Summary
To become a professional in any sport, team practices are crucial, but reaching the top constitutes more than just team practices, especially forShoyo Hinata, a 5' 4.6" tall boywith a passion for volleyball in theHaikyuu!!series. After entering Karasuno, Hinata realized just how far off he was in terms of reaching professional status as a volleyball player.
Rather than rely on team practices alone, Hinata took to the streets, the beach, and empty courts to practice. Anything at all that would enable him to improve. With his unyielding determination to improve, this schoolboy became a professional, but with many unseen training regimens and innovative practices following theHaikyuu!!series.
Initial Training Methods
Making The Most Of Limited Resources
Hinata Shoyo has always been very athletically gifted, despite his height. In his early years, the young volleyball player practiced alone for most of the time, running and jumping to improve his already-given talents. With no volleyball team at his middle school, team practices didn’t exist; however, as volleyball is a team sport, Hinata would gather some of his friends, who, despite their inexperience in the game, would at least help Hinata practice passing the ball around. Even in competitions, Hinata’s team usually served as nothing more than fillers, as the young volleyball player would try to do everything on his own, using his speed to compensate as he continually ran across the court. Despite no formal training, Hinata made up for it with determination and innovation. As many mocked him for his height, he simply shut them up with his speed and vertical jump.
After getting into Karasuno, Hinata began actual team practices. With his team practices, Hinata learned things like receiving, serving, and even the infamousquick attack between him and Kageyama. The indoor volleyball drills Karasuno’s high flyer went through allowed him to learn many things. With team practice matches, defense and receiving drills were crucial for the 5' 4.6" individual who only knew how to run, jump, and barely spike. Volleyball constitutes more than just spiking, and Hinata had to at least learn the basics to become a team player. Aside from receiving, Hinata had to learn to function as a blocker despite his height, and his high vertical jumps played a big role in him being successfully able to block attacks from the opposition. While team practices constituted much of Hinata’s growth, they weren’t enough to build him up to the ace he wanted to become. He needed more than just the standard and formal volleyball training, and from there, his unseen training regimens came into play.
Training Beyond Official Practices
Hidden Work Behind Hinata’s Growth
The real training that increased Hinata’s speed, explosive power, and vertical jumps were all off-screen. On-screen, he mainly demonstrated the results of what he had trained himself to do. For his speed and agility, Hinata most definitely practiced cone drills, which would constitute him weaving through cones in a straight line. Alongside core workouts, this particularly helps in rapidly changing directions and being agile enough with one’s speed, not just fast.
For his pure speed, Karasuno was often seen jogging long distances, and Hinata undoubtedly did this alongside sprints on his own. Moreover, Hinata is popularly known to bike to and fro the mountains every day, which considerably improves his muscle strength, flexibility, and balance.
For his explosive power training,Hinata started with not lookingat the ball at all. At the time he joined Karasuno, and he and Kageyama developed the quick attack, Hinata would simply spike the ball, not targeting or looking at where it was going to land. Eventually, this changed as Hinata started targeting an area to spike the ball. Rather than simply jump and spike, a critical offensive technique called approach and spike would be used. This technique emphasizes the footwork leading up to the spike, in which the individual would jump and hit the ball at the highest point, directing the spike. Fans of the series simply saw the quick attack duo using this move in a game, but the training leading up to it was mostly off the courts. This simple change of opening his eyes improved Hinata’s overall spiking ability, even if by a little. However, the greatest change came offscreen, during the Brazil time skip.
The Brazil Experience
Hinata’s Greatest Transformative Event Was Offscreen
After the Tokyo Nationals Arc, which majorly happened in the manga, Hinata felt he wasn’t up to par to compete at the world level. Rather than join Kageyama and others who went straight to play at the world level, Hinata took a two-year break to practice volleyball, increasing his skill set. This time skip was when Hinata truly became a well-rounded volleyball player who could excel without the King of the Court on his side. Prior to the time skip, Hinata’s strong points lay inhis speed, jumping power, and stamina. However, he was severely lacking when it came to his game sense, technique, and power.
With beach volleyball, Hinata improved all his weaknesses but never really maxed them out. The shift to beach volleyball rather than indoor volleyball forced Hinata to become all-rounded as there are less players, makingeach player that much more important. Moreover, with the beach comes wind and sand. Wind, which changes the direction of the ball, and sand, which impacts the agility of those playing on it. Playing in such conditions for two years, Hinata adapted to respond to unpredictable factors and improved his footwork and overall technique.
Hinata’s unconventional training sessions in Brazil served very differently from what he would’ve learned in official training matches. The unpredictability of beach volleyball and the many factors that affect it are very different from formal matches, but Hinata decided on this form of training regimen that existed beyond simple and formal team practices. This is very similar to the difference between professional basketball and street basketball. In terms of unseen training regimens, going to a beach in Brazil to practice volleyball was what Hinata decided was best for him.
Studying The Game
Hinata’s Tactical Growth Through Observation
One of Hinata’s most unnoticed training regimens as basic as it may seem is simply observation. While observing, Hinata doesn’t take part in practice matches by simply watching others practice or play. Very few in the series consider this a form of training, whether seen or unseen, but Hinata has shown that he’s learned a lot through simply watching others. Particularly during the First-Year Selective Training Camp, in which Hinata crashed, he was told to serve as a ball boy and not allowed to practice in any official practice.
However, Karasuno’s Ultimate Decoy decided to learn and train by observing. A ball boy primarily receives balls and maintains the court, but by watching others play, Hinata discovered howthe players moved in syncwith one another and paid attention to their teammates' movements. For retrieving balls as a ball boy, Hinata decided to not just run after the ball after it goes out of bounds, but to actually be at the right place at the right time to catch any ball. This required him to keenly observe the ball and where it’ll be. To get to where the ball will be faster than the ball itself, Hinata used the technique split step, a technique he was taught by a friend in middle school for tennis practice. In this way, despite not being invited or allowed to train, Hinata created a form of training for himself, outside of being allowed for official practices.
Mental Preparation
The Silent Development Of A New Mindset
Every successful athlete needs and undergoes sufficient mental toughness to become the best. However, this is not something theHaikyuu!!series actively portrays Hinata doing. As an athlete with as many disadvantages as Hinata,Karasuno’s wannabe aceundoubtedly engaged in mental training, particularly through growing his mindset, reflecting on his mistakes, and visualization. Hinata’s growth mindset is particularly seen when he declares that he has no desire to become the next Little Giant anymore and would rather become the Ultimate Decoy. In this way, Hinata realized that while the Little Giant was cool, his skills and overall persona were more fitted to become something else. This sort of mindset and decision must’ve been built brick by brick rather than he just suddenly becoming aware of it, as becoming the Little Giant is something he’s always dreamed of.
Aside from his mindset, Hinata is known to engage in visualization exercises by mentally playing out various scenarios in his head. This in turn allows him to firstly anticipate what the opponent may do in a real match, and it also helps him mentally prepare and calm his emotions to match the expectations he has in his head.
Although this form of training wasn’t actively portrayed in theHaikyuu!!series, it’s undoubtedly one of the things that allowed Hinata to achieve as much success as he has today. One can confidently say that without this, he would still be the young, inexperienced boy who just ran all around the court with the hopes of being useful to his teammates without getting an actual read on the game. Hence, this training is definitely the most important thing fans can pay attention to when examining the regime the little man on the court decided to rely on in his search for improvement.
Haikyuu!!is available to watch onCrunchyroll.
Haikyu!!
Based on Haruichi Furudate’s Weekly Shonen Jump manga, Haikyu!! is a popular sports anime that revolves around volleyball. Despite being shorter than most players, Hinata dreams of taking the court and following in the footsteps of his idol, The Little Giant. To achieve his dream, he will need to work alongside Karasuno High School’s club members, including the selfish Kageyama.
