Am I training strength—or the ability to use it?

Imagine a player whose strength test improves, but who still struggles to arrive in position and make the movement the rally requires. I could decide they need to get stronger. Perhaps they do. But the test alone cannot tell me which part of that situation is getting in the way.

What are they noticing? When do they start moving? What happens when the task changes? Those are coaching questions to investigate, not a diagnosis I can make from the bench. A better number is useful information. It is not the whole player.

A 2026 review by Orssatto and colleagues made me look at this from another direction: ageing. They examine sarcopenia, a condition involving declining muscle strength and function. Their argument is that muscle size and quality explain only part of age-related losses in strength and mobility.

Movement also depends on the brain, spinal cord, nerves and the connections between nerves and muscles. Ageing can affect that whole system: how muscles are activated, coordinated and used to produce force. The authors propose understanding and assessing sarcopenia through this wider motor-system lens.[1]

This is a review and a proposal about ageing, not an experiment showing that a particular drill improves volleyball performance. It does not tell me what caused the imagined player’s difficulty. Nor does it make muscle or strength training unimportant.

The question it prompts for my coaching is simpler: have I confused improving one part with improving the task?

In coach education, imagine someone presenting a programme with carefully chosen loads and tidy progression. I would want to hear which movement it is meant to help, and how they intend to check that. Not to catch them out. To keep the programme connected to the person doing it. I should be willing to answer the same question about my own work.

That means watching the relevant task as well as recording the test. If a player’s numbers improve but the task does not, I have something to investigate with them and the appropriate staff. I do not have permission to announce a neurological problem.

It also turns the question back on me as I get older. What do I want to remain able to do? Move around a session comfortably? Demonstrate a familiar movement? Get up from the floor? Those are more concrete aims than a vague promise to stay fit. They can sit alongside strength goals rather than compete with them.

And when I lead other coaches, I can ask what our chosen measure leaves out before rewarding everyone for improving it. Otherwise the spreadsheet becomes the most important member of staff. It is reliable, but its court awareness is poor.

I want a measurement that helps me look more closely. I do not want one that gives me an excuse to stop looking.