Obsessed with Beach Volleyball

Update: All-American final today!

I’ve flirted with wanting to be seriously awesome at beach volleyball since I started playing in Austin in 2007, but I’ve recently become re-obsessed and the Olympics is doing nothing to squash the interest. A friend said it best over margaritas: “All beach volleyball players are hot. That’s reason enough to play volleyball.” She meant men and women, for the record.

The US still has two teams in the women’s gold medal hunt, and I loved reading more about the newer pair of April Ross (6’1″) and Jen Kessy (5’11”) in the premiere issue of digital mag YouWorkout (download for free on your iPad during the Olympics). “I had to call her to see if she would play with me. It was totally like calling a guy to talk to him,” says April, who was a newbie to beach volleyball when she called Jen, but was Pac-10 player of the year and won an NCAA championship at USC. “I was sitting outside on the curb so nervous thinking ‘she is going to shut me down. She is totally going to shut me down.'”

How do they workout to get those hot bodies my friend covets? Combined weightlifting and sprint sessions, and grueling beach workouts. They also love to run (April) and do hot yoga: Jen says, “We play in a lot of really hot places and so it [hot yoga] gets you Zen-like but your heart is beating really fast and you have to control yourself. It’s a big mind game, which is kind of like beach volleyball.” In the article, April adds, “As sad as it is, people get heckled when they’re not in good enough shape … It doesn’t happen to the men.”

Sexism aside, I am even more motivated to play in the Motherlode tournament this year and be awesome!