7 ate 9

Third mini-cycle of the pre-season block

This winter I’m focusing on content for juniors club coaches. In this cycle of articles, I’m walking you through an example pre-season training block, which would go from the beginning of your club season to your first major tournament.

Getting Started
The First 12 Practices
Getting Into It
Practice #3
Another Week Of Practices
The Halfway Point

I write these practices in mini-cycles of 3 practices. You can consider each mini-cycle to be a full install of how you want to play volleyball. Over the course of 3 practices, you should get:

1. Serving and Passing

2. Armswing/Power development

3. Small-Group/Chaos play

4. Pass-to-Attack

5. Transition Attack

6. Sideout team systems

7. Block/Defense team systems

You won’t be able to hit every single nuance of each of those aspects, but those are some of the foundational elements and you’ll hit all of them over 3 practices. If you practice twice a week like most club teams, you’ll do 2 cycles in 3 weeks. If you practice 3 times a week, you can either do a cycle each week, or still do 2 cycles in 3 weeks and use your third weekly practice as a full scrimmage/6v6 practice. That will probably depend on which point in these season you’re at.

Mini-Cycle #3

Practice 7
10’ - Self-Toss Spiking
- Open and close rotation emphasis
10’ - 4-Ball Passing
- Goldilocks Posture (Hip bend)
10’ - Doubles
- Narrow-court, full-length, with antennas
25’ - 2-Way Hitting
- Shuffle footwork emphasis
20’ - 1-Way Sideout
- 2nd Ball bowl to outside attack to pass-to-attack
45’ - 6v6
- 4 rounds of 23-19 Aceball.
- Use extra time for Last Ball Bounce 6v6 (fast-paced)

Practice 8
10’ - Self-Toss Spiking
- Vary the toss left and right and adjust your step-close
10’ - 4-Ball Passing
- Turn/sweep/tilt
10’ - Doubles
- Narrow-court, full-length, with antennas
25’ - 2-Way Hitting
- Pass or don’t pass
20’ - 1-Way Sideout
- 2nd Ball bowl to outside attack to pass-to-attack
45’ - 6v6
- 4 rounds of 23-19 Aceball.
- Use extra time for Last Ball Bounce 6v6 (fast-paced)

Practice 9
10’ - Doubles (Jamball)
10’ - Dig-Set
20’ - 2-Way Hitting (Transition emphasis)
15’ - Transition 4s
20’ - BSBH
- Stay in base to dig the middle
45’ - 6v6
- 4 rounds of 23-19 Aceball.
- Use extra time for Last Ball Bounce 6v6 (fast-paced)

Here you see the full layout of a mini-cycle. Elements to take note of:

• 2 practices dedicated to Sideout offense and 1 dedicated to Block/Defense/Transition.

• Practice 7 uses more technical/movement goal (“open and close rotation”) as the default for individual drills while Practice 8 uses more of a task-oriented goal (“vary the toss left and right”) to guide those drills.

• We play the same 6v6 drill in all 3 practice, because we’re going to view it like one big 12-round game. If you coach an NCAA team where you have the practice time to go for 60+ minutes of 6v6 at practice, you could do all 12 rounds in one practice. But for juniors volleyball we’re going to take that 12-round game and play 4 rounds each day for 3 straight practices. If you can keep it all up on the whiteboard without erasing, that’s ideal! Players like to see that continuity from practice to practice. It gives a feeling of accomplishment.

Digging Quick In Base

One of the foundational pieces I get into place is our concept of Base Defense. Most teams do this in some manner. An important concept for me is that Base Defense IS Quick Defense. Here’s what I mean by that: