Why I Suck at Volleyball

This past weekend I went home to visit family, and while I was home my dad and my sister had planned on participating in a for-fun volleyball tournament. The team would be just six people, which is one full team with no substitutes. And of course, the morning of the tournament, one player calls in sick, and guess who has to fill in.

You guessed it! Wow, you're so smart! (Sorry, that was kind of mean sarcasm, but I digress.)

I filled in for Miss No-Show (I'm pretty sure she was hung-over) and played in four consecutive volleyball games. Of course, I was reluctant to play because I hadn't actually played a legitimate game of volleyball since I was about twelve or so. I'll let you know, right now I'm nineteen years old; that's over seven years of not-playing.

Of course, just because I haven't played in a while doesn't mean I physically can't play, right? I play other physically demanding sports like ball hockey and soccer, and I work out regularly. Adjusting to another sport should be easy, right?

Um, no.

To explain, I'll break it down into three categories; height, muscle groups, and forearms.

Height

The last time I measured my height, I was a little under 5'2" or approximately 157cm or approximately 61 inches. In the US, the average height of a white woman is 5'5" or 165cm or 65 inches. And I'm going to say based on personal experience, I am always either the shortest or one of the shortest people on any sports team.

5'2" LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
(also I invoke the right of artistic license to not draw my boobs because, although they are great,  I do not want them to be the focus of this image.)

Now, in most team sports, height does matter slightly, but not a whole lot. I play sports like soccer and ball hockey because height hardly matters at all for those. 

But in volleyball, being tall is a definite and extremely beneficial advantage. Let me make a comparison: someone who has never played soccer before and is 5'2" will be just as good at the game as someone who has never played before and is 5'9". Someone who has never played volleyball before and is 5'2" will have a much harder time playing the game than someone who has never played before and is 5'9". It's just science. And I've accepted it.

... but that's not to say that someone who's short can't be a great volleyball player, it's just a lot more difficult.

Anyway, I was by far the shortest on my team. The next shortest person was my sister, and she's about 5'6" (I'm not doing the math again) and the tallest was probably about 6'3" or so. The nets were standard height at 2.43 meters or 7 feet, 11 5/8 inches. So my ability to block was zero.
Let me illustrate.

So yeah. Height puts me at a disadvantage, but not nearly as much as...

Muscle Groups

As I've stated earlier, I play other sports and I work out. Translating those skills to another sport is usually not too big of a problem... Except for volleyball.

When I work out, I usually just do some cardio, like go on an elliptical for a while. Because of this, my quads are pretty sexy

BAM. Dat quad!

OKAY, so maybe I'm using my artistic license to misrepresent the shape and bamf-ness of my ass, but you know what? I'm going to do it anyway.

So, as I was saying, sexy quads. But my ass is another story. I cannot jump very well at all. Nor do I ever partake in the agony that is squats. So after playing just one game of volleyball, I felt my ass start to clench uncomfortably, because whenever you play volleyball, you stand like you're constantly about to drop a deuce (so like, mid-squat.)

Needless to say, I think my ass is still recovering.

Forearms


They're just really sensitive, okay?! Here's what they looked like before the game:

Here's what they looked like after the second game:

The tiny red spots are broken blood vessels or something I guess.

And finally, here's what they looked like for the next few days:

They actually bruised. How sad is that!? My pain threshold is so high, I actually enjoyed getting my wisdom teeth removed. The sport of volleyball defeated me. So lame!