher: the guide for every level